Modern Jewish Thought

ערב רב: פנים וחוץ בוויכוח הפרנקיסטי הוא ספר מרתק וחדשני החושף את סיפורה הייחודי של התנועה הפרנקיסטית, תנועה יהודית אפיקורסית שצמחה בפולין והתפשטה במרכז אירופה במחצית השנייה של המאה ה-18.

בעיני רוב היהודים פרנק היה 'משיח שקר' ידוע לשמצה. בעיני נוצרים נאורים ומיסיונרים מילנריסטים היה יהודי-נוצרי ואדם חופשי בדעותיו, שלו קשרים מסתוריים והוא משתמש במגיה ובמאגרי עושר סודיים. עבור מאמיניו היה למבשר שחרור מן המסגרות המקובלות המדכאות של מגדר, הלכה, מעמד, משטר ודת.

התנועה הפרנקיסטית עוררה הדים והיתה סלע מחלוקת גם בקרב גורמים דתיים ופוליטיים לא יהודיים: יוזף השני, קתרינה הגדולה, גתה, קזנובה ואחרים. תורותיו של יעקב פרנק, מנהיג התנועה, הציבו אתגר בפני היהדות הנורמטיבית, אך גם בפני האסלאם וזרמים בנצרות. הספר מברר מחלוקות פנימיות ביהדות המודרנית אך דן גם ביחסים בין יהודים לסביבתם במאות ה-18–ה-19.

ערב רב מבוסס על מקורות פנימיים שחיברו פרנק ומאמיניו, על מקורות יהודיים פולמוסיים אנטי פרנקיסטיים, ועל מקורות שכתבו גורמים לא יהודיים בני הזמן. דרכו המוקצנת של יעקב פרנק עוררה עניין רב בו ובתנועתו, ולקורא מוגש ניתוח מעמיק של פרשה היסטורית ייחודית זו.
המחבר, ד"ר פאבל מצ'ייקו מן האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, חוקר את תולדות היהודים בפולין-ליטא בעת החדשה. נולד בוורשה וקיבל תואר דוקטור מאוניברסיטת אוקספורד. פרסומיו הרבים זיכו אותו בפרסים, במלגות ובמענקי מחקר רבים. שימש מרצה אורח באוניברסיטאות שונות, בארצות הברית, בצרפת, בגרמניה ובפולין.

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Researchers have long questioned how debunked myths such as the blood libel – the notion that Jews used Christian blood in their ceremonies – were able to persist for so long. This essay explains the social function of such myths in one context by presenting a public debate on Judaism carried out in the pages of the two leading Christian periodicals of the early eighteenth century in Germany. One journal put forth the orthodox Lutheran viewpoint, the other that of “Pietist” reformers. Through these journals, a battle took place for control of the Lutheran church, and thus for much of public life in Protestant Germany. Because Pietists believed Jews to hold a special place in God’s plan, they sought to rehabilitate Jews to their Christian readers and to argue for better conditions for Jewish communities. Orthodox Lutheran leaders quickly identified Pietists’ “Jew-friendly” policies as an Achilles’ heel. To attack Pietists, the orthodoxy dredged up and re-publicized centuries-old anti-Judaic propaganda, negative images that the orthodoxy linked to Pietists. Representatives of the Lutheran orthodoxy thus deployed anti-Judaic stereotypes in order to shore up their own church-political hegemony. Through this media manipulation, the Lutheran state church was able to seed fear among Christian readers and to argue that Pietist reformers and Jews were pollutants that needed to be cleansed from church and society.

R. Nahman's sermons, like classical midrash, are comprised of texts reading texts. Theological speculation is always contextual, emerging via imaginative interpretation rather than via pure philosophical argumentation. Yet, while it may be true that R. Nahman's use of Scripture in Likkutei MoHaRan resembles earlier models of classical midrash and Kabbala, these models serve quite a different purpose in his Hasidic imagination. 23 Unlike midrash, R. Nahman is not focused on opening the text for purposes of reading (or rereading) Scripture. Unlike classical Kabbala, R. Nahman does not exegetically construct his homilies in order to facilitate a mystical experience, reenact the historical event of Sinai, or convey esoteric knowledge. 24 He is interested in accomplishing at least three basic objectives: (1) to create a textual representation of his own inner life, the life of the zaddik of the generation, 25 disclosing and enveloping his imagination in the garments of midrashic reading and kabbalistic imagery (his is accomplished through the complex hermeneutical scheme of his homilies in Likkutei MoHaRan); (2) to transmit his advice regarding the ways of worship, both existentially and practically, in order to enable his disciples to embody his innovative understanding of devotion, enacted within the confines of the halakhic system but not identical to it 26 (this is accomplished in Sefer Kizur Likkutei MoHaRan, 27 Likkutei Ezot, Shivhei Ha-Ran, and other advice literature including R. Nathan Sternherz of Bratslav's multivolume Likkutei Halakhot); and (3) to transcend normative modes of Torah discourse by conveying its essential messages in the garments of fable narratives. This third objective serves three distinct functions all of which have messianic implications: (a) to perfect the imaginative faculty as a prerequisite of prophecy and the necessary precursor to the messianic era; 28 (b) to "awaken the masses from slumber," an allusion to the depth of exile where the exiled lose consciousness of their exilic state; and (c) to universalize Torah by transcending its external (rabbinic) framework, i.e., text and exegesis, making way for a return to the institution of prophecy. 29 This is accomplished in his interpretations of the Raba Bar bar Hana agadot in Likkutei MoHaRan and later in his thirteen tales. 30

A lthough not usually viewed as a manifestation of modern spirituality, hasidism strikingly resembles a product of the spiritual and ideological reorientation of Western religion in the post-Copernican world.2 Largely unaware of the philosophical and theological changes in European intellectual culture, many of the hasidic masters exhibited a sensitivity to the existential plight of humankind in the modern world. tUnless otherwise indicated, translations and italics throughout the article are mine.

N.B. The interested reader is invited to turn to the expanded and more fully annotated Hebrew version of this article, to appear in the volume Ma'or va-Shemesh: History, Philosophy, Lore and Legacy, edited by Levi Cooper, Ariel Evan Mayse and Zvi Mark (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, forthcoming).

Each of the three great religions of the Western tradition is based upon a narrative that stands at the centre of its faith. For Judaism, it is the Exodus from Egypt and the receiving of Torah at Mount Sinai; for Christianity, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ; for Islam, the hijra and the revelation to Muhammad. Each sees its own narrative as standing at the centre of human history as the 'greatest story ever told', and its truth (however that term is conceived) is vital to all the faithful. Each of these faiths also bears a long history of more abstract theological truth claims, involving such issues as the unity (or trinity) of God, providence, divine authority for the rule of law, the importance of good works, and so forth. In these, the traditions may be shown to have much in common with one another, making for interesting conversation across religious lines. But the core narratives seem to stand in eternal competition with one another, and it is in their utter loyalty to them that the faiths and their faithful remain most deeply divided.

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Rabbi Yitshak Hutner (1906-1980) was a remarkable scholar, an enigmatic religious intellectual and a charismatic teacher. Drawing upon his public discourses and his written letters, I argue that Hutner's vocabulary-which remained rooted almost entirely in the vocabulary of traditional Talmudism-afforded him a ready garment in which to clothe a syncretic educational theory, which combines Hasidic approaches to spiritual instruction and remakes the traditions of Lithuanian piety and study for his new American audience. The present study interrogates a series of key themes that appear in Hutner's teachings, all of which pertain to issues of pedagogy and the construction of religious education. The essay advances a historical argument by examining the works of an important and influential modern Jewish thinker, but it is also driven by a constructive question: What does Hutner's vision of Jewish religious teaching and learning have to contribute to today's Jewish education, and to the broader world of higher education in North America in particular?

This essay interrogates the legal discourse of Shulḥan ha-Tahor, a curious-and curiously understudied-work of Hasidic halakhah written by Rabbi Yitzḥak Ayzik Yehudah Yehiel Safrin of Komarno. The book is, at heart, a systematic reformulation of Jewish law in light of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and the quest for personal mystical experience. Shulḥan ha-Tahor offers a rare case study for the interface of mystical experience , Hasidic devotional values, and kabbalistic doctrine as they explicitly shape the codified forms-and norms-of halakhah. The essay reveals a different side of Jewish modernity through a close reading of an exceptional nineteenth-century legal code.

The doctrine of the �addiq stands as the very epicenter of Hasidic spirituality. Described by Arthur Green as an axis mundi Hasidism's �addiqism is considered by many to be the most, perhaps only, truly innovative dimension of Hasidic mysticism. 1 Linking the �addiq with 'yesod'in both its literal and later kabbalistic meaningsbegins in rabbinic literature, reading the verse ve Saddik yesod 'olam ( .. .. and the Saddiq is the foundation of the world, Proverbs 10:25). This linkage continues as kabbalistic nomenclature (yesod marking the ninth sefirah) is applied to biblical verses and rabbinic dicta.2 • 2 I would like to thank Nathaniel Berman for our l;avruta in Koppel's writings See, Arthur Green, 'The Zaddiq as Axis Mun di' Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45 (1997), pp. 327-347. In terms of the doctrine of the saddiq as the only real innovation of Hasidism, see Mendel Pierkarz, Be-Yemei Zemikhat ha-lfasidut, Jerusalem' 1978, pp. 28-304 and idem, lfasidut Polin, .

When Kabbalah came, it made of God a human; when Hasidism came, it made of the human a God. -Rashbatz [The Jew] is not an independent being; rather, all of his existence is the existence of the Holy One, Blessed be He! -Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Hitva'aduyot Tashmav (5746), 515 ‫גט‬ ‫שטיקל‬ ‫א‬ ‫איז‬ ‫ייד‬ ‫א‬ ‫ט(‬ ‫ל"ב‬ ‫)דברים‬ ‫עמו‬ ‫ה"‬ ‫חלק‬ ‫כי‬ -Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Yishmaru Da'at, 44

Ayalon Eidelstein’s Openness and Faith focuses on the centrality of the idea of openness, or open-mindedness, to the educational sphere. The first half presents the challenges in modern ‘divided-consciousness’ and its consequences of egoism, materialism, and hedonism on the one hand, and religious fanatism on the other. Eidelstein’s main audience is the Israeli secular public, to which he proposes an educational and philosophical middle-way rooted in sincere human and inter-human openness. This openness is inspired by the idea of disinterestedness that Kant articulates in his Critique of Judgment. Eidelstein refers to additional authors, including Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas, to conceptualize the idea of open-mindedness. In the second half of the book, he engages classical American Pragmatism, specifically that of William James, in order to establish the possibility for, and the validity of, a humane open-mindedness. Pragmatism thus paves the way for accepting beliefs that may otherwise be excluded as superstitions and accords them a legitimate and productive role in the life of a modern individual.
The difficulty, however, lies in Eidelstein’s employment of Kantian disinterestedness, for it is in fact seriously dissonant with the worthy pragmatic educational purposes that Eidelstein elaborates in the second half of his book. Pragmatism is opposed to disinterestedness in that it stresses the entanglement of fact and value, viewing interests as playing a necessary and productive part in moral motivation and action, while Kantian deontology eliminates consequentialism from the moral scope. While for pragmatists (for example John Dewey’s Democracy and Education) the human creature is holistically conceived, as made of flesh and blood and not only as ‘spirit’, Kant maintained the dualistic Cartesian tradition.
This tension calls for a rigorous address. Since Eidelstein’s book is making an important claim about the place open-mindedness has within the Judaism, it must be noted that the disinterestedness of a presumed human ‘self’ is also not easily compatible with the dominant voices in normative Jewish tradition. The Bible does not deal to a large extent with the ‘self’ or with mental intentions, and its conception of the human is not categorically different in the Talmudic corpus. On the contrary, the rabbis frequently endorse pragmatic and ‘external’ reasons, as the motivational basis for action. The kind of purism associated with disinterestedness (as in Mishnah Avot 5:18-19) is barely represented in rabbinic thought.
Openness and Faith: In Search of Cultural Education Here and Now is nevertheless an important contribution to the intellectual discourse over the individual and public virtues. In our ever-more segregated and fenced-off world, there is an urgency to delineating the virtue of openness, hoping that Ecclesiastes is right in contending that “No person has power over the spirit [רוח] to retain it” (8:8). But to make Eidelstein’s point about openness in the second half of his book educationally viable, there a need for a pragmatic refinement of the philosophical anthropology in its first half. One way or the other, Openness and Faith is praiseworthy for its articulateness and depth, which invites its readers to an open-minded conversation about the concept of openness.