Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth-Century Hasidic Thought

400 Pages·1993·52.589 MB·English

by  Rivka Schatz Uffenheimer, Jonathan Chipman

HASIDISM AS MYSTICISM

RIVKA SCHATZ UFFENHEIMER
HASIDISM AS MYSTICISM
Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth
Century Hasidic Thought
Translated from the Hebrew by Jonathan Chipman
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
THE MAGNES PRESS, THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM
Published with the assistance of
The Louis and Minna Epstein Fund
of the American Academy for Jewish Research
Copyright © 1993 by The Magnes Press,
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
AU rights reserved
First Published in the U.S.A. by
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS,
41 William Street
Princeton, N.J. 08540-5237
And in the United Kingdom, by Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex
Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of
the Council on Library Resources.
Printed in Israel
Typesetting: Keterpress Enterprises, Jerusalem
Printing: Graph-Chen Press, Jerusalem
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schatz Uffenheimer, Rivka.
[Hasidut ke-mistikah. English]
Hasidism as mysticism: quietistic elements in eighteenth century hasidic thought/Rivka Schatz
Uffenheimer: translated from the Hebrew by Jonathan Chipman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indices.
ISBN 0-691-03223-8
I. Hasidism-History-20th century. 2. Quietism. 3. Cabala. 4. Dov Baer, of Mezhirech, d. 1772.
5. Mysticism-J udaism.
I. Title.
BM198.S29713 1993 92-31378
296.8'332—dc20 CIP
To my beloved husband Binyamin

Contents
Foreword 9
Introduction 15
Chapter One The Basic Argument of Quietism 65
Chapter Two The Concept of Annihilation (0Ayin) and the
Extinction of Human Will 67
Chapter Three The Standing of Existential Problems 80
Chapter Four Despair, Sadness, Regret and Their Connection
with Sin 93
Chapter Five The Status of the Mizvot 111
Chapter Six Petitionary Prayer and Its Position in Hasidism 144
Chapter Seven Contemplative Prayer 168
Chapter Eight Divine Immanence and the Question of Prophecy 189
Chapter Nine The World of Speech and the World of Thought 204
Chapter Ten The Doctrine of Kavvanot and its Place in Hasidism 215
Chapter Eleven Anarchic Manifestations in Hasidic Life 242
Chapter Twelve Habad'. Anti-Spiritualism as a Quietistic Value 255
Chapter Thirteen Diary of an Agnostic: “I Know Not” as a Quietistic
Value 290
Chapter Fourteen The Problem of Torah Study in Hasidism 310
Chapter Fifteen History and National Redemption 326
Afterword 340
Appendix: The Bacal Shem Tov’s Commentary to Psalm 107:
Myth and Ritual of the Descent to She3Ol 342
Bibliography 383
Index of Names 393
Index of Subjects 396

Foreword
The present work is an attempt to examine a number of spiritual problems
involved in the eighteenth century Hasidic movement. Numerous historical
studies, monographs and memoirs have been written concerning this movement,
which originated towards the end of the first half of the eighteenth century, but
hardly anything has been written concerning the phenomenology of Hasidism from
a philological-historical viewpoint. No accounting on a theoretical level has been
rendered to date of this highly significant movement in our history.
The Hasidic movement was borne upon the successive waves of crises involving
Sabbatianism, Frankism, Enlightenment, Zionism, and the confrontation with
external challenges, each one of which was a unique chapter unto itself. While some
dim light has been shed upon these chapters, our knowledge of the internal history
of Hasidism of its first hundred and fifty years, both from a social and from a
theological viewpoint, is extremely fragmentary.
It is no longer possible to accept the approach of “erecting monuments to the
memory of Hasidism” as one answering the needs of the present. The emotionalist
element underlying this kind of writing, whether deliberate or unintentional,
destroys the capacity for understanding and evaluation, and often obscures
problems rather than illumines them. It may be that the historical distance and
social changes occurring in our own generation will contribute to the balancing of
our judgment and raising the standards suitable for such an evaluation.
There are a number of objective difficulties standing in the way of the
contemporary scholar in this field, with regard to the literary-historical aspect.
First, the sources are written as homilies, thus constituting a problem in their own
right. Second, one confronts here the problem of the unique Hasidic terminology,
composed of all the various layers of Jewish culture, including that of Kabbalah.
In order to distinguish the terminological innovation of Hasidism, one needs to
discern how it differed from that which came before it: there is at present no
existing lexicon which can serve as a guide for those wishing to study this subject.
The only Hasidic source which has appeared in a critical, explicated edition is this
author’s edition of the Maggid of Mezhirech’s Maggid Devarav le-Ya^aqov,
published by Magnes Press in 1976 (second, enlarged edition, 1990), which
contains at the end a lexicon with entries built in the above manner.
In the present work, I propose to examine one of the most interesting features
of Hasidic thought — the quietistic elements within Hasidism. To analyze these