The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality [Paperback]

Gershom Scholem (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 1995

Gershom Scholem was the master builder of historical studies of the Kabbalah. When he began to work on this neglected field, the few who studied these texts were either amateurs who were looking for occult wisdom, or old-style Kabbalists who were seeking guidance on their spiritual journeys. His work broke with the outlook of the scholars of the previous century in Judaica—die Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Science of Judaism—whose orientation he rejected, calling their “disregard for the most vital aspects of the Jewish people as a collective entity: a form of “censorship of the Jewish past.” The major founders of modern Jewish historical studies in the nineteenth century, Leopold Zunz and Abraham Geiger, had ignored the Kabbalah; it did not fit into their account of the Jewish religion as rational and worthy of respect by “enlightened” minds. The only exception was the historian Heinrich Graetz. He had paid substantial attention to its texts and to their most explosive exponent, the false Messiah Sabbatai Zevi, but Graetz had depicted the Kabbalah and all that flowed from it as an unworthy revolt from the underground of Jewish life against its reasonable, law-abiding, and learned mainstream. Scholem conducted a continuing polemic with Zunz, Geiger, and Graetz by bringing into view a Jewish past more varied, more vital, and more interesting than any idealized portrait could reveal.
—from the Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg, 1995

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Gershom Scholem earned international renown as a brilliant interpreter of esoteric religious texts as well as a trenchant contributor to many of the central intellectual debates of his day. At a time when apocalyptic impulses are intensifying with the approach of a millennial moment in the Christian calendar, we can only welcome Scholem’s soberly presented and scrupulously researched account of their Jewish counterparts.”
—Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley
 
“Having had the privilege of knowing Gershom Scholem and having learned much from him, I am delighted to see this collection made available once more. I am especially fond of the essay on “Revelation and Tradition,” which is vintage Scholem—learned, sharp, witty, and adorned with delightful anecdotes from the Talmud. In juxtaposition with the essay that follows, on Wissenschaft des Judentums, it documents the subtle relationship between rational and nonrational elements in the Jewish tradition, the very relationship that Scholem both described so incisively and embodied so vividly.”
—Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale University

About the Author

Gershom Scholem was a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem until his death in 1982. Among his most important works are Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, and editor of Zohar, the Book of Splendor: Basic Readings from the Kabbalah.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (May 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210431
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210439
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #404,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Messianism, Antinomianism, and Jewish Spirituality, November 28, 2004

By 

Nicq MacDonald (Sioux Falls, SD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (Paperback)

Gershom Scholem, recognized as one of the foremost academic scholars of Jewish mysticism of the 20th century, presents here an excellent series of essays exploring the crises caused by fits of messianism in Judaism, especially the Sabbatian crisis.

The essays include:

Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism- details the concept of the messiah (mosiach) in the Hebrew exoteric traditions throughout history.

The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism- explores the origins of kabbalistic messianism in Isaac Luria and how this paved the way for Sabbatai Zevi.

The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish Mysticism- discusses the antinomian tendencies of messianic movements (esp. in the Sabbatians and post-Sabbatians, such as the Frankists and the Donme) and how Jewish law is abridged by proclamations of a new law, which is further advanced in the next essay,

Redemption through Sin- a more thorough look at antinomianism in Judaism, and how it stems from the idea of Spiritual Torah vs. Written Torah.

Further essays explore the Donme movement in greater detail, takes a look at a rare Sabbatian will from a Sabbatian who lived in New York in the 1800's, further essays on Hasidism and it's retort to Messianism, as well as the mystical aspects of Devekut (Hasidic "Cleaving to God"), and further essays in Jewish scholarship and an essay on the birth of the Star of David as a Jewish symbol.

Highly recommended to all parties interested in more advanced scholarship in Kabbalah and Jewish Heresy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jews gone wild, May 3, 2008

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (Paperback)

The first half of this book discusses the evolution and decay of the Sabbatai Zevi messianist movement: not just of its birth (discussed in more detail in Scholem's book Mystical Messiah) but also of its slow decay. (For readers unfamiliar with Zevi, a brief summary: in the mid-1660s, Jews throughout the world came to believe Zevi was the Messiah; after being threatened with execution by the Ottoman Empire, Zevi converted to Islam. Nevertheless, some Jews continued to believe in him until the 19th century).

Scholem proposes two possible causes for the survival of Sabbatianism after Zevi's apostasy. First, 17th-century kabbalah (the Jewish mystical tradition) saw Messianic renewal not just as a nationalist rebirth of a Jewish state, but as a more spiritual process transforming all of creation, ultimately leading to Messianic deliverance. Scholem speculates that kabbalism made it easier for Jews to trust their own personal experiences over historical reality; as a result, some Jews could not admit "that their own personal experience had been false and untrustworthy." Moreover, many Jews had left countries (most notably Spain) where they were forced to practice Judaism in secret; thus, they found it easy to believe that Zevi was doing the same.

Scholem also addresses the Sabbatians' split-up into multiple factions. "Moderate" Sabbatians continued to follow halacha (Jewish law) believing that they were bound to do so until Messianic deliverance reappeared. But more radical Sabbatians either followed Zevi's lead by apostasizing, and/or by secretly rejecting halacha (Jewish law). The radicals believed that since the Messiah had come, the commandments of the Torah were abrogated, based on the idea of a "mystical Torah" of absolute freedom predating creation. Some radicals even suggested that Zevi (or even later Sabbatian leaders) was an incarnation of God. But as the memories of Zevi grew fainter and fainter, Sabbatianism decayed; some Sabbatians assimilated into Christianity and Islam, while in the 19th century, others embraced secularism or Reform Judaism.

Like Sabbatians, Hasidim embraced mysticism. But they focused on individual redemption rather than universal social redemption, thus reducing the temptation to expect imminent messianic deliverance. Scholem also points out that both Sabbatians and Hasidim embraced the concept of leaders "descending in order to rise" into the world of the less-holy. Where Sabbatians saw the "descent" of their Messiah as apostasy or as violations of halacha, Hasidim saw their rebbes "descending" into the realm of the mundane by teaching and leading their flock (rather than engaging in solitary communion with the Divine).

Most of the last third of the book is less interesting than Scholem's essays on Sabbatianism and Hasidism; to a greater extent than the first few, they focus on issues which require a very high level of cultural literacy (such as a book review of a now-obscure book, or a discussion of Martin Buber's German translation of the Torah). A fortunate exception is Scholem's essay on the Star of David; he shows that the hexagram was not a purely Jewish symbol until the 14th century, when the Jews of Prague placed it on a flag (perhaps because its use on magical amulets was then common). The symbol did not spread to eastern Europe until the 19th century, when the emancipated Jews of Europe wanted to show their respectability by having a symbol in their synagogues as simple to understand as the Christian cross.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinated, November 12, 2008

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A. Gross (Phila, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (Paperback)

A fascinating collection of lectures. The discussion of some of the more bizarre, and yet intellectual followers of Shabtai Zvi into the 20th century is amazing. I had never understood antinomianism, but Scholem explains the thinking and rationale behind it brilliantly.