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Gershom Scholem: Charisma, "Kairos" and the Messianic DialecticAuthor(s): Amos Funkenstein and Bill TemplerSource: History and Memory, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1992), pp. 123-140Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25618629.

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Amos Funkenstein

Gershom Scholem:

Charisma,

Kairos

and theMessianic Dialectic

1.

Formulating

the

Problem

Gershom

Scholem

devoted

virtually

his

entire lifework

to

the

study

of

the

Kabbalah,

its

origins

and

impact.

His

towering

achievement reflects farmore than "une vie d'analyse pour

un

moment

de

synthese,"

to

modulate that

well-known

maxim

coined

by

the classical

historian Fustel

de

Coulanges

-

a

motto,

by

the

way,

that

was

likewise

hardly

applicable

as a

characterization

even

of

its author.

Roughly

the first fifteen

years

of Scholem's

academic

creativity

centered

on

a

formidable

task: the

systematic tracking

down

and

evaluation

of

kabbalistic

texts

in

European

libraries and archives. In the

years

that

followed,

he assembled

these

voluminous

materials,

rendered accessible by dint of his meticulous philological

spadework,

fashioning

them

into the

grand

architectonic

design

of

an

imposing historiographic

edifice. Scholem

delineated

a

painstakingly

precise picture

of

the

origins

and

transformations

of

Jewish

mysticism,

isolated

many

of

its

major

motifs

in

a

series of

separate

monographs

and

wrote

the

early

history

of

the Shabbatean

movement.

His

approach

to

the data

was

marked

by

a

rigorous

application

of

philological-historical

criteria. Yet he

was

far

from being a naive positivist and remained quite cognizant of

his

own

metahistorical

presuppositions,

never

trying

to

conceal

their

presence.

Scholem's method

was

characteristically

and

stubbornly

immune

to

the

intellectual

fads

of his

time.

And

there

was no

lack of such

new

scholarly

vogues

during

the

course

of

his

long

career: one

need

but

recall

the

obsession

of

the

"history

of

religions"

school

with

analogies

and

associations

a

la

Retzenstein,

the

phenomenological

method,

existentialism,

structuralism,

the

new

hermeneutics,

psycho

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8/10/2019 Gershom Scholem.time, Charisma..

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Amos Funkenstein

analysis

and

depth

psychology.

Indeed,

it

is

astonishing

how

rarely

Scholem's

conceptual figures

and

insights

leaned

on

other disciplines; often, they even expressed his negative views

about

them.

In this

light,

the

echo his work has

found

in

other

fields

(a

reverberation

that

continues)

both

within and

beyond

the

pale

of

Jewish

studies

is

all

the

more

astounding,

if

not

paradoxical:

an

impact

and

resonance

that

far exceeds

that

of

any

other scholar since

the

beginnings

of

the

Wissenschaft

des

Judentums

with whose work

I

am

familiar.

In the

present

essay

I

intend

to

explore

the

possible

reasons

behind

this

powerful

echo

emanating

from the Scholem

oeuvre, as well as his

position

as

representative

of a new

style

in the

Wissenschaft

des

Judentums

-

this

despite

the fact that

his

specialist

field,

as

he

himself

admitted,

was

centered

solely

on

a

single

(and

indeed

relatively

late)

form

of

expression

of

Jewish

spirituality

and

intellect

It

is

precisely

this

paradoxical

circumstance

that

lies

at

the

heart

of the

question

I

wish

to

pose

here.

Can

we

find

a

cogent

explanation

-

other

than

one

based

on

merely

immanent

features

-

to

account for

Scholem's

extraordinary

degree

of

visibility,

his

scholarly

authority

extending

far

beyond

the confines

of his

own

field

-

in

a

word,

for

his

scientific

charisma}

That

charisma

remains

difficult

to

explain

if

we

resort

only

to

elements

immanent

to

his

field.

Admittedly,

the internal

assets

and

advantages

of

his

work

as a

teacher

and scholar

were

immense;

yet

during

the

span

of his creative

career,

there

were

a

number

of

other

achievements

elsewhere,

no

less

pioneering,

and various

spectacular

findings

in

diverse

subfields across the

gamut

of

Jewish

studies. But to

paraphrase

Martin

Buber:

was

it

not

Gershom

Scholem,

more

than

any

other

scholar,

who

singlehandedly

managed

to

establish

a new

discipline?

If

so,

the substance

of

my

question

still

remains:

how

was

Scholem

able

to

succeed

in

persuading

the

scientific

community

that

his

specialty

was

in fact

an

independent

new

discipline?

Why

did

others,

for

example,

fail in their

attempts

to

gain legitimacy

for

the subfield

of

the

literature

of

ethical

instruction

(mussar), equally

voluminous

in its

scope,

and its

associated

movements,

as a

special

discipline?

How did

it

come

124

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8/10/2019 Gershom Scholem.time, Charisma..

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Charisma,

Kairos and the

Messianic Dialectic

about that

a

whole

cohort

in

the

religious

education of Israeli

intellectuals

during

the

1950s

and

1960s

saw

the

Kabbalah

as

the sole

living

content of Judaism - indeed, that for many of

them

Scholem's

presentation

of

the

Kabbalah constituted the

only

concrete

knowledge