Scholem's View of Jewish Messianism

Scholem's View of Jewish MessianismAuthor(s): Joseph DanSource: Modern Judaism, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 117-128Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1396184Accessed: 12/06/2009 01:12

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Joseph Dan

SCHOLEM'S VIEW OF JEWISH MESSIANISM

I

The studies of Gershom Scholem revolutionized the attitude of Jewish historians to the messianic element in Judaism. What was previously regarded as an embarrassing, marginal abnormality of Jewish culture became one of the most potent elements shaping Jewish history. In importance, so it seems, Scholem's achievement in this field is equal only to his changing the conceptions regarding the role of mysticism in Jewish culture. In the following pages an attempt is made to present the highlights of the results of Scholem's studies concerning Jewish messianism. Such a survey should start with two negative points, before turning to the positive ideas describing messianism: It is as important to point out what Jewish messianism is not, as showing what it actually is. Scholem proved that:(l) there is no inherent, constant relationship between Jewish messianism and Jewish mysticism; and (2) that there is no necessary linkage between catastrophes in Jewish history and messianic movements. These two conclusions form the first stage of Scholem's revolutionary approach to the subject.

One of the most unique characteristics of Gershom Scholem's scholarly work was his strict adherance to a clearly-defined program of research. Almost all his work between 1925 and his death in 1982, nearly sixty years, is outlined in his letter to H. N. Bialik, in which he presented his plans for the study of Jewish mysticism'. His scholarly, scientific articles are all dedicated to various figures, books, events and subjects in the history of Jewish mysticism. The one clear exception, so it seems, is his detailed study: "The Messianic Idea in Judaism"2, which surveys the history of this idea from biblical times to the 12th century, almost without dealing with Jewish mysticism, even though it covers the periods of the development of ancientJewish mysticism, the Hekhalot and Merkabah literature, and the early beginnings of Jewish mysticism and kabbalah in Europe. The reason for this "omission" is explained in Scholem's other important study of Jewish messianism-the essay "The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism"3.

Modern Judaism 12 (1992): 117-128 ? 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

The first half of this essay is dedicated to explaining why the early kabbalah did not deal with messianism, and why Jewish mystics for

many centuries were so uninterested in the messianic idea. The second half of that essay is dedicated to explaining the dramatic change which occured in the relationship between mysticism and messianism in the 15th- 16th centuries.

According to Scholem an intense connection was created between messianism and the various schools of Jewish mystics in the late Middle

Ages and early modern times, a connection which had profound results for Jewish history and culture as a whole. But this relatively late

development does not reflect the general, intrinsic characteristics of either Jewish messianism or of Jewish mysticism. For centuries-or even millenia-these two basic religious attitudes existed side by side, without one feeding meaningfully on the other. The tendency to

equate them and see them as one unit is derived from two reasons, one valid and the other erroneous. The valid one is that the period between the 15th and the 19th centuries is really characterised by intense messianic expectations in Judaism, which are at least partly motivated by mystical-mainly kabbalistic-symbolism. The wrong one is the tendency to regard messianism as superstition, and as mysticism was regarded as superstition by many 19th centlury (and some 20th century) Jewish scholars, seeing them as parts of the same em-

barrassing phenomenon was natural. By regarding them as separate historical and cultural forces, and analyzing their historical development, Scholem proved that each of them is an independent spiritual element within Jewish religion.

In his detailed studies of ancient Jewish mysticism, which flour- ished between the 2nd century C. E. to the 7th, Scholem did not find

any messianic element4. The mystical schools of the "descenders to the chariot" were deeply interested in the structure of the divine world, and in their own attempts to lift their souls up to the celestial

palaces and face the magnificent King, described as the enormous

figure of the Shiur Komah sitting on the throne of glory in the seventh

palace. Here they would join in the praises of the ministering angels singing around this throne5. There was no place in this framework for communal or national historical effort to enhance the

redemption5, an effort which is the essence of messianic activity. Thus, in the long period of intense Jewish messianic activity in late antiquity, the mystics seem to be absent from the historical scene6, while messianism did not use mystical symbols or speculations.

When new schools of Jewish mysticism began to develop in medieval Europe in the 12th century, they did not include the messianic element as one of their central themes. It does not mean that Jewish mystics did not believe in the redemption and the coming of the

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Scholem on Messianism

messiah, but only that this belief was not a part of their spiritual world as mystics. The Ashkenazi Hasidim-the leaders of the Jewish mystical-pietistic movement in Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries did seek the date of the future redemption7, but neither their esoteric

speculation nor their ethical program contained a messianic element. The same is true about the works of the kabbalists in the first hundred

years of the history of the kabbalah, from the late 12th century to the late 13th century: No messianic element can be found in the book Bahir, the first work of the kabbalah, or in the kabbalistic schools in Provence and Gerona in the 13th century.

The reason for this absence was explained by Scholem as the result of these mystics' adherance to the "secret of genesis": The most potent mystical symbols used by them were dedicated to the description of the descent of divine light from the hidden, supreme source, the Godhead, stage by stage, until it reached the created world. This

process of emanation which brought forth the ten divine sephirot, and below them the celestial and earthly creatures, was viewed as a ladder leading away from the supreme unity of the Godhead to the countless created beings of the material worlds. The descent of this ladder is the "secret of genesis," how God brought about the multiple divine and material beings from his eternal unity. This ladder, ex-

plained Scholem, could be used by mystics to ascend back into the realm of supreme unity, turning one's back to the created world and

seeking the mystical way back into the pure spirituality of pre-creation times. The aim of these mystics was, therefore, to ignore the reality surrounding them, and to escape from it by ascending a ladder which

goes up, towards God, but also away from history and the future, deep into the remote past. Mystical perfection is to be sought in the

process of genesis, rather than the future process of messianic re-

demption. Motivated by this mystical wish to escape the material world the mystics, as mystics, naturally, were not interested in historical activity, and turned their backs to messianic endeavor. The beginning and early development of the kabbalah is thus completely separated from messianic elements, and Scholem's magnum opus on this crucial chapter in the history ofJewish mysticism hardly mentions this theme8.

Scholem saw this tendency to ignore the messianic element as dominant even in the Zohar, the most important mystical work of Jewish medieval mysticism, even though in this vast book, messianism plays a much larger role than in earlier kabbalah9. Recent studies seem to show that the messianic element in the Zohar was more central than formerly believed'0, possibly based on some of its sources", but it is still a fact that the kabbalah did not motivate a Jewish messianic movement in the 13th and 14th centuries. This situation was changed dramatically in the 15th century, and Scholem studied in detail the

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process of that change, which will be described below. As a result of Scholem's work it is impossible to regard mysticism and messianism in Judaism as closely-connected religious phenomena. Rather, one of the most profoundly interesting subjects in the study of Jewish spirituality is the enquiry why and how these two separate elements became fused in the 15th-19th centuries.

II

The tendency by Jewish historians in the 19th century to view mysticism and messianism as one and the same was probably the result of their attitude towards these two phenomena as marginal and "un-

becoming" in Judaism, which they believed to be based on pure mono- theistic rationalism. The same apologetic motivation probably was behind their tendency to see Jewish messianism as a result of the

frequent persecutions and catastrophes to which Judaism was subject in the Middle Ages and modern times. It is as if they were saying: "When left alone, Jews are rational and are not easily deceived by messianic nonesense. Only when the hardships they are facing become unendurable do they cling to this absurd notion." In Jewish histo- riography of the 19th century, and some of the 20th, persecutions and messianic movements are presented as almost one and the same phenomenon.

Scholem had to face the full force of this apologetic prejudice when he studied the beginnings of the Sabbatian movement in the 17th century. The works of earlier Jewish historians stressed the existence of a link between the appearance of the belief in Sabbatai Zevi as the messiah and Nathan of Gaza as his prophet in Turkey and the Middle East in 1665-1666 and the terrible massacre of the Jews in Poland and the Ukraine during the Chmelnitzki revolt in 1648-1649. The 15-year gap between the persecutions in Eastern E,urope and the appearance of Sabbatianism in Turkey was explained by the thesis that for some time Sabbatianism developed in secret, forming esoteric groups of believers, which surfaced in 1665 when the movement became active publicly. Scholem, who dedicated many years to assem- bling and analyzing every piece of evidence which could shed some light on the development of Sabbatianism, failed to find even the smallest indication of any connection between Sabbatai Zevi's messianic claims and ideology and the persecutions in Poland. Similarly, no evidence was discovered that there were circles of Sabbatian believers prior to Nathan of Gaza's appearance in 1665. Research in the history of Sabbatianism has become very intensive in the last three decades, and Scholem's conclusion concerning the independence of

120 Joseph Dan


Sabbatianism from any direct influence by the Chmelnitzki catastro-

phe seems to be completely validated. The attempt to link messianism with persecutions was based on

the refusal to regard messianism as an independent spiritual and cultural force within the framework of Jewish religion. It was Scholem in his detailed study of the subject who proved that Jewish messianism is a constant component of Jewish belief, always present, even if for

long periods it is subdued and does not express itself strongly in historical occurrences. In each period, among each cultural and ide-

ological group, it is expressed in a different manner, but its presence has always to be taken into account. The study of the history of Jewish messianism has to explain the complexity of its expressions and the varied motivations for its employment. Some of the basic characteristics of Jewish messianism as a whole were presented by Scholem in his phenomenological study, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism."

III

Scholem's basic attitude towards the messianic element in Jewish re-

ligion can be characterized as viewing messianism as a basic aspect of

Judaism's conception of history. Understanding the dialectics of the

development of Jewish messianism means understanding Judaism's views of its own and of social and even cosmic history. The main difference between Judaism and Christianity concerning redemption is explained by Scholem as centered in Christianity's spiritualization of the concept of messianic redemption, thus turning it from the historical arena into the realm of psychology, while Judaism retained, throughout history, its insistence that messianism is an external historical occurance12. The various chiliastic movements within Christi-

anity, which often were regarded as heretical and presented as rebels and enemies of Christian orthodoxy, are, in fact, "Jewish" heresies, wishing to return to the original Jewish historical conception of messianism. Judaism could not accept the attitude which presents redemption in an individual's soul, denigrating the national, social and cosmic aspects of the messianic event.

When Scholem presented the typology of Jewish conceptions of messianism in his major essay13, concentrating mainly on the Rabbinic period (though finding this typology relevant also to later periods), he presented three types: "conservative, restorative and utopian". The conservative attitude is represented mainly by the Halachah, while messianic phenomena usually include both restorative elements, re- viving Jewish independence and the re-building of the temple in Je- rusalem, and utopian ones, emphasizing the completely revolutionary

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and miraculous existence of the messianic era. The interesting fact is that the term "messianic" could be substituted in all three types with the term "historical": These three types represent a conservative attitude towards history, trying to work and improve within the present, a restorative one-the wish to return to previous historical circumstances which are viewed as ideal, and a utopian conception of future

history. Every group, every sect and every ideological movement defined its attitudes to messianism and to history in an almost identical manner. Scholem's deep attachment to this unity between these two elements is clearly evident even in the structure of his analysis of the

subject: He had no interest in the phenomenological problem of the

origins and beginnings of Jewish messianism, nor in the motives which made it an integral part of Judaism (and of Christianity). He studied in detail the development of the concept throughout history, and

analyzed its impact on the ways in which Jews faced their present, past and future in the light of their messianic conceptions, which were both the cause and the result of their attitudes towards national and cosmic history.

Two other general characteristics of Jewish messianism were emphasized by Scholem: The catastrophic element and the miraculous, transcendent one. Messianic redemption is accompanied by detailed

descriptions of cosmic, social and national catastrophies in the large apocalyptic literature written during the second temple period, and, as Scholem emphasized, this genre of literary activity continued to develop within Judaism consistently during the talmudic period (some such apocalyptic material was included in the Hekhalot and Merkabah texts of the ancient Jewish mystics), and some motives expressing this attitude were incorporated in the midrash. During the Middle Ages and early modern times, up to and including the Sabbatian movement of the 17th-18th centuries, apocalypses were written by Jews, both mystics and non-mystics, continuing the tradition which viewed the emergence of the redeemed "next world" as following the destruction of the present one. In both ancient and medieval apocalyptic works a complete history of the world is indicated, revealing the authors' attitude towards the history of their past and present, as well as the utopian visions of the future.

This apocalyptic-utopian version of messianism, with its emphasis on the catastrophic nature of the redemptive process, was staunchly opposed by Jewish rationalists, especially by Maimonides. Scholem dedicated the second half of his essay on the subject to a detailed analysis of Maimonides's description of the messianic era in the con- cluding chapters of his great halachic work, the Mishneh Torah. Mai- monides was different from the apocalyptic-utopian Jewish visionaries first and foremost in his insistence on the uninterrupted continuation

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of history. The redemption, according to Maimonides, does not put a stop to the history of this world, and its laws of nature and society will continue without any dramatic change. Messianic times will bring solutions to Judaism's current social and national problems, but will not change essentially the character of human existence in the physical world. Even more important is the Maimonidean insistence that messianic redemption will not bring any change in the nature of religious worship. The character of the ritualistic and ethical commandments, as well as the need for spiritual and intellectual adherance to God which is the most important part of religion according to the rationalists, will not be changed by the messiah. His appearance will only indicate that the physical circumstances for their perfomance will be better, and Man will be able to seek his God in relative comfort.

A common element in the works of both the utopian-apocalyptic writers and their rationalistic opponents is their shared conception of the biblical descriptions of the messianic era as riddles to be solved, as enigmatic statements which have to be interpreted. Both groups used such verses to substantiate their pre-conceived conclusions, rather than taking them as divine or divinely-inspired statements of future events. The apocalyptic writers, according to Scholem, went even further, and gave the whole field of messianic speculation the aura of an esoteric realm, an area to be hidden from the public and information to be given in veiled hints and symbolical terminology.

The second basic element (also common to all groups of Jewish thinkers) of messianism is its transcendent, miraculous character. Scholem repeatedly emphasized the fact that most ancient and medieval Jewish descriptions of messianic times regard the beginning of the process of redemption as one decided by God and God alone, independently of human behaviour or religious achievements. Jewish apocalyptic literature as well as the talmudic texts dealing with the subject do not put forward any set of conditions that have to be fulfilled prior to the appearance of the messiah. It is God's will alone which will decide when and how this process will unfold. Thus, redemption is not the result of any earthly process, that is-a historical one-but a miraculous intervention of God in world affairs, bringing one era to its end and beginning a new one. Rabbinic promises, Scho- lem observes, which connect the performance of a specific com- mandment with messianic redemption should not be regarded as theological statements. Essentially, ancient and most of medieval Ju- daism viewed the redemption as an intrusion of an external, transcendent force into history, bringing it to its end.

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IV

A dramatic change in Jewish attitudes towards messianism occurred in the second half of the 15th century and reached its peak in the Lurianic kabbalah of the late 16th century and the Sabbatian movement of the 17th-18th centuries. Based on earlier tendencies in the kabbalah since the second half of the 13th century, Jewish mystics gradually turned messianic redemption into a historical process, which

develops as a result of human religious behaviour. Many of Scholem's best-known studies are dedicated to an analysis of this ideological revolution and its consequences-the messianic works of the expulsion period, the Lurianic myth of zimzum, shevirah and tikkun, the

theology of the Sabbatian movement and then the Hasidic reaction of the neutralization of the messianic element. In this period, the

history of Jewish thought concerning messianism is fused with Jewish history in general, and becomes one of the most powerful forces

shaping Jewish attitudes to themselves and to the surrounding world in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.

According to Scholem, the most important factor in this ideological revolution is the new sense of exile which penetrated Jewish con- sciousness as a result of the events in Spain which culminated with the expulsion of the Jews from that country in 1492, thus destroying the largest and most influential Jewish center in medieval Europe'4. As a result of this upheaval, earlier kabbalistic ideas about the impact Man has in his religious and mystical worship on developments within the Godhead acquired a new strength and a new meaning: Man is capable of influencing divine processes to the extent that the status of the divine powers is dependent on him, and therefore he has the power to enhance the coming of the redemption. The whole body of the Jewish commandments, the whole realm of ethical behaviour, thus became tools given to Man by God in order to enable him to participate in, and even dominate, the mystical developments among the divine powers and bring forth messianic times.

This revolution, most clearly found in Lurianic kabbalah, inter- nalized the messianic phenomenon to some extent, and put the main battleground of the redemptive process within the heart of the Jewish individual. Every human thought and deed has an impact-positive or negative-on a mystical process which decides the status of the divine powers, and as a result-of the cosmos, the nation, and ulti- mately that of the individual as well. This new attitude has a common element with the spiritualization of messianism in early Christianity, but there is also a cardinal difference: While in Christianity both the process of redemption and its results happen within the soul of the devout individual, in Lurianic kabbalah the result of this process

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shapes the fate of the divine powers themselves, of the cosmos as a whole, and of external history as a consequence of the deeper changes.

One element was missing from Jewish messianism from the talmudic period up to the 17th century: The figure of the personal messiah, the individual who brings forth the redemption. Since the

emergence of apocalyptic literature, this aspect remained vague and secondary in Jewish discussions of messianic redemption. The reason, according to Scholem, is that Christian messianism was woven around the personal figure of Jesus, and Shiite redemption around the figure of the hidden Imam, while Jewish messianism did not have a personal figure in the center of the messianic drama which could shape and dominate it. The Sabbatian movement changed that: The theology of Nathan of Gaza put in the heart of the messianic process the figure of an individual, Shabbatai Zevi, who is a divine messenger and a divine power himself, and his mission is to carry out those parts of the messianic process which Man cannot perform alone, helped only by the religious and ethical commandments. The transcendent element in Jewish messianism thus re-emerges in Sabbatian theology, a divine messenger intervenes in the historical process and brings it to an end-but in a new form, the form of a messiah who is already here, and is already a part of the historical process.

Nearly two hundred years of Jewish mystical thought, from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th, are characterized by the struggle between these new, historical-activistic ideas originated by Isaac Luria and Nathan of Gaza, and the conservative forces within Judasim- most of them mystically-motivated and adherents of the kabbalah, who wished to return to the pre-Lurianic world in which messianic

redemption is a transcendent, miraculous event. According to Scho- lem, these forces had the upper hand in the Hasidic movement, thus

neutralizing the messianic upheaval and returning, in a new way, to the sharp division between history and messianic drives'5.

v

Scholem concluded his essay on Jewish messianism with an observation and a question. The observation is, that messianism prevents any human accomplishment in unredeemed times from being final. His- tory is patiently waiting for its culmination, which will come when a transcendent force will intervene arbitrarily and change the nature of existence completely. Until then, everything done by human beings is temporary and secondary in its meaning, because all will change when messianic times will arrive and this world will be replaced by the "next world". Scholem describes this basic phenomenon as the

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dialectic tension between existence and messianism, the latter being fundamentally "anti-existential." He also observes that the price paid by Judaism when it wanted to break out of this dilemma and bring messianism into history as a part of "existential" history, most clearly in Sabbatian heresy, was very heavy. The question is, how does the modern Jewish determination to participate in history, to create final facts, like a Jewish state, within history, relate to past experience and to the internal dynamics of the spiritual forces which shaped the various messianic attitudes.

Even while asking the question, Scholem clearly distinguishes between Zionism and messianism, presenting them as alternatives rather than having a common element. Zionism is an "existential" movement, rebelling against the futility of historical activity in an unredeemed world, claiming that historical achievements can be brought forth without any transcendent intervention and without waiting for one or depending on one. Zionism, according to this concept, is a complete departure from all conflicting views and attitudes of Jewish messianism put together: It rebels against the demand to wait for divine

redemption, and it refuses to see itself as a culmination of one. It does not declare, like Sabbatianism, thatJewish entrance into history is now

possible because the messiah has come. Rather, it claims that Jewish participation in history is now necessary and possible in spite of the fact that the messiah has not come, and that history cannot be influ- enced either by his absence or by his presence: Jewish participation in history is a valid fact in any circumstance.

When writing this essay, Scholem was not sure that this new en-

terprise of Judaism would succeed, and whether it would escape the

heavy price paid in earlier centuries for messianic endeavors. A great deal has happened since these remarks were written by Scholem, and the problem of the relationship between Zionism and messianism has assumed new dimensions and its discussion-a new urgency. Scholem

opposed, consistently, throughout his life, any attempt to involve transcendent elements in Zionist thought, especially to "promise" Zionistic success on the basis of religious, messianic or mystical cal- culations. If the Jewish people has entered the world's historical arena when creating the Zionist movement, it must accept completely the laws governing this arena, even though they are "existential" and anti- messianic. At what price freedom from the transcendent, after we know so well the price paid before this freedom was attained? Only future history can assess this.

HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

126 Joseph Dan


NOTES

1. Scholem's letter to H. N. Bialik was sent in July, 1925, and published by M. Ungerfeld in Hapoel Ha-Zair, Vol. 39, 11, (December 1967), pp. 18- 19. It is included in the Hebrew collection of Scholem's essays, Devarim Bego (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 59-63.

2. Scholem's study, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism," is based on a lecture before the Eranos society, and was published in Eranos Jahrbuch, Vol. 28 (1959), pp. 193-239. The German version was also included in the collection

Judaica, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt, 1963), pp. 7-74, and a Hebrew translation by M. Meislesh in Devarim Bego, pp. 155-191. The English translation by Michael M. Meyer, entitled "Towards an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in

Judaism" opens, and gave the title to, Scholem's collection of essays "The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays in Jewish Spirituality," (New York, 1971), pp. 1-36 and notes on pp. 341-343. References below refer to this version.

3. "The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism", in "The Messianic Idea in Ju- daism," pp. 37-48. This is Moses Hadas's translation of the Hebrew essay (Devarim Bego, pp. 191-215), first published in English in Commentary, Vol. 4 (1958). This essay was first published in Hebrew as a separate booklet (Je- rusalem, 1942 and 1946).

4. Concerning Scholem's studies of ancient Jewish mysticism see Major Trends inJewish Mysticism, 2nd. ed (New York, 1954), pp. 40-78, and his book:

Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1960, revised edition, 1965). Parts of Scholem's synoptic studies of the Schekhinah and Shiur Komah also include discussions of this subject. See: G. Scholem, Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit (Zurich, 1962), pp. 7-47, 135-191.

5. See Major Trends, p. 72, and Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 9. 6. An exception to this statement may be found in the talmudic traditions

concerning Rabbi Akibah, who is described both as a mystic (Tosefta Hagiga II, 4) and as a contributor to the messianic character of the Bar Kochbah rebellion. These traditions, however, never create a connection between the messianic and the mystical aspects of Rabbi Akibah's figure.

7. See Major Trends, pp. 87-89. 8. See: G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, ed. by R. J. Zwi Werblowski,

translated from the German (Ursprungund Anfange der Kabbala), [Berlin 1962]) by A. Arkush (Princeton, 1987).

9. See Major Trends, p. 224. 10. I. Tishby intended to study the Zohar's eschatology in a third volume

of his Mishnat ha-Zohar, Vols. 1 and 2, (Jerusalem 1949 and 1961); English translation, (Oxford, 1989). A recent, detailed study of this subject was published by Y. Liebes in his study of the messianic element in the Zohar and in the figure of Rabbi Shimeon Bar Yohai, included in: The Messianic Idea in

Jewish Thought, A Study Conference in Honour of the Eightieth Birthday of Gershom Scholem, held 4-5 December 1977 (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 87-236 (in Hebrew).

11. On the messianism of the second half of the 13th century and the sources of Zoharic messianism, see my study: "The Beginnings of Messianic

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Myth in 13th Century Kabbalah", in Zvi Baras (ed.), Messianism and Eschatology, A Collection of Essays (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 239-252 (in Hebrew).

12. The spiritualization of the messianic element can be found in some statements of the Rabbis of the modern Hasidic movement in the late 18th and early 19th century. See R. Shatz, Quietistic Elements in 18th Century Hasidic

Thought (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 168-177 (in Hebrew). 13. The Messianic Idea in Judaism, pp. 3-4. 14. Some doubts concerning Scholem's thesis connecting the exile from

Spain with late-15th and 16th century messianic elements in the kabbalah, especially Lurianic kabbalah, were expressed recently by M. Idel, who pointed out how scarcely the exile is mentioned by messianic thinkers of the period, and the lack of direct textual connections between Lurianic kabbalah and the events of 1492. See Idel's introduction to the new edition of A. Z. Eshkoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, Sources and Documents (Jerusalem, 1987), especially pp. 16-28. It should be noted that Scholem emphasized especially the new sense of exile (paradoxically expressed most fully by mystics living in Eretz- Yisrael) on the spread and influence of messianic kabbalah.

15. As far as I know, Scholem did not refer in his works to the new

emergence of messianism in contemporary Hasidism, most evident in the Habad sect at present as well in other prominent Hasidic groups. Present realities, however do not necessarily reflect elements inherent in past phenomena, and it does not follow that if present day Hasidism has a strong messianic tendency that Hasidism in the past must also have had this attitude hidden within it. Still, the dialectical development of the various Hasidic schools between neutralization of the messianic element and being the carriers of acute messianic endeavors remains to be studied, and it should be viewed as a problem having an impact on the understanding of both present and future Jewish religious and mystical thought.

128 Joseph Dan