Introduction
This article – based extensively on the research by Professor Boaz Huss[1] and Professor Michael Brenner[2] − explores aspects of the life story and personal thought of Gershom (Gerhard) Scholem (1897-1982), the first researcher and professor of Jewish mysticism.
Meeting with the kabbalists of Jerusalem
In 1915, while still in Berlin, a young Scholem had already met and become friends with Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was later to kill himself by an overdose of morphine tablets in 1940 rather than surrender to the Nazis. Scholem dedicated his famous work, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, to his friend Walter Benjamin.
In 1924, Scholem had just completed his studies in philology and modern history and arrived in the Holy Land where he wanted to meet with some of Jerusalem’s kabbalists. These kabbalists were part of a group that had maintained their specific mystical traditions for over two hundred years. The yeshiva was called ‘Bet-El,’ and was founded in 1737 by R. Gedalia Chayon of Constantinople, and (from 1740) headed by R. Shalom Sharabi of Yemen.
Scholem eventually found a teacher from this kabbalistic yeshiva, R. Gershon Vilner, who was prepared to teach him Kabbalah on condition that he “ask no questions.”[3] This condition was something R. Vilner felt his young student would not be able to keep. Scholem initially responded that he would consider it, but then changed his mind and told him that indeed he could abide by that condition.
Scholem’s personal relationship with contemporary Kabbalah
Scholem had several other encounters with kabbalists and mystics but chose not to engage with contemporary teachers of Kabbalah:
“he paid no scholarly attention even to kabbalistic texts that were written and published in his time. Moreover, Scholem sought to use philological and historical methods to get to the metaphysical and mystical basis of the Kabbalah and to describe comprehensively the Jewish mystical phenomenon” (Huss 2005:142).
Nevertheless, Scholem’s wife, Fanya recalled that kabbalists would often meet with her husband during World War II, but instead of teaching him, they “had come to take counsel with Scholem” (Huss 2005:151, footnote 4). The reason why this eminent scholar of Kabbalah did not opt to study the contemporary mysticism of his time, was simply because “he denied its significance and value” (Huss 2005:142). Scholem himself expressed this sentiment:
“When all is said and done, it may be said that in our time, for the most part, there is no original mysticism, not in the nation of Israel and not among the nations of the world”[4]
According to Scholem, it was not just mysticism in Judaism, but mysticism in general that had ceased to be relevant to the modern world:
“Certainly, in recent generations
there have been no individual stirrings producing either new forms of mystical
teachings or movements having significance in the life of the community. This
is equally the case in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”[5]
Scholem’s assessment of the relevance of mysticism
Scholem’s comments on the relevance of mysticism seem very different from the observable and contemporary obsession to mystify everything in religion and to present it as entirely transcendent even of the very religion itself. One wonders whether this was different in Scholem’s times growing up, as he did, a century ago.
Scholem did not believe that mysticism would vanish from the world entirely, but rather that it would emerge in a transformed and secularised form:
“Perhaps mysticism will appear not in the garb of traditional sanctity…It is possible that this mysticism will not correspond to the terms of the conservative tradition of the mystics, but will instead have secular meaning…There are those who see in our secular lives and in the building of the nation a reflection of the mystical meaning of the secret of the world.”[6]
In Scholem’s view, the Jewish mysticism that existed in his day, while an inheritance from Chassidism and “the Sefardic and arabized tribes,” in many instances had lost its essence:
“In this generation, the earlier
forms continue, as a precious living inheritance or as an inheritance that has
decayed but that continues to exist in its external garb, even though its soul
has departed from it.”
Zionism as a form of mysticism
Scholem explained that his interest in Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah was the product of his interest in Zionism which he had maintained from an early age.
“I wanted to enter into the world of Kabbalah through my thinking of and believing in Zionism as something alive, as a renewal of a nation that had deteriorated greatly…I was interested in the question: ‘Was halakhic Judaism strong enough to persevere and endure? Was halakhah without a mystical foundation really possible? Did it have enough vitality of its own to persevere without deteriorating over the course of two thousand years?’”[7]
For Scholem, Kabbalah represented a Jewish revolutionary force that kept Judaism alive during the long exile and eventually transformed into modern Zionism:
“The modern incarnation of this force…appeared in his generation in a new form as the Zionist enterprise” (Huss 2005:143).
Mysticism transferred to secular Zionism
Scholem writes in words that seem to mirror R. Avraham Yitzchak haCohen Kook (1865-1935) that Zionism − of practical necessity − has to be built by the secular and not the religious elements of Jewish society:
“It is a fundamental fact that the creative [mystical] element, which in the current generation draws on a radical awareness, is invested in secular building blocks…and it is questionable whether it leaves room for productive expression of traditional forms. The force there invested includes much of what in other circumstances would be invested in the world of religious mysticism, known from it and in it as mysticism. But now this force is invested in matters that on their face lack religious sanctity and on their face are entirely secular.”[8]
Interestingly, it should be noted that today the narrative has dramatically changed in that the current conceptualisation is that religious Jews have indeed always ‘owned’ and identified with Zionism [see Kotzk Blog: 476) Did the Vilna Gaon’s Religious Zionism precede modern Secular Zionism?].
According to Scholem, mysticism sustained the Jews during the exile and, therefore, it assumed a significant role in the unfolding of Jewish history. One of the earliest forms of Jewish mysticism − known as Heichalot and Merkava literature [see Kotzk Blog: 261) A WINDOW INTO PRE-ZOHARIC MYSTICAL LITERATURE:] – dating (according to Scholem) from around the first century, marks the beginning of the exile following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE. Thus, mysticism was the essential survival force enriching the souls of an exiled people and maintaining their hope.
From the early eighteenth century, with the first modern stirrings of the return of the people to the land with the early Sabbatian (1701), followed by the Chasidic (1777) and then Mitnagdic (1813) aliyot – all of which were motivated by extreme mysticism and messianism – things began to change. This was enhanced once there was an even larger settlement in the land, at the time of Scholem, during the early twentieth century.
“[This] explains the paradox of Scholem turning his back on the bearers of the kabbalistic tradition precisely when he came to the Land of Israel, settled in Jerusalem—a center of kabbalistic ferment in the 1920s—and finally had the opportunity to meet with them. Instead of doing so, he returned to European libraries to do his research, in order to lay the groundwork for the study of Kabbalah on the basis of the manuscript archives preserved there. Scholem’s Zionist perspective made Kabbalah into a significant factor in Judaism’s past, but one that had lost its historical role in the present” (Huss 2005:144).
In a similar manner Arthur Hertzberg has argued that Scholem decided to “bury” Kabbalah with “due respect” because “[i]t was part of the Jewish past, the present was Zionism.”[9] But this Zionism, although secular, was also mystical:
“The continuation of the Jewish mystical spirit can be found, according to Scholem…in academic inquiry, from a Zionist perspective, into Jewish mysticism. Scholem saw the Zionist academic study of Judaism in general, and of Kabbalah in particular, as part of Judaism’s spiritual revival” (Huss 2005:145).
Scholem saw Chassidism, which appeared in Eastern Europe from the early eighteenth century, as:
“the last great religious outburst within Judaism, as the gates were about to close.”[10]
After Chassidism, Scholem maintained that Zionism had become the final stage in the development of Jewish mysticism (Huss 2005:147).
In Scholem’s time, the bearers of the mystical tradition were regarded as ‘backward immigrants’ who reminded the new generation of secular Zionists of their gullible and superstitious past. As a consequence of this negative image of mystics and mysticism:
“[t]he academic study of Kabbalah afforded a degree of legitimacy to Jewish mysticism; at the same time, it justified marginalizing the bearers of that tradition within Israeli society” (Huss 2005:147).
Three exceptions
Surprisingly, though, there were three exceptions to Scholem’s disdain for his contemporary mystical movements and these were: the Chasidism of R. Ahrele Roth (Shomer Emunim), the Chabad movement, and, particularly, Rav Kook (who was, in his view, the last ‘productive’ Jewish mystic). Scholem’s connection to the mysticism of Rav Kook was clearly connected to the latter’s elevation of Zionism to a mystical ideology by acknowledging the sanctity within the secular. As for the rest of his contemporary mystical circles, Scholem considered them to be nothing more than charlatans (Huss 2005:148).
Perhaps echoing this perspective of Scholem, Huss (writing in 2005) notes that in contemporary Israeli universities, most of the studies conducted on contemporary mysticism are by folklorists, psychologists and anthropologists but:
“not one university has a course of study—or a scholar—devoting time to modern Jewish mysticism. Academic students of Kabbalah treat contemporary mysticism—to the extent they treat it at all—as outside the context of their scholarly work” (Huss 2025:148).
This attitude is reflected by researchers like Rachel Elior who considers writers like Yigal Aricha who produced works of practical Kabbalah, to be irrelevant to current realities. Similarly, Huss maintains quite strongly that:
“contemporary kabbalistic belief and practices (such as prostration on the graves of the righteous, ritual reading of the Zohar, and exorcism of dibbuqs) and the kabbalists who believe in and practice them are considered to be primitives, charlatans, and even a menace to modern Western-Israeli culture”.
Recent scholarly changes in attitude
This attitude of denigrating contemporary kabbalists seems to have been the legacy of Scholem. However, Huss points out that from the 1980s scholars like Eliot Wolfson, Moshe Idel and Yehudah Liebes began to change this perspective of Scholem and they critically (which doesn’t mean to criticise) investigated more recent mystical literature.
“In the context of this revision, the chronological framework of Jewish mysticism constructed by Scholem was broken…[as] scholars…became increasingly interested in various aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Kabbalah that had not been considered in Scholem’s studies” (Huss 2005:149).[11]
Moshe Idel has even suggested that investigators of Kabbalah should establish contact with contemporary kabbalists, to “enrich the academic conception regarding the essence of Kabbalah.”[12]
Yehudah Liebes has written:
“I do not share the opinion of colleagues who disparage the kabbalists who work among us—Rabbi Kadouri will not learn from me what Kabbalah is; rather, we investigators must learn from him.”[13]
However, Liebes attaches a caveat:
“When I began to study Kabbalah, I made several attempts to approach those referred to as kabbalists. It did not turn out well. I do not make an ideology of that. It was an aspect of it that I found less engaging, and I see that as a flaw. But I deal with written sources.”[14]
Jonathan Garb, in his 2002 article ‘The Understandable Revival of Mysticism in Our Time,’ attributes the current interest in mysticism to the dismantling of the modernist-rationalist narrative and the weakening of Western-Zionist cultural hegemony. Thus, in recent times, there have been some significant revisions in scholarly attitudes towards research on contemporary mysticism.
Scholem’s recently published diaries
However, there remains one aspect of Scholem that defies the picture of an academic investigating mysticism, who was aloof from the contemporary and practical world of Kabbalah.
Michael Brenner explains that there was another Scholem behind the academic façade. This was the Scholem in search of his roots, who refused to continue on his family's path of assimilation and left Berlin for Jerusalem.
Based on the recent publication of Scholem’s letters and diary, we now have a new insight into a little-known and surprising aspect of his psyche and spiritual make-up.[15] These diaries were personal and never meant to be shared with the wider public. Because of their window into the thoughts and feelings of Scholem, these diaries took some time to be published.
We read that the young Scholem was thrown out of both his home and his school. Against the will of his parents, he chose to study Hebrew and classical Jewish texts. We see that his father, Arthur Scholem, writes to his nineteen-year-old son:
"I have decided not to provide for you any more, and inform you of the following: You have to leave my apartment by March 1, and you won't enter it again without my permission.”[16]
Scholem became a proud Jew keen to discover his Judaism and even at the tender age of fifteen, he wrote:
“I relate everything that I see to Judaism, and view it as such. Perhaps one could call such a point of view one-sided. But that's the way I am" (Tagebucher, March 5, 1913).
Another aspect that emerges from the diaries is, by his own admission, Scholem’s sense of arrogance. This arrogant trait seemed to haunt him:
"But I can never create a story in which I do not play a most important role" (Tagebucher, December 12, 1915).
Additionally, Scholem wanted, more than anything else, to be a Jewish revolutionary:
"Our basis: that is Revolution! Revolution everywhere! We don't want reformation or remodelling, we want revolution or renewal" (Tagebucher, January 20, 1915).
Perhaps most significantly, at the age of seventeen, Scholem wrote:
“In this diary, I want to write down unadorned what I told myself clearly today and what I envisioned; I can't call it anything else…and since this [diary] is intended solely for my own use and for my eyes only, no rude mocker may creep up to me and hear my most secret liberating thoughts, and I won't have to accuse myself of megalomania" (Tagebucher, May 22).
Scholem, who was later to write so much about the false Messiah Shabbatai Tzvi who later converted to Islam, and the Sabbatian movement that followed in his wake, writes about his conviction that he (Scholem) is the Messiah!
And, reminiscent of Shabbatai Tzvi’s ‘prophet,’ R. Natan of Gaza, Scholem believed that Martin Buber (whom he had not yet met), then the hero of the Zionist youth, was to be his messianic assistant.
“[Buber] only wanted to prepare
the way for the greater one after him; he sacrificed himself for the other one,
his blood-comrade, whom he did not know yet. He was not the Redeemer...But the
quiet lad in Berlin felt the seed grow from within, as he read the strange ‘hero
stories’ of Buber and the deeds of the Baalshem in the days of the modern era.
And the young man went alone through the world and looked around for where the soul of his people waited for him. For he was deeply convinced that the soul of Judah went astray among the nations and waited in the Holy Land for the one who holds himself impudent enough to liberate her from exile and separation from her people. And he knew deep in his heart that he was the Chosen One, the one to seek and to find his people's soul. And the Dreamer-his name already marked him as the Awaited One: Scholem, the perfect one [Hebr. shalem-complete, perfect] prepared himself for his task and began to forge the weapons of knowledge” (Tagebucher, May 22, 1915).
A few months later, Scholem changed his mind and wrote:
“In this hour I no longer believe, as I once did, that I am the messiah.”
Brenner comments:
“Still, in the case of Scholem one would be ill-advised to dismiss such messianic pretensions as the inconsequential fantasies of a young lad who had come under Buber's influence. After all, it was Scholem who emerged as the major scholar of Jewish messianism in our century, and it was Scholem who wrote the authoritative biography of the most important pseudo-messiah, Shabbetai Zevi. To know, as we now do, that he thought of himself as the messiah gives us a clue to his later writings, and it might explain his scholarly interests more than any other motive” (Brenner 1997:179).
Analysis
There is something most ironic that emerges from this piece
of information concerning Scholem’s one-time messianic pretensions. Moshe Idel
had once accused Scholem of a certain aloofness to his (Scholem’s) topic of
mysticism and messianism. That was before the diaries had been publicised. We
now know that that may not have been the case. Scholem may have had a
deep-seated and personal interest in his topic. With these facts made available
to us, a re-reading of Scholem may produce a different and more nuanced
understanding of the clinical academic who became the first professor of Jewish
mysticism we all thought we knew so well.
[1]
Huss, B., 2005, ‘Ask No Questions: Gershom Scholem and the Study of
Contemporary Jewish Mysticism’, Modern Judaism, vol. 25, no. 2, 141-158.
[2]
Brenner, M.,1996, ‘From Self-Declared Messiah to Scholar of Jewish Mysticism:
The Recently Published Diaries Present Young Gerhard Scholem in a New Light’, Jewish
Social Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 177-182.
[3]
Scholem, G., 1961, Pirkei Yesod, Jerusalem, 86.
[4]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 71.
[5]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 71.
[6]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 82.
[7]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 26-7
[8]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 81-82). Square brackets are mine.
[9]
Hertzberg, A., 1987, ‘Gershom Scholem as Zionist and Believer’, in Gershom
Scholem, edited by H. Bloom, New York, 199.
[10]
Scholem, G., 1975, Devarim beGo, Tel Aviv, 71.
[11]
Square brackets are mine.
[12]
Idel, M., 1988, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, New Haven, 43.
[13]
Liebes, Y., 1995, ‘Reflections on the Religious Significance of Research on
Kabbalah’, in an interview with Ya’ir Sheleg, Kol ha-Ir, May 19, 1995).
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
Gershom Scholem, Tagebucher nebst Aufsatzen und Entwurfen bis 1923, vol.
1: 1913-1917, eds. Karlfried Grunder and Friedrich Niew6hner (Frankfurt a. M.,
1995); Gershom Scholem, Briefe 1: 1914-1947, ed. Itta Shedletzky (Munich, 1994).
[16]
Betty Scholem and Gershom Scholem, Mutter und Sohn im Briefwechsel:
1917-1946, ed. Itta Shedletzky (Munich, 1989).
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