Scholem The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism

The Neutralisation of the Messianic Element inEarly Hasidism

IT cannot launch into a lecture devoted to the memory of JosephlWeiss without first recalling the figure of the man whose prematuredeath we mourn. Professor Weiss was not only my pupil for manyyears; he was one of the most outstanding and colourful among thosein whose spiritual and scholarly formation and development I had ahand. I considered him in many ways the closest of my pupils, andthe dialogue between us, a dialogue in the true sense of a term somuch abused nowadays, went on for nearly thirty years. When hecame to Jerusalem in 1940 he was a young man of wide interests andreading who was groping for his way. Growing up in Budapest, hehad eagerly taken up what Hungarian, German and Jewish literatureand philosophy had to offer. From a non-observant Jewish back-ground, he was early attracted by Jewish learning and ritual andfought his way to the study of the primary sources of Judaism. Thisthirst for a deeper understanding of the spiritual universe of Judaismnever left him, and the dramatic conflicts within the Jewish world,first in Hungary and later in Israel, contributed much to his acuteawareness of the issues involved. His keen sense of dialectical situa-tions prevented him from taking an easy and all too comfortable or,I should rather say, unambiguous stand in those controversies.Moreover, there was an additional conflict in himself between hisunmistakable tendency to put things in a radical way and his con-templative bent of mind. I might say indeed that he was torn betweenthese two. He was a Zionist, but a very strange one, who at times-overwhelmed by his own doubts-would deny his own convictions.He was extremely critical of orthodoxy, but there was in him a strongstreak of sympathy for Neturei Karta attitudes. In his personal life,periods of strict observance alternated with periods of open in-difference to ritual. At all times, however, he remained passionatelyconcerned with Judaism as a religious phenomenon and its meaning,or rather its meanings-for he never could bring himself to agreewith those who are in possession of a ready and explicit definition. Hisindecision in matters that called for a definite stand made him oftenvery shy in his personal relations with people, but when he trusted

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THE JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES

and opened up to you, he proved to be a mnan of extraordinarypersonal charm-even in his perplexities.

I spoke of Weiss being torn by conflicting tendencies in his mind,but he was utterly singleminded in his scholarly pursuit and commit-ment. Twenty-five years ago he had already set himselfa definite taskand be never permitted himself to deviate from it. This task was theexploration of the hasidic movement from its beginnings to itsspiritual climax in the figure of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, whoseenigmatic personality and even more enigmatic teachings had heldthe most powerful fascination for Weiss ever since he first came intocontact with the group of his followers in Jerusalem many years ago.Only an exceptional personality, such as that of Rabbi MordecaiJoseph Leiner of Izbitsa, could arouse his seholarly interest in thegenerations after Rabbi Nalman's death. It was the outbreak oftremendous spiritual power and originality in the early hasidicmovement, struggling for recognition and ascendency in ever widercircles, which captivated his imagination and led him to concentrateon its history and phenomenology. Almost everything he publishedwas concerned with these problems. He immersed himself deeply inthe study of the sources, and brought to his work that particularintensity and power of penetration which characterised his mind.Because of the many doubts and scruples that derived from hisinner struggles Weiss published relatively little, but maany of thepapers he did publish are distinguished by high originality, and someof them have made a great impact on the study of Hasidism. At thesame time, they were bound to arouse controversy by their bold andsometimes daring theses, and I have to admit that I am one of thosewho, not infrequently, had protracted discussions with him aboutsome of his major contentions. He had laid the groundwork forextended and deep studies, especially of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav,and their outcome was anticipated with the greatest hopes. His pre-mature death has put an end to all these labours, but the hauntedfigure ofJoseph Weiss will remain with those who knew him, admiredhis depth and insight, and sympathised with his sufferings and tribu-lationis.

If

The exploration of Hasidism in its most creative period, of itsorigins, history and meaning has occupied scholars of the last two

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TH1E NEUTRALISATION OF THE MESSIANIC ELEMENT

generations, and as I have said, this was the centre of Joseph Weiss'research. In honouring his memory I wish to take up the discussionof one of the fundamental issues which all historians of Hasidisinhave encountered on their way, and which has been viewed by quitea few ofthem as one of the keys to an understanding of the movement.This is the messianic element in early Hasidism, i.e., from IsraelBa'al-Shem to the pupils of the Maggid of Mezeritch at the end ofthe eighteenth century. Was Messianism at the centre of the move-ment? Was it one of the prime elements that pervaded its teachinig,as it had pervaded the teachings of the lurianic school of Kabbalahwhich formed the basis of hasidic doctrine? Or did it disappear asan essential part in the formation of the movement and its doctrine,so that we can speak ofa "liquidation" ofMessianism as a living force?Or ought we rather take a more dialectical view, and speak of thetransformation which it underwent, and which brought about aprofound change to be defined not so much as the liquidation, butas the neutralisation of this element? It is obvious that whatever theanswer to this question, it is a matter of great consequence to the viewone will take of the basic character of Hasidism. Controversy on thispoint has been lively, I might even say impassioned. I do not ofcourse, refer here to the apologists of the movement belonginig to thehasidic camp itself, who decline to take note of issues arising from thefact of historical development; for them there is no such thing, andHasidism in their eyes has remained essentially unchanged through-out its history. Among modern scholars, men of such widely differingperspectives as Simon Dubnov and Martin Buberl have supportedthe view that Hasidism in its classical period was a liquidation ofMessianism as an acute, immediate force, a liquidation which con-stituted a reaction to the destructive outbreak of Messianism inthe Sabbataean movement.

Buber said, quite fittingly, of the teaching of Hasidism that "ithas proclaimed in the strongest and clearest manner: there is nodefinite, exhibitable, teachable, magic action in established formulaeand gestures, attitudes and tensions of the soul, that is effective forredemption; only the hallowing of all actions without distinction ...possesses redemptive power. Only out of the redemption of the

I S. DusNov, Geschichte des Chassidismus I, 1931, p. 108, and M. BUBER,The Origin and Meaning of Hasidismn, trans. by MAURICE FIuEDMAN, 1960, pp.107 and 111.

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everyday does the All-Day of redemption grow". In the same connec-tion, he writes of the liquidation ofpersonal Messianism inHasidism-an interpretation with which I am unable to agree-as follows:"The hasidic message of redemption stands in opposition to themessianic self-differentiation of one man from other men, of onetime from other times, of one act from other actions. All mankindis accorded the co-working power, all time is directly redemptive,all action for the sake of God may be messianic action. But onlyunpremeditated action can be action for the sake of God. The self-differentiation, the reflection of man to a messianic superiority ofthis person, of this hour, of this action, destroys the unpremeditatedquality of the act. Turning the whole of his life in the world to Godand then allowing it to open and unfold in all its moments until thelast-that is man's work towards redemption".The diametrically opposite position has been taken up by Benzion

Dinur in his study of the beginnings of Hasidism. Dinur sees themovement as permeated from its very start by the strongest ofmessianic impulses, and at the same time makes it a kind of fore-runner of Zionism.2 A more diluted and restrained version of ihisview has recently been presented by Isaiah Tishby in a long paper,"The Messianic Idea and Messianic Trends in the Growth ofHasidism".3 A third view, emphasising the neutralisation of Mes-sianism as an historical force, was adopted by myself in the chapteron Hasidism in my Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. This viewwas shared by Joseph Weiss in his own studies of "the Beginnings ofHasidism" and of the contemplative mysticism of the Maggid.4It has been partly accepted by Tishby, but it has in part also comeunder fire from him. In the present paper, I intend to offer a restatement

2 B. DINU[R, Be-mifneh Ha-Doroth, 1955, pp. 181-227. This study was firstpublished in the quarterly Zion, 1943-5. In a similar vein, YIZHAK ALFAssI saysin a recent book: "The very core of Hasidism is the redemption of Israel", cf.gasiduth, Pirqey Toladah u-mehqar (Tel Aviv, 1969), p. 192.

3 1. TISHBY in Zion, 32, 1967, pp. 1-45. TISHBY and I differ greatly in the evalu-ation of the same quotations. He goes to great length to stress traditional formulaeto be found, sometimes quite frequently, in the sources; this in my opinion hasled him astray, causing him to take routine phrases as being highly meaningful.

4 Cf. J. G. WEiss in Zion, 16, 1951, pp. 46-105, and especially his essay in JJSiv, 1953, p. 28, where he says of Baer of Mezeritch's contemplative school ofmysticism that "it abolishes the intense interest in the Messiah and his collectiveredemption.... The lack of all messianic tension is a characteristic feature of itscontemplative piety". This view is also taken by RiVQAH SCHATZ, Ha-yesod ha-meshihi be-mahasheveth ha-hasiduth, in Molad, new series, 1967, pp. 105-11.

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THE NEUTRALISATION OF THE MESSIANIC ELEMENT

of my argument by considering the evidence. It should be clear fromthe outset that I do not speak of the later period of Hasidism startingaround 1800, which was not entirely lacking in the resurgence ofmessianic claims or impulses in connection with some outstandinghasidic leaders such as Jacob Yishaq Horovitz, the "Seer of Lublin",his pupils Jacob Yisljaq, the "saintly Jew" of Pshizha, and Davidfrom Lelov, and-overshadowing them all-the figure of Nahmanof Bratslav, great-grandson of Israel Ba'al-Shem, whose life waswithout doubt pervaded by a sense of messianic vocation and whoseteaching is strongly imbued with messianic elements, even thoughmuch of it is expressed in a veiled and roundabout manner.

Let me quote some sentences about our problem which I wrotethirty years ago:

"One can say that after the rise and collapse of Sabbataianism therewere only three ways left open to the Kabbalah, in addition to thatof accepting the contradictions in which the new believers andadherents of Sabbatai Zevi had become hopelessly enmeshed. Onewas to pretend that nothing in particular had happened. That wasactually what a good many orthodox Kabbalists tried to do, Theycontinuedin the old waywithout bothering muchaboutnewideas....Another way was to renounce all attempts to create a mass move-ment, in order to avoid a repetition of the disastrous consequenceswhich had followed the most recent of these attempts. That was theattitude of some of the most important representatives of laterKabbalism who entirely renounced the more popular aspects ofLurianism and tried to lead the Kabbalah back from the marketplace to the solitude of the mystic's place of retreat.... Finally,there was a third way, and that is the one which Hasidism took,particularly during its classical period. Here the Kabbalah didnot renounce its proselytising mission; on the contrary, Hasidism-a typical revivalist movement . . . aimed from the beginning at thewidest possible sphere of influence. . . Hasidism represents anattempt to preserve those elements of Kabbalism which werecapable ofevoking a popular response, but stripped of the messianicflavour to which they owed their chief successes during thepreceding period. That seems to me the main point. Hasidisnm triedto eliminate the element of Messianism-with its dazzling buthighly dangerous amalgamation of mysticism and the apocalyptic

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mood-without renouncing the popular appeal of later Kabbalism.Perhaps one should rather speak of a "neutralisation" of themessianic element. I hope I shall not be misunderstood. I am farfrom suggesting that the messianic hope and belief in messianicredemption disappeared from the hearts of the Hasidim. Thatwould be utterly untrue.... But it is one thing to allot a niche to theidea of redemption, and quite another to have placed this conceptwith all it implies in the centre of religious life and thought. Thiswas true of the theory of Tikkun in the system of Lurianism and itwas equally true of the paradoxical Messianism of the Sabbataians;there is no doubt what idea moved them most deeply, motivatedthem, explained their success. And this is precisely what Mes-sianism had ceased to do for the Hasidim."s

It is the position stated in the foregoing paragraphs that I wish todefend here. When I wrote the above passages, Ithought they expressedmy viewpoint clearly and distinctly, to use Cartesian language. Butapparently, to judge from Professor Tishby's criticism, there is roomfor elucidation and amplification.

If we wish to understand the issue of Messianism in the hasidicmovement and the precise meaning ofmy thesis regarding the neutra-lisation of this element, it should be clear from the start what such athesis does not imply. The ljasidim were orthodox Jews in the sensethat they accepted the whole of Jewish teaching as crystallised inrabbinic, philosophical or kabbalistical tradition, and they certainlyaccepted the thirteen articles of Maimonides' creed, includingthe messianic one, as part and parcel of their religious universe. Theywere prepared to repeat in a routine manner any formulation orstatement about the Messiah himself, about the messianic age andthe ways and means by which it might be brought about, in shortany traditional matter. They would not have found any real difficultyincontradictory statements, but would have given them a harmonisingtwist according to accepted homiletical procedure. All their books arefull of stuff of this kind. But I insist-and I consider this to be thecore of the present discussion-that there is a decisive differencebetween things which they say because they are generally accepted

5 G. SCHOLEM, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, ed, 1954, pp. 328-30. I amlimiting myself to the operative sentences ofmy exposition, against which TISHsYhas come out by using a method of stressing irrelevant elements-a method withwhich I fundamentally disagree.

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and repeated, and those in which their specific contribution, theiressential interests and their originality of mind come to the fore.Jewish literature is, of course, full of books in which no originalityand no specific contribution is to be found. But we are concernedwith the phenomenon of Hasidism, and that being so it is trulylegitimate to ask the question of what constitutes its originality. Forthis is not immediately evident. The relation between hasidic literatureand the Kabbalah of the lurianic school is a case in point. Hasidicbooks are deeply steeped in metaphysical and moral traditionsstemming from kabbalistic lore; so much so, indeed, that someauthors have denied any doctrinal originality to Hasidism and havelooked for originality not in the sphere of thought but in the irrationalsphere of the personality, the Gestalt of the great hasidic leaders, the.Saddiqim. This was Buber's view, for instance, and strangely enoughit coincided with the view of orthodox panegyrists of Hasidism,although from a totally different angle. But this is an oversimplificationof the true situation, as will be presently shown. As a matter of fact,a serious effort of analysis is needed in order to define the pointswhere Hasidism and lurianic Kabbalism part company. And it is inthe field of Messianism that such points of departure exist and willbe found to be of special significance. I might add that analysis,far-reaching as its results may be, is not everything. It is also a matterof knowing where the accents actually lie, what is mere repetitionand what is a new turn. And this, it should be obvious, depends in nosmall measure on the historical sense or, in other words, the visionof the historian.Tishby has said, in a paper in which he again tries to stress the

messianic elements in earlier Hasidism, that "a decisive answer tothis question [of Messianism] depends only on informationi concern-ing the actual position of messianic ideas in the hasidic movement inthe early stages of its development, after a study of extant sourceswith no prior assumptions whatsoever either for or against".6Reading the same sources, he and I have come to very differentconclusions regarding their meaning and interpretation within thecontext of our investigation, and it appears that there are more "priorassumptions" in his own reading of the sources than he is willing toadmit.

In this connection much has been made of a letter written by the

6TisHBY, op. cit. (note 3), p. 28, and in the English restnid of his paper.

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Ba'al-Shem around 1752 from Rashkov in the Ukraine to his brother-in-law, R. Gershon of Kuty, who had settled in the land of Israelsome years earlier. This letter has even been hailed by Dubnov as"the manifesto of Hasidism", which to me seems a somewhat rashstatement.7 Among other things the Ba'al-Shem tells of a visionary"ascent of the soul" to heaven which he experienced in September1746. Such experiences, as he has testified himself, came to him notinfrequently, and he was able to induce them by his own volition.But the trip to heaven described in this letter surpassed everythinghe had experienced before. "I went up stage after stage until I enteredthe palace of the Messiah where Messiah studies Torah with all theTannaites and the yaddiqim and I became aware ofverygreat rejoicingof which I did not know the meaning and I thought that it might bebecause of my decease from this world tin this ecstasy]. But later itwas intimated to me that I was not yet to die, for they in heaven enjoyit when I perform acts of Yiiudon earth by meditating on their teach-ings. But the true niature of this rejoicing I do not know to this veryday. And I asked Messiah, when will he come? and he answered, untilyour teaching will spread throughout the world." This short answeris found in a text of the letter purporting to be in his own handwritingand preserved by one of the grandchildren of Rabbi Israel of Rishin.8The text, however, published by his close pupil R. Jacob Joseph ofPolenoye in 1781 gives a more expanded version of the Messiah'sanswer, which in style and content has an authentic ring.9 It reads:"By this you shall know it: when your doctrine [literally, his way ofteaching] will be widely known and revealed throughout the worldand what I taught you will be divulged outwards from your ownresources. And they too will be able to perform acts of meditativeunification and ascents like you. And then all the 'husks' [xc. thepowers of evil] will perish and the time of salvation will have come.""And I-continues the Ba'al-Shem-was bewildered because of thisanswer and I was greatly aggrieved by the eniormous length of timeuntil this would be possible."

I find it difficult to interpret this paragraph as testimony to an

7 DUSNOV (see note 1), i, p. 104.s It is found in Mikhtapim me-ha-Besht (Lvov, 1923), pp. 1-5.9 At the end of his book Ben Porath Yosef(Koretz, 1781), f. looa/b. The problem

of why there are two different versions of the letter deserves closer study, as Ihave pointed out elsewhere, cf. Molad, vol. 18, 1960, p. 348. 1 consider the longerversion as authentic.

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acute messianic element in the Ba'al-Shem's activity. On the contrary,Messianism as a driving power and immediate hope can no longer bereckoned with. The coming of the Messiah is relegated to a distantfuture. The answer, far from encouraging the 1a'al-Shem's messianicexpectations if he had any at all-saddens and depresses him. It is apromise which holds out no messianic fulfilment whatsoever for theBa'al-Shem's own times. The exact coniection between the nature ofhis way of teaching and future redemption remains unexplained andundefined. It has even been assumed that the paragraph might not referat all to the specific teaching of the Ba'al-Shem in religious matters,but rather to the proliferation of such magical practices as Yiludimand ecstatic trips to heaven10 which, after all, are not characteristicof Hasidism. For it is not these esoteric practices which constituteHasidism's claim to fame. In point of fact they played a very marginalrole in the movement after the Ba'al-Shem's own lifetime. But I doubtwhether such an assumption or suggestion is acceptable. The letterspeaks, expressis verbis, of the Ba'al-Shem's teaching or doctrine-Limmud-and not of esoteric practices. Moreover, as a proclama-tion of the movement's messianic character the letter would seemstrangely out of focus, for nobody knew of its existence during themostcreative period of the mnovement. It was a private communicationof no general appeal, which never reached its final destination andremained with the Rabbi of Polenoye whom the Ba'al-Shem hadasked to take it to Eretz Israel where he had planned to go, though heeventually cancelled hisjourney. There is no reason to assume that theletter was known among the Hasidim before it was published in 1781.Nor am I inclined to Tishby's opinion that the very fact of its publica-tion proves that more than 20 years after the Ba'al-Shem's deathRabbi Jacob losephtooka positive attitude to the messianic tendenciesin Hasidism. "Messiaric tendencies" is a phrase that should be clearlydefined in the context of our discussion. If it means affirmation ofthe traditional belief it is a truism, but if it refers to an allegedly acutemessianic tension in Hasidism-and this is what the controversy isabout-then it is without foundation. The extensive writings of theRabbi of Polenoye himself, who was the most intimate pupil of theBa'al-Shem, refute this assumption, Tishby's assertion to the contrarynotwithstanding. "I

1o This seems to be the meaning of TrsnaY's remark, p. 32.11 TisHBY, op. cit. (note 3), p. 33.

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But before we take up such questions ofdoctrinal analysis, one morepoint should be stressed. It is a widespread error to interpret messianiccalculations as an indication of acute Messianism or high messianictension. In some cases, such as that of an author devoting a wholebook to demonstrating a certain date for the coming of redemption,this may be true.12 But in general it is not more than a commondevice used by many preachers and moralists to hold out consolationto their contemporaries by establishing a date for redemption withintheir own lifetime. True, the followers of Shabbethai $evi eagerlyapplied such calculations, but in their case the messianic tension wasalready present. The appearance of such devices in sermons andmoralistic tracts is in itself no proof of such tension. Ninety years agothere was a writer in Jerusalem, David Cohen of Vilna, who for manyyears used to send out a pamphlet calculating messianic genatri'othfor the following year. These were no more than homileticalgimmicks. In the literature of Hasidism speculations of this kind donot occupy any significant place, whereas they are to be found in nota few books by non-hasidic authors of that period, written in thetraditional vein of lurianic Kabbalism.13 For our purposes the wholequestion is altogether irrelevant.

III

This, then, is the question that must be answered: What in fact arethe relevant considerations in this context? To this I would reply:those points where, in addition to repeating the old formulae (whichis often done), significant changes have been introduced into olderdoctrines and concepts. I maintain that such changes have occurredin two spheres, the first being that of lurianic Kabbalism and parti-cularly its doctrine of Tiqqut or restoration; the second, that ofheretical sabbataean theology. Both had a great impact on Hasidism,the one openly and admittedly, the other hidden and unacknowledged.What these changes have in common is precisely that element whichconcerns us here, namely the elimination of the acute messianic

12 As cases in point I would mention Mordecai Dato's Migdal Dawid (on 1575as the year of redemption) in MS. Oxford, Neubauer no. 2515, and possiblyIsaac Vita Cantarini's 'Et Qeq (fixing redemption in 1740), Venice 1710.

13 This holds true in part for the authors discussed at great length by TisnaYin the first part of his paper, pp. 8-24. These have no direct bearing on the presentdiscussion, having been written outside the hasidic camp.

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THE NEUTRALISATION Of THE MESSIANIC ELEMENT

tension or messianic reference which it had in the primary sources,and its transference onto another plane where the sting of Mes-sianism has been neutralised. Our sources for such an analysis arethreefold: (1) authentic traditions about the Ba'al-Shem himselfand his doctrinal sayings; (2) the extensive writings of Jacob Josephof Polenioye, and (3) of Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezeritch, includingthose of their immediate pupils. In speaking of autthenitic tradition Ideliberately discard as later elaborations, reformulations and eveninventions such sayings of the Ba'al-Shem as first appear afterapproximately 1815 only, when the last disciples of the Maggid haddied. Wholesale fabrication of sayings of the Ba'al-Shem has been afeature of later hasidic writings, and it is most striking in the volu-minous writings of Rabbi Eisik Yehiel of Komarno (1806-74). 1shall not enlarge here on such points of source criticism. What, tomy mind, stands out in all these changes which I propose to discuss,is the inner consistency which lends to early hasidic teaching a novelface even where it purports to be nothing but a continuation of theold teaching.

In the lurianic Kabbalah and Sabbataeanism, Messianism was nolonger a general utopian hope of a more or less abstract character,but an actual force that determined the essential character of thosetwo great movements. I have shown elsewhere14 that it was thiselement of messianic action inherent in the life of the Jew which wasthe very life of Luria's doctrine, which decided its overwhelmingsuccess and which inevitably brought about the violent explosion ofMessianism in the Sabbataean movement, where the revolutionaryaspects of Messianism were brought into the open. Hasidism, with-out changing the outward facade oflurianic teaching and terminology,introduced such subtle but effective changes as would eliminate themessianic meaning of the central doctrine of Tiqqun, or would at leastdefer it to a remote stage, where it became again a matter of utopianismwithout immediate impact. How and where is this to be seen?

First of all, in the striking pre-eminence given to the concept ofDevequth, or communion with God.s Devequth is clearly a contem-plative value without messianic implications, and it can be realised

14 In chapters vii and viii of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, and in my workon Shabbethai $evi, an English translation of which is scheduled to appear in 1971or 1972, from the Princeton University Press.

15 I have dealt in greater detail with Devequth in early hasidic doctrine in theJournal of Religion xv, 1950, pp. 115-39.

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everywhere and at any time. None of the older Kabbalists, who spokeof it with great emphasis as the goal of the mystic's way, dreamed ofconnecting it with Messianism. When the Ba'al-Shem and his pupilsmade it the very centre of hasidic life the emphasis was shifted fromLuria's stress on the messianic action ofman in the process ofTiqqun-i.e., of the restoration of the broken state of man and the wholeuniverse to its former harmony and unity-towards a strictly personalrelationship of man to God. The experience of Devequth destroyedexile from within, at least for the individual who achieved it-andit is as an experience of the individual and not of the whole communitythat Devequth is spoken of in hasidic sources'6-by a mystical experi-ence of intimacy which, in order to come into its own, did not requirethe fulfilment of messianic redemption, which is an essentially publicact, consummated by the body of the nation as a whole. The manwho has found God by way of Devequth has worked out his ownsalvation. He has actually forestalled redemption-on a strictlypersonal level. The difference between Devequth in our time andDevequtlh on the wider plane where messianic redemption takes placeis not a difference of substance, but one of degree: in the messianicera Devequth will be continuous and everlasting, whereas in exile itcannot endure but comes and goes. But this does not make it, asTishby rather surprisingly argues,'7 an "eschatological value".

This non-messianic meaning of Devequth is brought out with theutmost clarity by the highly significant qualification which is givento the lurianic doctrine of the lifting up of the sparks (Ha'ala'athha-Nisosoth). In its original conception there is no connection betweenthis notion and Devequth. They never appear together, whereas inthe classical writings of Hasidism both are so much interwoven thatsometimes one might be tempted to treat them as almost identicalterms, in spite of the great difference in the origin and history of thetwo expressions in earlier mystical literature. According to Luria,the vessels destined to contain the divine light were broken in theprimeval act of the cosmic drama, and the light of Divinity becamepartly scattered throughout all the worlds. To "lift up" the scatteredsparks of light and to restore them to the place they were intended tooccupy had not catastrophe intervened-this is the essential task of

16 In some earlier sources, including the writings of Nathan of Gaza, theRevelation on Mount Sinai is seen as the only occasion in the past on which thewhole community of Israel achieved Deverjuth as a collective experience.

17 Op. cit. (note 3), pp. 36-7.

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man in the process of Tiqqun. To fulfil this task is the preparation formessianic redemption in which each of us plays his part. In order tounderstand the special turn which this idea has been given by theBa'al-Shem, we have to elaborate a point that would not emerge infull clarity from an analysis of the hasidic text alone.

Luria knows of two kinds of holy sparks which need to be liftedup from the abyss or prison into which they have fallen. There arethe sparks of Divinity, of the Shekhitah, which have been confinedwithin creation since the first breaking of the vessels. But there arealso the sparks of the soul of Adam, the first man. For after Adam'sfall, which intervened wheni he should have completed the restorationof harmony by lifting up all the sparks from the broken vessels, thegreat and all-embracing soul that was his own soul was likewisebroken. What had formerly occurred on an ontological level was nowrepeated on an anthropological one. The soul of all mankind wasoriginally contained within Adam. Now, its sparks were scatteredthroughout the terrestrial universe, and the continued existence ofsin has ever more increased their dispersion. The sparks are in exileand must be led home and restored to their primordial spiritualstructure, which is at the same time the structure of Adam and thestructure of the Messiah. Everybody must work on this task, no lessthan on that other task of collecting the sparks of the Shekhinahfrom the "husks" in which they are held captive by the dark power ofthe "other", or demonic side.Even in Luria's system it is not always easy to make a clear differen-

tiation between the two kinds of sparks. The light of Divinity in allits grades can be reached and lifted up by any one who takes it uponhimself to concentrate on doing so, but the same cannot be said of thesparks of souls. These are connected with each other or organised inani elaborate system, according to the place that each one had originallyoccupied in the ethereal body of Adam. There are thus "families" ofsouls, sparks that are attracted to each other by a special affinity,because they have what Luria calls the same "root". Nobody can"lift up" a spark which is not of his own root. It is the task of man toseek out and to search for the sparks of his root-and indeed, onthe anthropological level, he can do no more than that. But it wasdifficult to be consistent in upholding the difference between thesetwo kinds of activity regarding the sparks, and as a matter of fact thepopular literature of later Kabbalism is characterised by its blurring

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of this distinction. The sparks of the soul and those of the Shekhinahbecome more or less the same, and this identification recurs, some-times expressis verbis, in hasidic literature.18 The emphasis, to be sure,is sometimes more on the human side and sometimes on the purelymystical and ontological one, and the enormous attraction which thedoctrine exercised was enhanced rather than diminished by thiscombination. Authors of moral tracts, preachers and commentatorsand compilers of special prayers appealing to the devout-all ofthem use the doctrine in the popular blend of its two aspects andfrequently great stress is laid on it. Through the intermediary of avery picturesque symbol it epitomised the messianic mission of manin the broken state into which he had been precipitated by sin. TheMtusar books, written in the Ba'al-Shem's time but outside his move-ment, are mostly based on it-a point on which Tishby and I are inagreement.'9What is it, then, that Hasidism has changed in taking over this

doctrine? Is there any difference at all between the tenor of a con-temporary Musar book and the writing of one of the Ba'al-Shem'spupils? There is indeed a difference, although hasidic authors do notaccentuate it but, on the contrary, try to efface it. The Rabbi ofPolenoye frequently offers the new formulation we are going to con-sider as just another quotation from the familiar "writings".-bywhich term he and his contemporaries designate the lurianic literaturethat in his time was still largely preserved in manuscript form only.This custom of quoting an essentially new formulation as though itwere nothing but the same old stuff is certainly interesting in itself,but it has tended to obscure matters for the student of Hasidism.The new interpretation of the doctrine consists in the very definite,

personal and intimate turn which it was given, first by the Ba'al-Shemhimself and later on by all the classical writers of Hasidism. I shalladduce four of the relevant statements. (1) Jacob Joseph of Polenoyerepeatedly quotes the following saying of the Ba'al-Shem, which isbased on the kabbalistical tri-partition of the soul into the grades:Nefesli, Ruah and Neshamah. Thie three parts of man's soul trans-migrate through all spheres. Nefesh, the force of life, is also incor-porated in his servants and domestic animals. If, therefore, man

lS Cf. e.g. Toledoth f. 84b, quoted below (n. 20, p. 39).'9 G. ScHoLEM, Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, 1962, p. 241. In the

following I make use ofmy remarks in this book, pp. 241-6.

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by his transgressions has put a flaw on Nefesh, which correspondsto the [lowest] sphere of action, he causes himself trouble occasionedby his servants and animals. Ruah, the spirit, is the power of speech.Ifhe has put a flaw on it by gossiping and evil talk, then by such speechhe makes enemies who speak disparagingly of him. But the soulproper rests in the brain, of whose substance (according to mediaevalmedicine) the sperm of procreation is made. If, therefore, he putsa flaw on the thought which issues from his brain, he causes himselftrouble occasioned by his children. A man can, indeed, "lift up" allthree parts of his soul in every sphere and restore them to his own"root" by proper action.20 Here we have the sparks of his soulmigrating into parts of his immediate surroundings, where they waitfor him to be restored to their proper place.

(2) More concrete still is the application of this idea in another setof sayings in which the Ba'al-Shem emphasises that God takes careto let everyone meet the sparks that belong to his own root. There isa specific sphere in man's environment that mystically belongs tohim, and to him alone, and which can be touched by nobody else.As a general principle it is quoted, in the name of the Ba'al-Shem,by his grandson, Ephraim of Sedylkov: "I have heard from mygrandfather that all that belongs to a man, be it his servants andanimals, be it even his household effects-they are all of his sparkswhich belong to the root of his soul and he has to lift them up to theirupper root. For the beginnings of a thing are tied to its ultimate endand even the lowest sparks still have some communion with theirbeginning, unto the Infinite being. If, then, the man to whose rootthey belong experiences spiritual uplift they all rise with him, andthis is brought about through Devequth, for it is Devequth that enableshim to lift them up. This is hinted at by the Torah [Ex. x: 9]: 'We willgo with our young and our old; with our flocks and with our herdswill we go'-for all these are holy sparks which are held in captivityin very low spheres and need to be lifted up."'21

(3) The Rabbi of Polenoye has many extreme formulations of thisthesis, but rather surprisingly he ascribes them not to the Ba'al-Shem,but to the lurianic "writings". Thus he says: "It is well known from the

20 Toledoth Ya'aqov Yosef (in the following abridged to Toledoth) (Koretz,1780), f. 15a.

21 Degel Mahaneh'Efrayim, (Koretz, 1810), f. 38a.

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writings that all that a man eats, and his home, his business-transac-tions, his wife and his contemporaries-all of them come across manas befits his nature, i.e., from his own sparks. If a man deserves it byhis good deeds, then he meets the sparks which by his very naturebelong to him in order that he may restore them to their rightfulplace." And similarly: "I say that even a man's food, his clothing, hishome and his business-all these belong to the sparks of his own soulwhich he is called upon to lift up. Even the fact that sometimes heloses in a transaction or brings it to a good conclusion depends onthe state of his sparks, as is well known from the [lurianic] writings.This, then, is the hidden meaning of the verse 'In all your ways knowHim' (Prov. iii: 6)-because everything serves man to concentratehis mind and to lift up the sparks of his own soul which are, at thesame time, the sparks of the Shekhinah."22

(4) The same idea is expressed in the old hasidic commentary onPs. cvii: 5 which I am inclined to assume (for reasons into which Icannot enter here) was compiled around 1760 by the preacher Mendelof Bar, a friend and disciple of the Ba'al-Shem, but was later ascribedto the master himself. "There is a great mystery: Why did God createthe food and drink for which man longs? The reason is that these arefull of sparks of Adam, the first man, which after his fall wrappedthemselves up and hid away in all the four spheres of nature, in stones,plants, animals and men, and they strive to return and to cleave untothe sphere of holiness. And whatever a man eats and drinks is actuallypart of his own sparks which he is under an obligation to restore. Itis to this the psalmist alludes in his words: 'Hungry and thirsty ones'-i.e., those things for which men are hungry and thirsty, 'their soul is"wrapping itself" into them' (nafsham bahem tith'a(af)-i.e. theyare there in exile, in strange forms and clothing. And be it known toyou that all things that serve the needs of man are esoterically hisown sons, who have gone into exile and captivity."23

This new turn of the doctrine consequently places on everyone aspecial responsibility with regard to the sphere of his intimate day-to-day life and his surroundings. As Hillel Zeitlin once said in thisrespect, in a thoughtful essay: "Every man is the redeemer of a worldthat is all his own. He beholds only what he, and only he, ought to

22 Toledoth, f. 90b and 84b.23 The commentary on Ps. cvii (Perush 'al hodu) has been printed innumerable

times.

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behold, and feels only what he is personally singled out to feel."24No one can do the work of his fellow-man; no one can "lift" a sparkwhich is not his own.

I have called this a new turn, and a highly interesting one at that,because it is precisely the attractive feature of the hasidic interpreta-tion that is completely lacking in lurianic literature. The allegedquotations from the old writings are not to be found there: noKabbalist before Israel Ba'al-Shem ever used such language, asfar as I am aware. I have examined a great many books expoundingthe doctrine, and have always found it couched in terms of a muchmore general nature. Nowhere earlier is it said that the environmentof man is a special world of his sparks, and all the bold formulationisabout his household effects, his business and his meals are new. Theymay, indeed, have been intended toparaphrase the authentic teaching;but in doing so they have deeply transformed it.

Let us take, for instance, Vital's book on the migrations of the soul,which is the main source of this doctrine in its original form. It doesnot efface the difference between the two categories of sparks, thesparks of the Sliekhiniah that are lifted up by anyone who cares to doso, without any individual limitations, while the other sparks, it istrue, can be helped by kindred souls only, as ch. 5 of Vital's workexplains. "There are sparks which are very near to a man and otherswhich remain at a distance, and all depends on his actions." "Youought to know that a 5'addtq is able, by his deeds, to reassemble thesparks of his Nefesh, his Rua, or his Neshamah, and to lift them upfrom the depth of the 'husks"'-this goes indeed as far as authenticlurianic teaching ever goes, but it remains confined to general outlines,and the individual en1vironment is never mentioned as the mainmedium ofman's action. There are altogether different moods presentin Lurianism and Hasidism respectively. Of course, the Hasidimspeak of Tiqqun too, but its meaning has been qualified by this newturn into the strictly personal sphere of man, in which Tiqqun isachieved by Devequth. The teaching of Luria and Vital is not so muchconcerned with the fate of the sparks imprisoned in the realms ofnature, although it must be said that the legend which rapidlydeveloped around the personality of Luria gave some preponderanceto this element. Luria is primarily interested in the exile of the soulsand their sparks in the spheres dominated by the power of evil, the

24 H. ZEITLIN, Ha-hasiduth, 1910, p. 29.

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qelippoth (husks), whereas the Ba'al-Shem and his followers emphasisethe mystic connection between man and his immediate environment.In other words, the lurianic doctrine has a more abstract tone, thehasidic version a more concrete and personal one. For example: thewell known doctrine of the mystical meaning of Exile is formulatedby the Rabbi of Polenoye as follows: "Every single individual inIsrael has to go to such places as contain sparks from the root of hisown soul in order that he may free them."25 Such a formulation ofthe thesis will, however, nowhere be found in the old books, in whichthe meaning of Exile is explicitly linked with the necessity of redeem-ing the sparks of the Shekhinah, the remnants of the "breaking of thevessels", and not the sparks of the individual souls. By the Mi,wahwhich a Jew-any Jew, for that matter-fulfils anywhere in theGaluth, the sparks of the Shekhinah in that place are lifted up. Asagainst the metaphysical sphere, the emphasis is shifted on to thepsychological and personal one. The great cosmic vision of themessianic mission of the Jew in performing the task of Tiqqun hasreceded into the background, and a vision of a different characterhas taken the stage. I cannot consider this to be a matter of minorsignificance. I may also mention that the work which later hasidictradition considers to have been the Ba'al-Shem's favourite piece ofliterature, ljayyim ibn 'Attar's 'Or ha-Hayyim (1742) knows nothingof this individual turn of the doctrine, and never changes the tradi-tional presentation of the subject.26

There is no need, in the present context, to go deeper into a furtherqualification which the Hasidim were quickly forced to make. Therewas no general agreement as to whether everybody, or only a $addiq,could perform this "lifting up of the sparks". There are severalsayings of the Ba'al-Shem according to which it is not everybody'saffair. Only the Faddiq, or he who attains the state of Devequth, isgranted the privilege of meeting the sparks of his own soul. Rightat the beginning of the book Liqqutim Yeqarim the Maggid ofMezeritch quotes a dictum of the Ba'al-Sliem, pointing out that hewho separates himself from God, i.e., who lives without Devequth,

25 Kertlonerh Passim (Lvov, 1866), f. 35a/b.26 Incidentally, I am not altogether convinced of the reliability of the tradition

concerning the Ba'al-Shem's predilection for the book of the Moroccan sage.Neither in the Ba'al-Shem's authentic sayings, nor in the copious writings of theRabbi of Polenoye (who is very liberal in quoting other authors), is there anytrace of its influence, and it is only the disciples of the Maggid of Mezeritch whostarted the habit of quoting it.

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"does not come across the clothes and the food which contain sparksof his own root, and has thus no chance of restoring them to theirproper place". Occasionally, however, he does not make the liftingup of the sparks dependent upon a special qualification. Objects ofdaily use, he says, change hands because each one of the respectivepossessors has to raise some of his sparks from them, and having doneso, has no further title to it. And it is made clear that this sentencedoes not apply to $addiqim only.27

This dilemma is common to all sections of hasidic doctrine. What-ever is said in one place about man in general is limited in anotherplace to the perfect devout, or .Saddiq. It appears that the Hasidimwere not altogether sure at the beginning whether to apply the doctrinein all its implications to everyone, or to limit it to the special categoryof the elect. There is much shilly-shallying on this point, and the twotendencies occasionally clash rather sharply. We may safely say thatthe original impulse tended towards the widest possible applicationof hasidic principles and rules of behaviour, but that in practice-inorder to avoid abuses-the leaders were quickly forced to restrictthem to a narrower circle.The great stress laid on this doctrine of the lifting up of the holy

sparks in its new version is evident in all hasidic literature, and thereis no need to prove it statistically. It is strange that a scholar ofTishby'srank should have sought to deny the striking weakening of themessianic impulse in the later version which I have analysed. A textlike the classical No'am 'Elimelekh by R. Elimelekh of Lizensk (1786)-a most characteristic representative of the novel points of departurein hasidic doctrine and one in which this turn is given the greatestpossible emphasis-is closely searched by Tishhy for material whichmight be interpreted in the direction of greater messianic tension.He criticises an essay by Rivqah Schatz who had quite correctlyunderlined this process of replacing acute Messianism by a personaland mystical concept of salvation.28 Aside from adducing some tradi-tional formulations which, as I said before, are never completelyabsent and prove nothing, he comes up with a rather odd argument.He quotes several passages stating that the Saddiq is actually em-powered to bring about even the coming of the Messiah, i.e., that

27 Ltqqutim Yeqanrm, 1792, f. 1, col. b, without any reference to the $addiq.28 Cf. R. SCHATZ, "Le-mahuttho she! ha-$addiq ba-basiduth", in Molad, vol. 18,

1960, pp. 365-78, particularly 376, and TssHaY's remarks in his paper, pp. 36-7.

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there is in him a potential to bring on redemption. Tishby goes so faras to argue that "the bringing on of the national redemption isconsidered here as the principal function of the outstanding .Faddiq".The truth ofthe matter is quite different. The stressing ofthispotentialcapacity of the $addiq is by no means accidental-for he is expresslyforbidden to make use of it. But this decisive point is not even men-tioned by Tishby. The S'addiq has the power to annihilate the forcesof severity and rigour by getting down to their root, and "sweetening"them at their original place. This is a kind of reversal of the "liftingup" of the sparks: he faces the dark powers at their root, and trans-forms them by meditating on the element of holiness which is inherenteven in these. This "restoration" or "sweetening" of the uncleanpowers, the "husks", is the reverse of the usual doctrine that thepowers of evil or of rigour are annihilated by "lifting up the sparks"that are in them and giving them life. (Both doctrines are closelyconnected.) This, of course, has much to do with the lurianic doctrineofTiqqun: ifall the Dinim, these powers ofrigour, were to be sweetened,then redemption would come. But the Rabbi of Lizensk warns the.Saddiq who wishes to embark on this enterprise of "sweetening"that "he should not exert himself to annihilate the unclean poweraltogether, because by this he would cause the immediate coming ofthe Messiah".29 In other words, messianic exertion is forbidden. Evenwhen there exists messianic potentiality in an outstanding personality,it must be held back and not be actualised. To see in such an ideaproof of acute messianic tension seems to me strange. It is preciselywhat I call neutralisation of the messianic element.

Returning to the discussion of the implications of the change thathas occurred regarding the lifting up of the sparks, we must considerthe question of the consequences that were drawn by the Hasidimfrom this shifting of the centre of gravity in the original doctrine.The answer is that this doctrine, in authentic Lurianism, was filled withapocalyptic tension; it was seen in direct relation to the consumma-tion of messianic redemption. But now, for all the hasidic repetitionsof the old formulae, this decisive and direct relationship has beenabolished, a most noteworthy step towards the neutralisation ofMessianism. How was this achieved? Simply by introducing a differen-tiation which, in pre-hasidic Kabbalism, was either not mentioned

29 No'am 'Elimtelekh, Lvov, 1786, f. 54b (section wa-Yikra').

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or, ifmentioned at all, was mentioned in the most marginal way only.30I am here speaking of the differentiation between the two stages ofindividual and universal redemption, or, in other terms, betweenredemption of the soul and that of the bodies. The idea is the Ba'al-Shem's, and it may have been current in circles of older Ijasidimbefore his time. It is elaborated in a number of passages in the Rabbiof Polenoye's books and lends a special flavour to his explanationson this point. The "lifting up of the sparks" being able to accomplishthe ge'ullah perafith only, the individual salvation of the soul, it istherefore the task of man, and indeed can be wrought by man himself."All our prayers for redemption"-says the Ba'al-Shem-"areessentially bound to be prayers for the redemption of the individualwhich is the redemption of the soul, and this is the meaning of theverse [Ps. Ixix: 181: 'Draw near unto my soul, and redeem it'; it isprecisely the soul that is spoken of."31 Or, in another passage: "Themain purpose [of Devequth] is to attain personal salvation whichbelongs to his Nefesh, Ruah and Neshamah." This is a kind ofredemption which "can take place in every man and at every time".32The verse of the psalmist on the redemption of the soul is consistentlyused in hasidic literature with regard to this idea.But redemption of the soul, without redemption of the social body,

i.e. of the nation from its historical exile, of the outward world fromits broken state, has never had any messianic meaning in Judaism.It is a private affair of religious experience and is nowhere spoken of

0 The terms ge.'ullah perafith and ge'ullah kelalith are used in some lurianicwritings not in the later hasidic sense, but in order to designate the redemptionfrom Egypt in contradistinction to the messianic redemption.The redemption fromEgypt pertains to a specific place only, and could therefore be considered perajith,meaning in this context a particular redemption, not an individual one. In theearliest hasidic writings the bridge between this usage of the term and the laterone can still be clearly seen: the redemption from Egypt is sometimes said to bethe prototype of the individual redemption. Morever, lurianic Kabbalah drew adistinction between "original souls" which are root-souls (neshanoth meqoriyyoth)and "particular souls" or "individual souls" (neshamoth perotiyyoth) which needa Tiqqun destined for them only, cf. e.g. in Moses Zakkuto's commentary onZohar III, 18a, printed in Shalom Buzaglo's Miqdash melekh (Amsterdam, 1750),f. 28a.:'vmr xinn irimt pp,n pli7 rnz n*17z nr*'7i:ntInoip? minmwro YlU1

*nt'* Imn v-m ppmFnl7 mvn= nrtrm l3lt1mln5'The transition from tiqqun perali to ge'ullah peratith was an easy one.

3' Teshu'oth lfen, (i3erditchev, 1816), f. 13a, which seems to be composed ofthe two sayings of the Ba'al-Shem in Toledoth, f. 27b and 35b.

32 Toledoth, f. 79a and 67b.

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as a messianic action. One might even say, with greater emphasis,that it is one of the main points where Judaism and Christianityparted company. In Christianity, redemption of the soul was con-sidered by innumerable writers as the essential accomplishment of theMessiah. This has always been denied by Judaism, which has seenone of its own glories in its rejection of the messianic character of aredemption on any other than the public, social and historical plane.The redemption of the soul, of which the psalmist speaks, was notconsidered by either Rabbinism or Kabbalism as having anythingto do with Messianism, and it was left to the heretical dialectic ofthe Sabbataeans to introduce into Judaism this notion of a purelymystical redemption without visible historical change. Now theHasidim came, and restored the balance by their own emphaticand clear-ctut differentiation. Individual redemption is to be strictlyseparated from the truly messianic redemption of all. The Rabbi ofPolenoye is tireless in expounding the thesis that our whole life isconcerned with the non-messianic aspect of redemption only, themessianic one being entirely beyond our ken. In that regard we cando nothing: it is wholly up to God.We are induced to ask why there should be this radical emphasis

on the essentially non-messianic nature of human activity, whichmany modern writers on Hasidism, in particular Buber and Dinur,have in vain tried to minimise or to obliterate altogether. The answerseems clear to me. It is in deliberate reaction against the dangerousline of a Messianism practised by man, a line leading directly to theSabbataean upheaval, that these ideas were conceived. The lurianicteaching on the holy sparks was not just thrown out-its appeal wasmuch too strong for that-but it was reinterpreted in a manner thattook the dangerous sting of Messianism out of it. Let us accomplishour task of personal salvation, it seems to say, and forget about theMessiah. Maybe that will pave the way for him. The immediate goalof Hasidism in those generations was no longer the redemption ofthe nation from exile and the redemption of all being. Such an aimwould indeed be Messianism, even after the Sabbataean conflagration.The goal, as formulated in the works of the Rabbi of Polenoye, isthe mystical redemption of the individual here and now, i.e. redemp-tion notfrom exile, but in exile, or in other words, the destruction ofexile by its spiritualisation. Sabbataeanism, the revolution againstexile, had failed. Hasidism, with the destructive consequences of this

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tragic failure before its eyes, renounced the idea of messianic revoltand made its peace with exile; a precarious and uneasy peace, it istrue, but peace all the same. It did not deny the original doctrine ofredemption by the raising of the sparks, but it removed from it anyacute messianic tension. Outwardly, this seemed nothing but a smallterminological change, but intrinsically it meant a great deal for thestructure of hasidic thought. Now we can also understand thelink between the special emphasis on Devequth, a value, as I said,without eschatological colouring, and on the doctrine of the sparks inits new version. "The meaning of Devequth is the attainment of thatindividual redemption which pertains to one's own soul", said theBa'al-Shem.33 Mystical and individual redemption thus becomeidentified, in contradistinction to messianic redemption, which haslost the concrete and immediate meaning which it held for the lurianicKabbalist. "Only when everyone attains individual redemption"-so goes another saying of the Ba'al-Shem-"will there be universalredemption and Messiah will arrive."34 This statement implies atremendous postponement in the actual date of the arrival of theMessiah, and we feel here the deep emotional difference betweenLuria's approach and Israel Ba'al-Shem's: Luria might have said thesame, but, as far as he was concerned, final redemption wasjust roundthe corner, the process of Tiqqun was almost finished. But in themouth of the Ba'al-Shem it was a deeply melancholic statement.And this brings us back to his letter to his brother-in-law discussedbefore. Here the liquidation of Messianism, as a force of immediateurgency, is palpable. The flattering words of the Messiah regardingthe preconditions of redemption cause the Ba'al-Shem great painand sadness, for Messianism has once more receded into the distantfuture.

IV

Some aspects of this neutralisation of Messianism are concernedwith the relation between Hasidism and Sabbataeanism. It is acurious fact that even today for many authors this question is stillheavily loaded with an emotion that prevents an unprejudiced

33 Toledoth, f. 198a.34 Teshu'oth Hen, f. 43b.

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discussion.35 There are, however, not a few specific problems wherethe relation between these movements plays an important role. ThePodolian milieu, particularly in the small towns and villages whereHasidism had its strongest roots, was heavily tinged with Sabbataeaninfluence.36 Not only ideas stemming from the heretical theology ofthe sectarians, but also customs which were destined to occupy avital place in hasidic group life would need to be investigated in thisconnection,37 but that is beyond the scope of this lecture. I will onlyindicate some points where it seems evident to me that the Hasidimmade use of ideas about the Sabbataean Messiah, but gave them anew and very different turn. It is well known that the Sabbataeanmessiology centred around the attempt to explain the destructiveparadox of an apostate Messiah, a paradox which in its wake pro-duced other religious paradoxes of an antinomian and nihilisticcharacter. I have spoken of this in many of my studies. Such ideaswere widely known in Podolia and polemical reference to them canbe found in several classics of hasidic literature. But the hasidicpolemic against heretical Messianism does not preclude the possibilitythat some of these ideas were taken up by them and given a re-interpretation which, although still pointing to a religious paradox,took out the heretical sting and transformed them into constructiveelements in hasidic doctrine and life. Some of thiese have no directrelation to Messianism, such as the teaching of the Ba'al-Shem onthe Tiqqun of unholy thoughts which beset man especially duringprayer, which would deserve a separate study. It was of outstandingimportance in the first two generations of the movement, and waslater considerably toned down and given a harmless reinterpretation

35 When I first took up the question of specific points in which Hasidism wasinfluenced by Sabbataean groups, I was the target of a vitriolic attack by EliezerSteinmann, aHebrew writer whohas published several volumes glorifyingHasidismwho accused me of "looking for #ame,s in Hasidism", cf. his article "BediqathbameS be-mishnath ha-hasiduth", in Molad, vol. 11, 1951, pp. 259-67.

36 Cf. my essay in Beth Yisra'el be-polin, ii, 1949, p. 64, and p. 59 on the commonemotional background of the Russian Khlysti and the Sabbataeans,

37 This holds true for customs such as dancing, violent gestures during prayer,and probably also for the saying of hasidic Torah on the occasion of the thirdSabbath meal. The extraordinary statements of YAPA ELiACHr in this connection,maintaining that these things, as well as the substance of hasidic teaching, cameoriginally from the Russian sect of the Khlysti, are entirely without foundation,cf. PAAJR, 36, 1968, pp. 53-83. This paper and all its hypotheses are a deplorableexample of scholarly irresponsibility, and leave the reader wondering about thestate of Jewish studies.

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because of the dangerous implications of its original version and theaccusations levelled against it by the adversaries of Hasidism.There is one element, though, which has direct bearing on our topic.

This is the doctrine of the Saddiq, the centre of the hasidic community.Three very different elements have gone into the making of this figure,and I have spoken of this at length in another paper.38 They are (I)the older kabbalistical and rabbinical concept of the Saddiq; (2) thefigure of the Mokhiah, or moral preacher, whose task was rightlystressed in Joseph Weiss' important study on the origin of Hasidism;and (3) the Sabbataean Messiah. Statements and teachings regardinghis mission and its vicissitudes, which originated with the Sabbataeansand do not occur anywhere in the moral literature of Judaism beforethe Sabbataean outbreak, turn up quite forcefully in hasidic literatureon the ,addiq. But here they no longer serve to justify the dark careerof Shabbethai $evi, acts of transgression or immoral behaviour.They have become, instead, indicative of the high tension essentialto the figure of the ,5addiq. Many of the characteristic motifs of Sab-bataean paradoxes reappear in the works of Jacob Joseph of Polenoyeand Baer of Mezeritch, who by no stretch of the imagination can beconsidered as partisans of Sabbataeanism. The need for dissimula-tion on the part of the true .Saddiq in order to conquer the realm ofevil and impurity is developed precisely along the same line of reason-ing and by the same comparisons as those which the Sabbataeansused in their apologies for the mystical apostasy of their Messiah.It is true that the sting of antinomianism has been removed; but theidea that the path of the $addiq was fraught with danger remains,including tha far-reaching conclusion that the danger can not beside-tracked and avoided by any manoeuvre, but ought squarely to befaced.What Cardozo says about the mnission of the Sabbataean Messiah,

who must dissimulate like a spy who goes into the enemy camp inorder to accomplish his task, is transferred by the Maggid ofMezeritch to the Saddiq.39 The comparison current in Sabbataean

38 Cf. Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, pp. 110-34.39 Cf. Liqqutim Yeqari,n, Lvov, 1864, f. 14a/b, and 'Or Torah, Koretz, 1804, f.

146b (without pagination). The same Sabbataean paradox, referring to Moses'stay at Pharaoh's court as a necessary step in dissimulation and the outwittingof the power of evil in its own realm, which is so frequently mentioned in apologiesfor Shabbethai Sevi, was taken up by the Rabbi of Polenoye and given a hasidictwist, cf. Teshu'oth fen, f. 6a (in the name of the Rabbi of Polenoye).

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literature between the Messiah and the red heifer, which "purifiesthe defiled and defiles the pure" is transferred by the Rabbi ofPolenoye and his pupil Gedaliah of Linietz to the hasidic $addiq.40It is quite unthinkable that such a statement could have been made byany Jewish moralist, and it clearly shows the impact of Sabbataeanthinking.The most striking example of such a metamorphosis is re-

presented by the hasidic teaching on the necessary and unavoidablefall of the .Faddiq, one of the cardinal points of hasidic teaching. Itoriginates with the Ba'al-Shem himself, and is developed in manydifferent directions in all the classical writings of Hasidism. Thefall may be connected with his social task as the centre of the com-munity, as in the Rabbi of Lizensk's No'am 'Elimelekh, or with the$addiq's own inner life, his solitary intercourse with God which cannotbe sustained, as in the writings of the Maggid of Mezeritch and theRabbi of Polenoye.41 It is described with all the fervour that the Sab-bataean heretics had mustered in their apologies for the fall of theirown "Saddiq"-and they called him by this name42-but now it isgiven a new turn, by which it no longer has a messianic meaning. Ithas been transferred onto a new plane where the original messianicmeaning of this "fall" has been neutralised. That it is still a dangerousundertaking is well known to the Rabbi of Polenoye: "If you say youhave to descend in order to rise, it may be argued that the descent iscertain, but the ascent is rather doubtful", and, as he says in anotherplace, apparently referring to the Sabbataeans of his generation,"many have remained below".43 And yet, this is the mission of thetrue Saddiq. This is what Abraham and Moses did, and, as thekabbalistic saying has it, every Saddiq has something of Moses inhimself. But the hasidic authors carefully and consciously avoiddrawing the parallel in this respect between the Saddiq and theMessiah, while in other instances they never tire of emphasising the

40 Toledoth f. 145b (section tfuqqath).41 On this point cf. G. NIOAL, Manhig we-'edah, 1962, p. 96-109, and S. H.

DRESNER, The Zaddik . . according to the writings of Rabbi Jaakov Yosef ofPolenoye, 1960, pp. 148-221, who deals at length with the whole problem of thedescent of the $addiq and its dangers.

42 All the statements about the Saddiq in Psalms are explained as statementsregarding Shabbethai $evi in Israel iUazzan's commentary on a large part of theBook of Psalms, composed in 1679.

43 Toledoth, f. 16a and 17a.

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task of the .Saddiq as a redeemer of the soul, i.e., an un-messianicMessiah.To this process of adapting Sabbataean theses about the Messiah

an idea has to be related which is often considered as one of themost striking and original ones that Hasidism has produced. I referto the glorification of the tales of the deeds of Saddiqim. Its classicaland extravagant formulation is that "whoever tells tales of the5'addiqin is as if he were studying the mystery of the Merkavah".44But this sententious pronunciamento is not original. It is a hasidicrestatement of a thesis which was first maintained by Nathan of Gaza,the Prophet of Shabbethai $evi, and is quoted in his name in anumber of manuscripts containing a collection of Nathan's rules ofSabbataean behaviour put together by one of his pupils in Salonica."A man who busies himself with matters pertaining to 'Amirah[= abbreviation for our Lord and King, may his Majesty be exalted-the constant term for Shabbethai Sevi in the literature of his followers],even by telling stories only, is reckoned like one who studies themystery of the Merkavah."45 Here we have the true origin of a customwidely seen as typical of hasidic behaviour because of our limitedknowledge of Sabbataean sources that have only lately come underthe scrutiny of the historians. All the Hasidim had to do was totransfer the thesis from the heretical Messiah to the new-fangledfigure of the hasidic Saddiq-and, to be sure, on that score they didvery well indeed.

In the light of the foregoing exposition we may see the fact thateven statements which are in accordance with Luria's messianicdoctrine now have a different ring. Interesting in this connection isthe pointed reformulation of one of the Ba'al-Shem's sayings byNahuni of Tchernobyl, of which much has been made by the pro-ponents of the notion of an acute Messianism in Hasidism. Whereasauthentic sayings of the Ba'al-Shem speak of the structure of thehuman soul which everybody must build up and reconstruct forhimself, this quotation, of which nobody else knows, speaks of thestructure of the Messiah: "Everybody in Israel has to restore and toprepare that part of the structure of the Messiah [qomathf mashiahl

44 Slhimvley Ha-BeTht, Kopys, 1815, . 28a. lt7Rn trp4-Tst n3:l 1E :)

45 E.g. MS. Guenzburg 517,f.79b: rlv:p17013'TX:)V1WX ;1';1 []:n;isrlmin7: nivY?n 7t)1S nlsrS Vl' $Vn 3 Xn$V17? -ilE)8 lU*-T llrmD n-mm2

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which belongs to his own soul as is known [in lurianic Kabbalism],...for the Messiah will be a complete structure composed of all the soulsof Israel which are six hundred thousand as they were containedwithin Adam before the fall. Therefore everyone in Israel shouldprepare that part corresponding to [his part in the soul] of theMessiah which belongs to his own soul until the whole structure willbe restored and established and then there will be a permanent anduniversal Yfihud, realisation of unity."46 This saying identifies theoriginal structure of Adam's all-comprising soul with the soul ofthe Messiah in accordance with kabbalistic teaching on metem-psychosis. In the distant future the structure of the Messiah will bebuilt up by all of us, but the present task is to prepare and to perfectour own soul, which is all that any of us can do. As far as there is anyMessianism present in this saying, beyond the fulfilling each of hisown task, it is of a utopian character, but it makes use ofthe traditionallurianic formulation.A final remark seems appropriate. It concerns the process of

spiritualisation which biblical or rabbinic terms and concepts haveundergone in hasidic exegesis. This, of course, is not a novel principle.It is a general trend, which has its origins, longbefore Hasidism started,in the homiletical exercises of the preachers. Even the spiritualisationof such notions as Egypt, Zion, Eretz Israel, Galuth (exile) andGe'ullah (redemption) began at an earlier period, especially inkabbalistic homiletics. What strikes the reader of hasidic literature,which consists mainly of homiletics, is the radical application, thehypertrophic use of this device. The terms were turned into allegoricalcatchwords no longer denoting simply what they actually mean, butstanding for a personal state of mind, for a moral condition, or, aswe would say in contemporary jargon, for the existential situations ofman. Notions like these have lost their concrete historical or geo-graphical meaning; they have no longer to do with the fate and futureof the nation, but with the individual's struggle for his own salvation.If Egypt, the house of bondage, is a sphere that exists in every man, itis only logical that the same applies to the land of Israel and to theinner redemption. Naturally, there occur often enough repetitionsof thoughts where such notions are taken at their face value, buttheir metaphorical use is overwhelming. The sayings and sermons ofthe Maggid of Mezeritch are the outstanding example of an almost

46 Me'or 'Eynayim (Slavita, 1798), f. 91b, cf. also TisnBY (op. cit., note 3), p. 35.

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complete transformation of all the spheres comprising the world ofJudaism into spheres of the soul, of a revaluation of each and everyone of its conceptions in terms of the personal life of the individual.But this applies also in a high degree to the writings of the Rabbi ofPolenoye and of those who took much of their inspiration from him.47Messianism was the principle victim of this transformation, becauseit was its peculiar utopian, historical and revolutionary flavour thathad, of necessity, to be disposed of on the way. It is obvious that theconstant application of this transformation would greatly contributeto the process of neutralisation of Messianism with which we areconcerned.Out of the infinite wealth of such neutralising exegesis I shall

quote just one characteristic passage regarding the transformationof exile and redemption into non-eschatological states. This is whatEphraim of Sedylkov has to say on Gen. xxviii: 16: 'And Jakob awokefrom his sleep, and he said, surely the Lord is in this place, and Iknew it not.'

"It is known that the exile is designated by the word sleep and thisrefers to the state where God removes himself and hides his face.And redemption means that God reveals himself through the lightof the Torah through which he is awakened from sleep. And this isthe meaning of 'I am the Lord thy God' because the word I, 'anokhi,which [being the first word of the Ten Commandments] comprisesthe totality of the Torah, stands for the ineffable name of God whois revealed through the revelation of the light of the Torah. And thisis what the verse 'and Jakob awoke from his sleep' hints at, namelyhis awakening from exile which is likened to the state of sleeping,as it is said [about the time of redemption] 'we would be likedreamers'. It may also be explained by way of the saying of theZohar, according to which the last redemption will be through thefiery flame of the Torah and this will be the complete redemptionwhich will not be followed by exile. And this is the meaning of'he awoke from his sleep' (mi-shenatho) which can be read as if itmeant [mi]mishnatho, 'through his learning'. For the last redemp-tion will come through the flame of the Torah. And redemptionconsists in God's enlightening the eyes, that all will see the absolute

47 Such writers are, for example, Gedaliah of Linietz, Benjamin of Zaloscieand Ephraim of Sedylkov, the grandson of the Ba'al-Shem.

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truth and will depart from exile which is falsehood. And this appliesequally to the individual, to each and everybody, in the mystery ofthe saying of the psalmist 'Draw near to my soul, redeem it'."48

The central position which anti-eschatological exegesis of this typeoccupies in the classics of hasidic literature points to the degree towhich messianic terms were transformed and neutralised. It is oneof the upshots of this process that the Maggid of Mezeritch couldproduce the extraordinary statement that in exile it is easier to attainthe holy spirit and union with God than in the land of Israel, a state-ment for which one would look in vain in any other place.49There is no contradiction in this teaching to the older lurianic one,

but there is a significant difference and shifting of emphasis. Theschool of Lurianism made of every Jew a protagonist in the greatmessianic struggle; it did not allegorise Messianism into a state ofpersonal life. Hasidism in its most vigorous stages took precisely thisstep. The one and unique great act of final redemption, "the realthing", if I may say so, was thrown out, i.e., was removed from thesphere of man's immediate responsibility and thrown back into God'sinscrutable councils. But let us face the fact: once this has been done,all the mystical talk ofa sphere of Messiah in one's own life, wonderfulas it may sound, becomes but an allegorical figure of speech. If, ashas been remarked by Zeitlin, every individual is the redeemer, theMessiah of his own little world-and I agree that this is the essenceof early Hasidism-then Messianism as an actual historic force isliquidated, it has lost its apocalyptic fire, its sense of imminentcatastrophe. It may continue to use the old words and symbols, asindeed it did; but, for better or worse, it has become a force set on thebuilding of a community of the reborn in Exile-a venture very farremoved from the Zionist interpretation which nowadays is frequentlyforced upon early hasidic teaching. It is not at all surprising that thehasidic movement, in spite of many modern affirmations to thecontrary, could do without the land of Israel. That some hasidicgroups transferred themselves there around 1788 is a marginalphenomenon, and the many letters written by their leaders do notindicate any messianic intensity of feeling. The creative power ofHasidism was centred on the mystical life, on the revival of the Jew

4S Degel Mahaneh 'Efrayim, f. 17a.49 Maggid Devarawv le-ya'aqov, 1781, f. 9b.

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in Exile. This may have been a very great thing to achieve. But letus not forget that while Hasidism brought about an unheard-ofintensity and intimacy of religious life, it had to pay dearly for itssuccess. It conquered in the realm of inwardness; but in the realm ofMessianism it abdicated.

Jerusalem. G. SCHOLEM

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Documents

Scholem The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism