Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the
Kaballah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defin ...
, Scholem was appointed the first professor of
Jewish Mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 1 ...
at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
.
Scholem is acknowledged by the sages as the single most significant figure in the recovery, collection, annotation, and registration into rigorous Jewish scholarship of the canonical bibliography of mysticism and scriptural commentary that runs through its primordial phase in the ''
Sefer Yetzirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
,'' its inauguration in the ''
Bahir
''Bahir'' or ''Sefer HaBahir'' ( he, סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר, ; "Book of Clarity" or "Book of Illumination") is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah (a contemporary of Yochanan ben Zakai ...
Zohar
The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five ...
'' to its cosmogonic, apocalyptic climax in Isaac Luria's ''
Ein Sof
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, he, '; meaning "infinite", ), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's ( 1021 – 1070) term, "the Endless O ...
'' that is known collectively as
Kabballah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defi ...
.
After generations of demoralization and assimilation in the European enlightenment, the disappointment of messianic hopes, the famine of 1916 in Palestine, and the catastrophe of the
Final Solution
The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...
in Europe Scholem gathered and reassembled these sacred texts from many of the archives that had been disarranged, orphaned, confiscated under Nazi rule or otherwise washed up in
Genizah
A genizah (; , also ''geniza''; plural: ''genizot'' 'h''or ''genizahs'') is a storage area in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery designated for the temporary storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper ceme ...
cataloging the flood of fragments and disordered, decontextualized manuscripts into an annotated and relatively organized sequence of texts available to scholars and seekers within the reception of this tradition. Many other Jewish scholars assisted in this process of recovery once it was underway, but it is broadly recognized that Scholem initiated this process of textual and archival recovery and rebirth.
As Scholem points out in his memoirs, the canon of sacred Jewish writings from the diaspora and the middle ages (re: "
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
") had fallen into such a state of disrepair and oblivion—fragmented and effaced by persecutions from without as well as contortions, conversions and schisms from within Judaism—that many of the "finest writings..." from the major currents of Jewish mysticism could only be found in long block quotations in antisemitic texts, where some "nincompoop who had quoted and translated the most wonderful, the most profound things," had assembled them "in order to decry them as blasphemies." (This was a strong, somewhat exaggerated statement for expressive effect that Scholem attributes to
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...
in his memoirs—but there he co-signs the sentiment and appropriates it as his own description of the state of affairs in other places.)
Thanks to Scholem's efforts, and those of his students and colleagues, this state of affairs would be significantly remedied after the end of the World Wars and the foundation of the modern state of Israel where Scholem worked as head librarian of the National Library in Jerusalem.
Biography
Gerhard (Gershom) Scholem was born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
to Arthur Scholem and Betty Hirsch Scholem. His father was a printer. His older brother was the German Communist leader
Werner Scholem
Werner Scholem (29 December 1895 – 17 July 1940) was a member of the German Reichstag in 1924 to 1928 and a leading member of the Communist Party of Germany. Scholem and his wife, Emmy, were portrayed in the 2014 documentary "Between Utopia and ...
. He studied
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
with an
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
rabbi.
Scholem met
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
in Munich in 1915, when the former was seventeen years old and the latter was twenty-three. They began a lifelong friendship that ended when Benjamin committed suicide in 1940 in the wake of Nazi persecution. Scholem dedicated his book ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (''Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen''), based on lectures 1938–1957, to Benjamin. In 1915 Scholem enrolled at the
Frederick William University Friedrich Wilhelm University (German: ''Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität'') may refer to:
* Humboldt University of Berlin, called ''Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität'' from 1828 to 1949, and sometimes known in English as Frederick William University
* ...
in Berlin (today,
Humboldt University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...
), where he studied mathematics, philosophy, and Hebrew. There he met
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
,
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon ( he, שמואל יוסף עגנון; July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970) was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon (). In English, his works are published und ...
,
Hayim Nahman Bialik
Hayim Nahman Bialik ( he, חיים נחמן ביאַליק; January 9, 1873 – July 4, 1934), was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry. He was part of the vangu ...
,
Ahad Ha'am
Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am ( he, אחד העם, lit. 'one of the people', Genesis 26:10), was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zi ...
, and
Zalman Shazar
Zalman Shazar ( he, זלמן שז"ר; born Shneur Zalman Rubashov; be, Шнэер За́льман Рубашо́ў; russian: Шне́ер За́лмен Рубашо́в; November 24, 1889 – October 5, 1974) was an Israeli politician, author ...
.
In Berlin, Scholem befriended
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...
and corresponded with him throughout his life. He studied
mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...
at the
University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
under
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic phil ...
. He was in Bern in 1918 with Benjamin when he met Elsa (Escha) Burchhard, who became his first wife. Scholem returned to Germany in 1919, where he received a degree in
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
at the
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
. Together with Benjamin he established a fictitious school – the University of Muri.
Scholem wrote his doctoral thesis on the oldest known kabbalistic text, '' Sefer ha-Bahir''. The following year it appeared in book form as "Das Buch Bahir", having been published by his father's publishing house.
Drawn to
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
and influenced by Buber, he
immigrated
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
in 1923 to the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to:
* Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
* Mandatory P ...
. It may be considered notable that though Scholem's allegiance to the Zionist cause (or the reclamation of Palestine by the Jewish diaspora) is incontrovertible, his relationship to the manifest ethics of Zionism was more ambiguous and critical than Buber's.
After his emigration from Berlin to Palestine, Scholem became a librarian, heading the Department of Hebrew and Judaica at the National Library. In 1927 he revamped the
Dewey Decimal System
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject.
Section 4.1 ...
, making it appropriate for large Judaica collections. Scholem's brother Werner was a member of the ultra-left "Fischer-Maslow Group" and the youngest ever member of the Reichstag, or Weimar
Diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
, representing the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
. He was expelled from the party and later murdered by the Nazis during the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Unlike his brother, Gershom was vehemently opposed to both
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
. In 1936, he married his second wife, Fania Freud. Fania, who had been his student and could read Polish, was helpful in his later research, particularly in regard to
Jacob Frank
Jacob Joseph Frank ( he, יעקב פרנק; pl, Jakub Józef Frank; born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – December 10, 1791) was a Polish Jews, Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbata ...
.
In 1946 Scholem was sent by the Hebrew University to search for Jewish books that had been plundered by the Nazis and help return them to their rightful owners. He spent much of the year in Germany and Central Europe as part of this project, known as "Otzrot HaGolah".
Scholem died in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, where he is buried next to his wife in the
Sanhedria Cemetery
Sanhedria Cemetery ( he, בית עלמין סנהדריה) is a 27-dunam (6.67-acre) Jewish burial ground in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Jerusalem, adjacent to the intersection of Levi Eshkol Boulevard, Shmuel HaNavi Street, and Bar-Ilan Str ...
.
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
delivered the eulogy.
Academic career
Scholem became a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He taught the Kabbalah and mysticism from a scientific point of view and became the first professor of Jewish mysticism at the university in 1933, working in this post until his retirement in 1965, when he became an emeritus professor.
Scholem directly contrasted his historiographical approach on the study of Jewish
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
with the approach of the 19th-century school of the ''
Wissenschaft des Judentums
"''Wissenschaft des Judentums''" (Literally in German the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the US it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies," a wide academic field of inquiry in American Universities) ...
'' ("Science of Judaism"), which sought to submit the study of Judaism to the discipline of subjects such as
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
philology
Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
, and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
. According to Jeremy Adler, Scholem's thinking was "both recognizably Jewish and deeply German," and "changed the course of twentieth-century European thought."
Jewish mysticism was acknowledged as Judaism's weakest scholarly link by many of the scholars, publishers and cultural leaders of the Jewish community and gentile German scholars who sponsored Scholem's early career, including
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
,
Salman Schocken
Salman Schocken or Shlomo Zalman Schocken ( he, שלמה זלמן שוקן) (October 30, 1877 August 6, 1959) was a German Jewish publisher, and co-founder of the large Kaufhaus Schocken chain of department stores in Germany. Stripped of his citi ...
,
Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (, ; 25 December 1886 – 10 December 1929) was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator.
Early life and education
Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His fa ...
,
Robert Eisler
Robert Eisler (27 April 1882 – 17 December 1949) was an Austrian Jewish polymath who wrote about the topics of mythology, comparative religion, the Gospels, monetary policy, art history, history of science, psychoanalysis, politics, astrology, ...
Fritz Hommel
Fritz Hommel (31 July 1854 – 17 April 1936) was a German Orientalist.
Biography
Hommel was born in Ansbach. He studied in Leipzig and was habilitated in 1877 in Munich, where in 1885, he became an extraordinary professor of Semitic languag ...
and
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
.
Scholem told the story of his early research "at the start of my path" in 1922 when he went to Berlin to visit "the only Jewish scholar scholar who had engaged in the study of Kabbalah in the previous generation."* Gesturing at the rabbi's library of documents, manuscripts and autographs written by the authors of the Kabbalah, some of which had been inscribed in early modern or
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
centuries, Scholem remarked, "How wonderful it is, Herr Professor, that you have read and learned all this!" to which "...the elderly gentleman replied: 'What! And I ''also'' have to ''read'' all this nonsense?!"*(Though he does not mention the name of the Rabbi in his canonical account of this visit, Scholem explains elsewhere that this scholar-- once the Rabbi of Poznan—was Phillip Bloch. )
The analysis of Judaism carried out by the ''Wissenschaft'' school was flawed in two ways, according to Scholem: It studied Judaism as a dead object rather than as a living organism; and it did not consider the proper ''foundations'' of Judaism, the non-rational force that, in Scholem's view, made the religion a living thing.
In Scholem's opinion, the mythical and mystical components were at least as important as the rational ones, and he thought that they, rather than the minutiae of
Halakha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...
, were the truly living core of Judaism. In particular, he disagreed with what he considered to be
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
's personalization of Kabbalistic concepts as well as what he argued was an inadequate approach to Jewish history, Hebrew language, and the
land of Israel
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...
.
In the
worldview
A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural p ...
of Scholem, the research of Jewish mysticism could not be separated from its historical context. Starting from something similar to the ''Gegengeschichte'' of
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
, he ended up including less normative aspects of Judaism in the public history.
Specifically, Scholem in his scholarly writing that Jewish history could be divided into three periods:
*During the
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
period,
monotheism
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford ...
battles
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
without completely defeating it.
*During the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ic period, some of the institutions—for example, the notion of the magical power of the accomplishment of the Sacraments—are removed in favour of the purer concept of the divine
transcendence
Transcendence, transcendent, or transcendental may refer to:
Mathematics
* Transcendental number, a number that is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients
* Algebraic element or transcendental element, an element of a field exten ...
.
*During the medieval period, the impossibility of reconciling the abstract concept of God of
ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
with the personal
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
of the Bible, led Jewish thinkers, such as
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
, to try to eliminate the remaining myths and to modify the figure of the living God. After this time, mysticism, as an effort to find again the essence of the God of their fathers, became more widespread.
Elsewhere, in oral presentation or informal reflection, Scholem inflected the three periods within a different frame of reference: there was the primordial inscription and enunciation of the Law in the Torah and the Talmud, the mystical reflections of the Kaballah, and the post-metaphysical phase of mystical writings represented by (for example) the writings of Franz Kafka or the critical mysticism of his friend and correspondent Walter Benjamin. Scholem often told his students that the modern reader must read Franz Kafka in order to enter into the frame of mind native to the Kaballah, and elsewhere remarked that, "among the peculiarities" Benjamin's writings was its "enormous suitability for canonization; I might almost say for quotation as a kind of Holy Writ."
The notion of the three periods, with its interactions between rational and irrational elements in Judaism, led Scholem to put forward some controversial arguments. He thought that the 17th century messianic movement, known as
Sabbateanism
The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676),
a Sephardic Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza.
Vast n ...
, was developed from the
Lurianic Kabbalah
Lurianic Kabbalah is a school of kabbalah named after Isaac Luria (1534–1572), the Jewish rabbi who developed it. Lurianic Kabbalah gave a seminal new account of Kabbalistic thought that its followers synthesised with, and read into, the earlie ...
. In order to neutralize Sabbateanism,
Hasidism
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
had emerged as a
Hegelian synthesis
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
. Many of those who joined the Hasidic movement, because they had seen in it an
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
congregation, considered it scandalous that their community should be associated with a heretical movement.
In the same way, Scholem produced the hypothesis that the source of the 13th century Kabbalah was a Jewish
gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...
that preceded Christian gnosticism.
The historiographical approach of Scholem also involved a linguistic theory. In contrast to Buber, Scholem believed in the power of the language to invoke supernatural phenomena. In contrast to
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
, he put the
Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
in a privileged position with respect to other languages, as the only language capable of revealing the divine truth. His special regard for the spiritual potency of the Hebrew language was expressed in his 1926 letter to
Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (, ; 25 December 1886 – 10 December 1929) was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator.
Early life and education
Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His fa ...
regarding his concerns over the "secularization" of Hebrew. Scholem considered the Kabbalists as interpreters of a pre-existent linguistic revelation.
Friends, Colleagues & Canonical Affinities
Scholem's closest peers included, most famously,
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
and
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...
.
Though his relationship with
Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (, ; 25 December 1886 – 10 December 1929) was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator.
Early life and education
Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His fa ...
was of shorter duration, it was also a deeply influential one. Likewise, though Scholem was never directly introduced to
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
, he found out later in life that Kafka approved of his comments in a debate. Scholem and Benjamin's discussion Kafka, spanning decades, played no small role in the elevation Kafka's literary and epistolary writings to canonical status in both secular and mystical literature as writing that was prophetic or premonitory of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
while also having qualities of a kind of post-metaphysical kabbalah.
It is a measure of the depth of Scholem's friendship with Benjamin that he wrote two memoirs at the end of his life: his own autobiography tends to be less read or frequently cited than his "Autobiography of a Friendship" recounting his lifelong relationship and work in partnership with Benjamin prior to the latter's death in flight from the Gestapo in 1940. In addition to his Kabbalah scholarship, a significant portion of Scholem's working life postwar was spent recovering, editing and promoting the literary estate of his dead friend.
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
was a patron, publisher and sponsor of the careers of both Scholem and his best friend
Benjamin
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
(despite Benjamin's frequent ingratitude and incorrigible blowing of deadlines and Scholem's occasionally scathing critiques of the elder figure).
Though Scholem's relationships with
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
,
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blueger, ...
, and
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...
were more characteristically turbulent than those relationship just mentioned, the frequent citation of these figures in Scholem's published writings and private correspondence demonstrates that they were among his closest and most influential colleagues. Selected letters from his correspondence with thinkers, critics and philosophers have been published.
Though appearing as a friend and protegé late in his career,
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.
Biography
Cynthia Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Belarusian-Jewish parents from Hlusk, ...
merits mention among those in Scholem's inner-circle. His late-career relationships with
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
, and
George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the ...
were also significant (though his relationship with Steiner was, characteristically, somewhat combative). Scholem was also friendly with the author
Shai Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon ( he, שמואל יוסף עגנון; July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970) was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon (). In English, his works are published und ...
and the Talmudic scholar
Saul Lieberman
Saul Lieberman (Hebrew: שאול ליברמן, May 28, 1898 – March 23, 1983), also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or, among some of his students, The ''Gra"sh'' (''Gaon Rabbeinu Shaul''), was a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar. He served as Professo ...
.
As a major, unofficial but widely acknowledged figurehead of mystical, historical and theological currents within both
Reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...
and (much more controversially)
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism, known as Masorti Judaism outside North America, is a Jewish religious movement which regards the authority of ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions as coming primarily from its people and community through the generatio ...
after World War II and the Destruction of the European Jewry in the Holocaust, Scholem's stature within Jewish tradition is roughly comparable to the role played before the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and during the interwar period by
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
's book, ''
Eichmann in Jerusalem
''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
'' and decried her lack of solidarity with the Jewish people ( he, אהבת ישראל "love of one's fellow Jews", ''ʾahəvaṯ ʾiśrāʾēl''). Arendt responded that she never loved any collective group, and that she does not love the Jewish people but was only part of them. The bitter fight, which was exchanged in various articles, led to a rift between Scholem and Arendt though they remained mutually respectful thereafter and continued to work alongside one another on various projects, particularly in their work on the literary estate of Walter Benjamin. In an apparently wrathful moment, Scholem wrote to Hans Paeschke that he "knew Hannah Arendt when she was a socialist or half-communist and... when she was a Zionist. I am astounded by her ability to pronounce upon movements in which she was once so deeply engaged, in terms of a distance measured in light years and from such sovereign heights." Differing perspectives on the appropriate penalty for Adolph Eichmann further illuminate differences between the two authors. Whereas Arendt felt that Eichmann should be executed, Scholem was opposed, fearing that his execution would serve to alleviate the Germans' collective sense of guilt.
Awards and recognition
* In 1958, Scholem was awarded the
Israel Prize
The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor.
History
The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...
in Jewish studies.
* In 1968, he was elected president of the
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on re ...
.
* In 1969, he received the
Yakir Yerushalayim Yakir Yerushalayim ( he, יַקִּיר יְרוּשָׁלַיִם; en, Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) is an annual citizenship prize in Jerusalem, inaugurated in 1967.
The prize is awarded annually by the municipality of the City of Jerusalem to o ...
(Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award. City of Jerusalem official website
* In 1977, he was awarded the
Bialik Prize
The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel, for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Israel's national poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Hayim Nahman Biali ...
for
Jewish thought
Jewish thought ( he, מחשבת ישראל, ''Machshevet Yisrael'', or ''machshavah''), also known as Judaic thought or Hebraic thought, is a field of Jewish studies that deals with the products of Jewish thought and culture throughout the ages, an ...
.
Literary influence
Various stories and essays of the Argentinian writer
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...
were inspired or influenced by Scholem's books. He has also influenced ideas of
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...
,
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
,
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
, Italian philosopher
Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben ( , ; born 22 April 1942) is an Italian philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception, form-of-life (borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein) and '' homo sacer''. The concept of biopolitics ( ...
, and
George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the ...
. American author
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon ( ;
born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...
Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 – July 23, 2002) was an American author and rabbi. His first book ''The Chosen'' (1967), was listed on ''The New York Times’'' best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies.
Biography
H ...
's '' The Book of Lights'' features a lightly disguised Scholem as "Jacob Keter."
Selected works in English
* ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'', 1941
* ''Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition'', 1960
* Arendt and Scholem, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: Exchange of Letters between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt", in ''
Encounter
Encounter or Encounters may refer to:
Film
*''Encounter'', a 1997 Indian film by Nimmala Shankar
* ''Encounter'' (2013 film), a Bengali film
* ''Encounter'' (2018 film), an American sci-fi film
* ''Encounter'' (2021 film), a British sci-fi film
*E ...
'', 22/1, 1964
* ''The Messianic Idea in Judaism and other Essays on Jewish Spirituality'', trans. 1971
* ''Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah'', 1973
* ''From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of My Youth'', 1977; trans. Harry Zohn, 1980.
* ''Kabbalah'', Meridian 1974, Plume Books 1987 reissue:
* ''Walter Benjamin: the Story of a Friendship'', trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1981.
* ''Origins of the Kabbalah'', JPS, 1987 reissue:
* ''On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah'', 1997
* ''The Fullness of Time: Poems'', trans.
Richard Sieburth
Richard Sieburth (born 1949) is Professor Emeritus of French Literature, Thought and Culture and Comparative Literature at New York University (NYU).
* ''On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays''
* ''On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism''
* ''Zohar — The Book of Splendor: Basic Readings from the Kabbalah'', ed.
* ''On History and Philosophy of History'', in "Naharaim: Journal for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History", v, 1–2 (2011), pp. 1–7.
* ''On Franz Rosenzweig and his Familiarity with Kabbala Literature'', in "Naharaim: Journal for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History", vi, 1 (2012), pp. 1–6.
See also
*
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
*
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish ...
*
Joseph Dan
Joseph Dan (, 1935 – 23 July 2022) was an Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism. He taught for over 40 years in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the first incumbent of the Gershom Scholem Chair ...
*
Rachel Elior
Rachel Elior (born 28 December 1949) is an Israeli professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Jerusalem, Israel. Her principal subjects of research has been Hasidism and the history of early Jewish mysticism.
Academ ...
*
Arthur Green
Arthur Green ( he, אברהם יצחק גרין, born March 21, 1941) is an American scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian. He was a founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston, where he ...
References
Further reading
*Avriel Bar-Levav On the Absence of a Book from a Library: Gershom Scholem and the Shulhan Arukh Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 6 (2009): 71–73
*Engel Amir University of Chicago Press, 2017.
* Biale, David. ''Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History'', second ed., 1982.
*Bloom, Harold, ed. ''Gershom Scholem'', 1987.
*Campanini, Saverio, ''A Case for Sainte-Beuve. Some Remarks on Gershom Scholem's Autobiography'', in P. Schäfer – R. Elior (edd.), ''Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought''. Festschrift in Honor of
Joseph Dan
Joseph Dan (, 1935 – 23 July 2022) was an Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism. He taught for over 40 years in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the first incumbent of the Gershom Scholem Chair ...
on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, Tübingen 2005, pp. 363–400.
*Campanini, Saverio, ''Some Notes on Gershom Scholem and Christian Kabbalah'', in Joseph Dan (ed.), ''Gershom Scholem in Memoriam'', Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, 21 (2007), pp. 13–33. F. Dal Bo, Between sand and stars: Scholem and his translation of Zohar 22a-26b [Ita.], in "Materia Giudaica", VIII, 2, 2003, pp. 297–309 – Analysis of Scholem's translation of Zohar I, 22a-26b
*Jacobson, Eric, ''Metaphysics of the Profane – The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem'', (Columbia University Press, NY, 2003).
* Lucca, Enrico, ''Between History and Philosophy of History. Comments on an unpublished Document by Gershom Scholem'', in "Naharaim", v, 1–2 (2011), pp. 8–16.
* Lucca, Enrico, ''Gershom Scholem on Franz Rosenzweig and the Kabbalah. Introduction to the Text'', in "Naharaim", vi, 1 (2012), pp. 7–19.
*Mirsky, Yehudah, Gershom Scholem, 30 Years On , (Jewish Ideas Daily, 2012).
*Heller Wilensky, Sarah, See the letters from Joseph Weiss to Sarah Heller Wilensky in "Joseph Weiss, Letters to Ora" in A. Raoport-Albert (Ed.) Hasidism reappraised. London: Littman Press, 1977.
*Robinson, G. ''Essential Judaism'', Pocket Books, 2000.