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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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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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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
they
acquired
about
Judaism
and
its
traditions?
Finally,
how
can
we
account
for his
continuing
influence
in the
non-Jewish scholarly
world and
among
the
educated
public
more
generally.
These
are
questions
that
cannot
be answered
on
the basis of his
work alone.
Insights
culled
from the
history
and
sociology
of
knowledge
can
perhaps
help
to
shed
relevant
light,
bringing
us
further
down
the
path
toward an
adequate explanation.
For that reason, I
would
like
to
pose
the
question
in
a
reformulated
guise,
making
use
of
two
key
terms
borrowed from
Weberian social
analysis:
what
was
the
special quality
of the
dialectical
interplay
between
charisma and kairos
in
the
conception
and
reception
of Scholem's
work?
2.
A
Bridge
toward
Actualization
In No. 88 of his famous theses "On the Education of the
Human
Race"
-
observations
that
served
both
Scholem
and
Walter
Benjamin
elsewhere
as
a
kind
of antithetical
foil for
advancing
their
own
ideas about the
philosophy
of
history
-
G. E.
Lessing
remarked
that
the
mystical
philosophical
historical
speculations
on
the
nature
of the
Trinity
by
the
Calabrian
abbot
Joachim
of
Floris
in
the twelfth
century
were
perhaps
"not
just
some
empty
whim
of
fancy."1
In
a
letter
written
in
1925
to
the uncrowned Hebrew
poet
laureate
of
that
time,
Haim Nachman
Bialik,
the
young
scholar Scholem
adopted
a
similar
tone:
At the
conclusion
of all
these
investigations
I
hope
to
be
able
to concern
myself
with
what
originally
induced
me
to
engage
in
this
research and drove
me,
against
my
will,
to
deal
with
philological
studies,
an
enterprise
whose limits
I
am
well
aware
of
-
namely
to
find
an
answer
to
the
question:
does the Kabbalah
have
any
value?
Naturally,
this
is
a
question lying beyond
the
125
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Amos
Funkenstein
purview
of
philology
per
se;
yet
the
inspired
observer
cannot
sidestep
the
query.
Without the
slightest
sense
of
shame, I' confess that it is this philosophical interest
which will also
stand
by
me
during
the
course
of
my
historical-philological
research.2
And
indeed,
the
young
scholar
Scholem
already
harbored
hopes
that the
Kabbalah
might eventually
generate
a
change
of
paradigm
in
Jewish
studies.
In
place
of the
obsessive
-
and
in
Scholem's
view
petty-bourgeois
-
preoccupation
among
Jewish
historians and
philosophers
of
religion
in
the
nineteenth
century
with "dis-enchanted" rational contents of
Judaism
such
as
halakhah,
exegesis
and rational
reasoning,
the
Kabbalah
held
out
the
promise
of direct
access
to
the
mythopoeic,
highly imaginative
and indeed
romantic
wellsprings
of
Jewish
spirituality.
And
such
access was
not
encumbered
by
any
artificial,
ahistorical
reconstruction
of
a
supposedly
submerged
Israelite
Urmythos
a
la
Berdyczewsky.
In
later
years,
Scholem
believed
that
as
a
younger
scholar he
had,
with
this
approach,
charted
a
course
which constituted
a
decisive
rejection
of
previously
dominant tendencies within the
Wissenschaft
des
Judentums
toward
apologia
and
a
concern
with
the
ways
in which
Judaism
was seen
by
others. We
may,
however,
recall the heated
debate,
in
the wake of
Ernst
Renan's
generalizations
regarding
the
purported
lack
of
mythopoeic
powers
in
Semitic
cultures,
about
whether
the
Jews
(or
Semites
more
generally)
were
endowed with
any
collective
imaginative
abilities. Scholem
discovered
this
pristine
power
of
mythopoeia
in the
Kabbalah;
and it
was
clear
that
kabbalism
did not make do with a mere "minimum of a Godhead."
In this
phase
of
his
work,
Scholem's
thinking
was
still
dominated
by
the old
hopes
of Pico della
Mirandola
and
German
Romanticism that
the
Kabbalah would
yield
up
a
prisca philosophia.
After
all,
the Kabbalah had
the
advantage
of
being specifically
Jewish
-
in
contradistinction,
say,
to
Jewish
religious
philosophy,
which
had
always spoken
in
foreign
tongues
and
idioms.
Thus,
he
reasoned,
the Kabbalah
was
also
a
genuine
alternative
to
both
liberal-rational
Kulturjudentum
and
ossified
Jewish
orthodoxy.
For
that
reason,
Scholem
126
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Charisma,
Kairos
and theMessianic Dialectic
initially
fell
prey
to
the
temptation
of
wanting
to
demonstrate
the
antiquity
of kabbalistic
traditions and
texts,
most
especially
the Zohar,
using
more exact
philological
means than
Adolphe
Franck
had
applied,
now
coupled
with
the
bolstering
hypothesis
of
autochthonous
origin.
Gradually,
however,
he
emancipated
himself from this obsessive
quest
for
proof
of
originality.
Scholem
arrived
at
the
liberating insight
that
a
Jewish
gnosis
had
in
fact
existed,
but
that there
was no
definitive
answer
to
the
question
as
to
whether the
gnostic
tradition
as
such
was
of
Jewish
origin.
He noted that
the first
kabbalistic
texts
stemming
from
the
end
of the twelfth
century
did not
perpetuate
previous
traditions of
mystical
speculation,
but rather had broken
with that
legacy,
and that the
Zohar,
as
the
Jewish
historian
Heinrich
Graetz
had
already suspected,
was
largely
a
pseudoepigraphic
text
authored
by
Moses
de
Leon. These
insights
were
liberating
for
Scholem:
they
enabled
him
to
achieve
a
breakthrough, arriving
at
a
new
evaluation of
kabbalism
and its
historical
role
-
a
fresh
understanding
of
the
concrete
historical
relevance of the
Kabbalah
in
its
own
time and
in
ours.
And
it
was
precisely
those
insights
which
helped
to
popularize
his
work,
opening
up
avenues to a
broader
readership.
Thus,
the
young
Scholem had
initially
viewed
kabbalism
in
exactly
the
same
terms
in
which it
presented
itself
-
namely,
as an
ancient,
autochthonously
evolved
tradition.
Accordingly,
he viewed
it
as
evolutionary
in
its
medieval
unfolding, although
revolutionary
in
its
content.
But
now,
with
the
ensuing
shift
in
his
perspective,
Scholem
came
to
conceive
of
medieval
kabbalism
in
an
altered
light:
as
a
body
of
thought
and
practice
that
was
essentially
revolutionary.
Nonetheless,
he
chose
(then
and later
as
well)
to
leave
open
and
unanswered
a
key
question
as
to
its
roots:
had it
arisen
sua
sponte
in
the
twelfth
century,
or
had kabbalism
originated
as
a
result of the
discovery
of
forgotten,
subterranean
traditional
texts
of
gnostic
provenance?
The Kabbalah
was
more
revolutionary
than,
for
example,
the
philosophical
interpretation
of
Judaism,
an
approach vehemendy rejected by
the
early
kabbalists
as an
undesirable
innovation,
since
in contrast
with
Jewish religious
philosophy,
kabbalism
sought
to
conceal
the
fact
that
it,
too,
127
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7/19
Amos Funkenstein
was
translating
the
traditional
content
of
Judaism
into
a
totally
alien
language.
Yet
right
from
its
inception,
the
opponents
of
the Kabbalah had accused it of
Christianizing
tendencies, a
criticism
expressed
in the
polemical
lines
penned
in the
early
thirteenth
century:
He
[the kabbalist]
soiled with his
word/
The
sanctum
of
the Lord
Whatever he
put
forth/
Is
not
a
penny's
worth.
And
since
he
failed
in
all/
Destruction
was
his
goal:
The "air' he
misconstrued/
Much
as
a
bishop
would.3
Let
me
add
that
Scholem
did
not
endeavor
to
assess
the
actual
scope
of Christian influence
on
the
Kabbalah;
only
in
recent
years
has research been able
to
shed
increasing
light
on
this
controversial dimension.
One
might
wonder
whether the
early
kabbalists
themselves
were
aware
of the
revolutionary
oudook
embedded
in the
Kabbalah,
an
awareness
which
coram
publico
they emphatically
denied.
Scholem
hardly
touched
on
this
question;
nonetheless,
on the basis of several
indications,
there is sufficient evidence
to
indicate that the
early
practitioners
of
Kabbalah
were
quite
aware
of its almost
heretical
implication.
On
occasion,
it
is
possible
to
catch
these
early
kabbalists
in
flagranti
delicto,
as
it
were,
openly expressing
their
disdain
for ancient
traditions.
Thus,
for
example,
the reversal of
the
subject
in
the first
verse
of
Genesis
into
a
direct
object
-
as
though
a
being
named
"beginning"
had created another
being
named "God"
-
was
regarded
as a
heretical,
indeed
gnostic,
variant
reading,
one
for
the sake of which the
presumed
translators of the Bible
into
Greek
had
supposedly
altered
the word
order
intentionally.4
Yet
now
the
kabbalists
seized
upon
this and
similar
variant
readings,
previously
branded
as
heresy,
as
though
it
were
in
their
exegetical
power
to
transmute
heretical
traditions
into
profound
mysteries.
Whether
they
were
conscious
of
being
revolutionary
or
not,
in
Scholem's
new
assessment
the
medieval
kabbalists
had indeed
created
something
new.
In
his
eyes,
the
Kabbalah
was
(to paraphrase
a
line
from
Goethe's
Faust
uttered
in
self-reference
by Mephisto)
128
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8/19
Charisma,
Kairos and
theMessianic Dialectic
"Ein
Teil
von
jener
Kraft,
Die
stets
das
Bdse will
und
stets
das
Gute schafft,,:
a movement
which
always
desires
the
old
-
and
yet
is destined
repeatedly
to
bring
forth
something
new.
This revised
assessment
by
Scholem
was
accompanied by
a
shift
in
emphasis
within
the
ambit
of
his
own
evolving
historical interests.
Beginning
in
the
mid-1930s,
his
scholarly
attention
came
to
focus
more
and
more
on
later kabbalistic
works
and
movements
during
the
early
modern
period.
If
Scholem had done
nothing
more
than
to
engage
in
the
explication
of
classical
and medieval
texts,
supplemented by
the
occasional
interpretive glance
at more
modern
developments,
his work would still stand as an
astounding
edifice and
pioneering
achievement.
Yet its
impact
and
reverberation
would
not
have been
as
broad and
deep.
Instead
of the
philosophia
perennis
he had
once
sought
in
the
Kabbalah,
Scholem
now
went
about
demonstrating
its relevance
to
life
in
each
respective
epoch
of
history,
in
particular
that
of the
early
modern
period. Closely
bound
up
with
the
historical
importance
of the Kabbalah
in
the
past
were
various allusions
to
its
contemporary
relevance,
here
and
now.
Scholem
was
able
to
persuade
his
contemporaries
that it
was
precisely
in
Lurianic
mysticism
where
sua res
aguntur,
since it
was
only
because of the
extreme
consequences
of the
kabbalistic
teachings
of
Isaac
Ashkenazi
Luria,
the
"Lion" of
Safed,
that
the
present-day,
quasi-dialectical
"overcoming"
(Aujhebung)
of
messianic
hopes
within Zionism
became
possible:
i.e.,
their
simultaneous
negation
and
preservation.
Scholem's
essay
"Redemption
through
Sin,"
published
in
1937,
constituted
an
external indicator
of this
new
perspective
on
evaluating
kabbalism,
serving
as
well
to
facilitate the
breakthrough
to
a
broader
interested
public.5
Some
two
years
after,
Scholem
held
a
series of
lectures
at
the
Jewish
Theological
Seminary
in
New
York,
subsequendy published
as
Major
Trends
in
Jewish Mysticism
-
probably
his
most
famous
book.
A
decade later
his
monumental
monograph
on
the
Shabbatean
movement
appeared:
Sabbatai Sevi.
The
Mystical
Messiah.
In
the
confines
of
the
present
article
I
will
not
attempt
to
evaluate
the
concrete
scholarly
contribution
made
by
these
and
other
studies,
but
intend
to
concentrate,
as
129
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9/19
Amos Funkenstein
promised, primarily
on
the
interplay
between
kairos
and
charisma
so
clearly
reflected
in
these works
and
their
process
of
reception.
3.
Kairos and Charisma
A
telling point
of
departure
is
Scholem's
characteristic
terminology.
In the
1930s
a
so-called
"Jerusalem
school" of
historical research
crystallized
at
the Hebrew
University
under
the
aegis
of Benzion
Dinur and
Yitzhak
Baer. Their
program
was
spelled
out
in
the
first
issue of
the
new
historical
periodical
Zion. The school wished to free itself from
any
tendencies
toward
apologia;
the
history
of the
Jews
should
be
interpreted
as
Jewish
history,
i.e.,
as
the
history
of
one
and
the
same
organism
-
and
not,
as
even
in
the
case
of
Graetz,
as
the
history
of
one
and
the
same
idea.
Although
this
organism
repeatedly
absorbed
external
impulses,
its
development
followed
its
own
immanent
logic.
Scholem
also
considered
himself
to
be
a
member of this
new
school
of
Jewish
historiography
and
was
so
regarded by
others.
Thus,
his works
contain
numerous
instances of
the
key
terms
"organic,"
"organism," "original,"
"sovereign"
and
"spontaneous."
The
organism
was
conceptualized
as
being
inventive,
capable
of
adaptation
and,
in
particular,
was
endowed with
an
unlimited
potential
for
creativity.
It
embodied
the ideal
of
spontaneity
so
familiar
to
us
since
Leibniz and
Kant,
and
especially
since the
Romantic
movement.
No
past
achievement
of this
collective
body
had the
power
to
stamp
and determine its
essence
for all
time.
Accordingly,
all formulae
regarding
the
supposed
"essence"
of
Judaism
deserved
to be
carefully
scrutinized and
relativized.
Scholem
maintained
that
the
essence
of
Judaism
in
any
given
era
could
be found
in the
specific
products
created
at
the time
by
the
Jewish
spirit
and
Jewish
life,
no
matter
how
novel
and
unpredictable
the
manifestation.
Thus,
Yehezkel
Kaufmann
had
developed
his
interpretation
of
the
origin
of
monotheism
in
ancient
Israel
as
an
intellectual-spiritual
mutation
ex
nihilo,
a
new
primal
pattern
which had
created its
own
forms. And
Scholem's
insight,
based
on
laborious
research,
that
the
Kabbalah
was a
new,
medieval
form of
130
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10/19
Charisma,
Kairos and
theMessianic
Dialectic
intellectual-spiritual
expression
served
as
an
excellent
demonstration
of
the boundless
creative
power
of that
"organism."
Finally,
the new historical school wished to
highlight
Israel's
relation
to
Zion,
shifting
it
into
the
forefront
of
Jewish
historical narrative.
In
keeping
with
that
chord,
Scholem
also
paid
increasing
attention
to
those
manifestations
of
kabbalism
that had
made their
appearance
within
the
historical Land
of Israel.
However,
alongside
this
organicist,
"domo-centristic''
vocabulary,
we can
note
another
family
of
key
concepts
that
tend
to
recur
in
Scholem's
writings:
terms
such
as
"dialectical,"
"paradoxical,"
"revolutionary,"
nihilistic" and
"antinomian." Such
concepts
were
quite
alien
to
the lexicon
of
Dinur and
Baer,
who wished
to
interpret
Jewish
history
reading
it "with the
grain,"
so
to
speak
(to
borrow
an
image
from
Benjamin),
while Scholem
was
intent
on
reading
that
history "against
the
grain."
His
conceptual
terminology
underscored
the constructive
power
of the
antithetical
forces,
both
in the
Kabbalah
and
in its
historical roles.
This is
especially
true
when
it
comes
to
Lurianic
kabbalism,
that
myth
of theocosmic drama born
in
Safed
during
the
sixteenth
century.
In
the
Lurianic
myth
of the
contraction,
self-alienation,
restoration
and
redemption
of the
Godhead
itself,
Scholem believed he had found what
constituted the
most
original
and
powerful
response
by
the
Jews,
albeit
belated,
to
the
series
of
traumatic
events
prior
to,
during
and
after
their
expulsion
from
Spain
(1492).
The
situation
of
exile
of
the
Jewish
people,
its alienation
from
its
homeland,
became
here
a
symbol
of
the
path
and
unfolding
of the
Godhead
itself,
as
well
as
the
final
station
on
the
cosmic
itinerary.
The
Godhead
itself,
plagued
by
the "roots
of
severity"
in
its
own
primal being,
is
caught
up
in
a
cathartic
process
of
self
alienation. With the
redemption
of
Israel,
it
too
will
be
redeemed,
returning
to
its
purified
original being.
If
medieval
Kabbalah
was to
a
certain
extent
an
anatomy
of
God
-
a
speculative
attempt
to
determine
and
influence
the
interplay
and
counterpoint
of
divine
forces
-
Lurianic
Kabbalah
was a
biography
of
God,
recounting
a
catastrophe
in
the life
of
the
Godhead
and the
slow,
almost automatic
overcoming
of
that
131
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11/19
Amos Funkenstein
catastrophe.
In this
metahistorical
myth,
the
post-exilic
generation
found
consolation
-
and
fuel
for
their
eschatalogical
hopes.
The
most
powerful
messianic
movement
in
the
modern
era,
that
of
the
false
messiah
Shabbatai
Zevi
(1665-66),
was
also
given
its
ideological
underpinning
within
the
framework of
Lurianic
symbolism.
After
Zevi's
apostasy
from
Judaism,
the
antinomian,
law-negating
characteristics
of
the
movement
came
clearly
to
the fore: thus it
was
that orthodox
Judaism,
on
the
eve
of
a
wave
of
secularization that would be
propelled
by
the
forces
of
enlightenment
and
emancipation,
had in
fact been
undermined at an even earlier date
by
another
process
- from
within,
so to
speak.
This
development
from latent
to overt
antinomianism is
quite
evident when
viewed
in
terms
of the
history
of the motif
"redemption through
sin."
Already
in
Lurianic
Kabbalah
(a
point
overlooked
in
Scholem's
famous
1937
article)
it
had
played
a
certain
secondary
role,
albeit
relegated
to
the
earliest
eras
of
the
history
of
Israel.
In
order
to
rescue
an
especially
valuable soul
from
the
clutches
of
the
kelippot
-
the
powers
of
impurity
-
the
forces of
light
occasionally
resort to a ruse:
they pretend
that this soul is
being
used
in the world for
impure
purposes.
Thus,
for
example,
Abraham
was
born
as
the result of
a
forbidden
act
of sexual
intercourse.6
However,
according
to
Lurianic
narrative,
the
event
had
taken
place
exclusively
at
a
remote
remove
in
time,
in the
mythical primal
era,
in
illo
tempore,
nd
certainly
cannot
be conceived
as a
suggestion
relevant
to
the
present.
Yet
Shabbatai
Zevi,
and
even
more
so
followers
of the
nihilistic
theology
of
Jakob
Frank,
did
in
fact
interpret
this
principle
as
providing
concrete
justification
for
contemporary
acts
in
violation
of
the law
-
as
a
means
of
redemption.
In
a
milder,
more
attenuated
form,
the
principle
can
also be found
in Hasidism
-
for
example,
when Rabbi
Nahman
of Bratslav
permits,
and
even
commands,
the
"righteous
one
who
is like
Moses"
to
do
what is
stricdy
forbidden
to
everyone
else,
namely
to
descend
into
that
"empty space,"
the
realm of
radical
skepticism,
wordlessness
and
melancholy.7
Thus,
Scholem
viewed
the
contemporary
relevance
of
Lurianic
Kabbalah
as a
paidagogos
heis
Christon,
a
preparation
132
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12/19
Charisma,
Kairos and
theMessianic Dialectic
for
Shabbatean
messianism.
The
achievement of
the
Shabbatean
movement
for
Jewish history
was
truly
dialectical:
it
preserved
the messianic idea, while at the same time
destroying
it
completely.
With that
destruction,
Shabbateanism
also
prepared
the
way
for the
dissolution of normative
Judaism.
Yet
there is
an
additional
dialectical
aspect
here
uniting
past
and
(Scholem's)
present
-
a
point
of
interplay,
as
I
see
it,
between
kairos and charisma. Scholem's view of
history
was
shaped
significandy
in the late
1930s and 1940s.
As
such,
it
took
on
another
dimension of
contemporary
relevance
-
one
that
was
immediate and
fully
in
keeping
with Scholem's
intentions.
The
analogy
between
the
national
movement
for
redemption
then and
now,
at
the
burning
edge
and in the wake of the
catastrophe,
was
obvious.
The
early
Christian
community
(as
well
as
the
Dead Sea
sect
of
Essenes)
had
wished
to
"decipher"
the
story
of
the
Bible
eschatalogically
and
had
viewed
Israel
wandering
in the desert
as
the
prefiguration
of
its
own
self,
typos
hemon,
in
both
a
positive
and
a
negative
sense.
Both
stood
confronted with
a new
world: the
former
were
blind,
faltering, representative
of the old
world;
the
latter,
however,
were
enlightened
and
just,
a
true
avant-garde
of
the
new
age
in
the midst of
a
decrepit
order
rushing
headlong
toward its final end
-
quia
festinans
festinat
saeculum
pertransire.
In
Scholem's
eyes,
the
Shabbatean
movement
(and
its
later
developments)
was
likewise
a
prefiguring
of
Zionism
in
a
double
sense,
positive
and
negative.
Both
were
national
movements
for
redemption,
nurtured
by
more
than
a
thousand
years
of messianic
expectations.
Both
were
led
by
a
self-styled
elite,
a
self-appointed
avant-garde.
Both were
poised
over
the
abyss
of
a
catastrophe, walking
a
dangerous
tightrope.
Both
were
propelling
secularization
forward,
whether
they
consciously
intended
to or
not.
But while the
Shabbateans
longed
for
an
end
to
history,
a
release
from
history
for
the
Jewish
people,
Zionism
desired the
very
opposite:
namely,
the
reentry
of
Jews
onto
history's
stage
here and
now,
in
this
world. Whereas
the former
dreamed
their
eschatalogical
dreams,
the
latter
acted
concretely
in
the midst of the
world.
While
the
Shabbateans
prepared
their
own
ultimate
133
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13/19
Amos Funkenstein
destruction,
Zionism
had
a
real,
albeit
limited,
concrete
chance
-
at
least
that is
how
it
must
have
appeared
in
the
1930s, when Zionism had the ability to operate within the
framework
of the
possible.
Whether
it
would
actually
continue
to
do
so was
something
Scholem,
a
founder
of
the circle
Brit
Shalom,
could
not know
or
even
surmise.
Moreover,
no
one
at
the
time could
know
whether the
entire
enterprise
of
Zionism,
and indeed the whole
of
the
Jewish
people
in
Europe, might
not
perish
in
the inferno
of National Socialist
destruction.
But
it
was
precisely
the
comparison
with
Shabbateanism
that
underscored
the
existence
of
a
possible
chance for
the
Zionist
project
of national construction. And I am using the term
''chance"
here
quite
consciously
in its Weberian
sense
-
namely,
as
a
possibility
for social
action
that
presents
itself
in
society
and
is
based
on
rational
calculation.
I
have
attempted
to
present
a
rough
sketch
of the
transformations
of
the
motif
"redemption
through
sin." There
is
a
related
and
surprising
variant
of
this
conception
deriving
from
the
matrix
of
orthodox
thinking
in
the
twentieth
century,
though
quite
naturally
it
was
not
burdened with
the
loaded label of such
redemption.
Due to his
positive
attitude
toward
the
Zionist
movement and
its
settiement
project,
the
Chief
Rabbi
of
Palestine,
Abraham
Isaac
Hacohen
Kook,
often
became the
target
of vehement
verbal
attacks
during
the
1920s
and
1930s
within
his
own,
stricdy
orthodox
circles,
and
on
occasion
was even
singled
out
for harsh condemnation.
Kook
asserted
that
the
halutzim,
the
Zionist
pioneers,
were
precursors
paving
the
way
for
redemption.
Subjectively,
he
noted,
virtually
all
of them
were
opposed
to
the
Torah and
thus were sinners
against
halakhic law. Yet, Kook reasoned, the
cunning
of
Providence
was
utilizing
their
zeal
in
order,
despite
everything,
to
hasten
both
their
redemption
and
that
of
the
land;
accordingly,
the
Zionist
enterprise
was
holy
in its
nature,
and
they,
Rabbi
Kook
maintained,
were not
children
of
darkness,
but
rather
represented
scattered
sparks
from
the
kelippat
noga.
How
similar
and
yet
different
was
Scholem's
view
of the
"redemption
of the
land"
It
was
diametrically
opposed
to
Rabbi
Kook's
reasoning.
Scholem
argued
that
precisely
134
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14/19
Charisma,
Kairos
and the
Messianic Dialectic
because
Zionism had
arisen
from
the
secularization
and
destruction
of messianic
conceptions
(but
not
sentiments),
it
had a
genuine
chance. Zionism's
opportunity
consisted in the
fact that it
had abandoned
messianism but
was
making
cunning
use
of
accumulated
messianic
urges.
Which
brings
us
to
a
discussion
of
Scholem's fundamental
attitude toward
messianism.
4.
Dialectical
Messianism
The
dialectic of
the Shabbatean
movement
lay
in
the fact
that,
while
proclaiming
the sacral
apotheosis
of
Jewish
life,
it
simultaneously
acted
to
render that life
fully
profane
and
secular,
facilitating
the
emergence
of
a
realistically
oriented,
secularized
redemption
movement
liberated
from
the
encumbering baggage
of
messianic dreams: "the
cunning
of
reason
is
that
it
adopts
the
passions
of
individuals."8
But
from
Scholem's
perspective,
Zionism
also
maintained
a
distinctive
and
unique
dialectical
relation
with the
tradition of messianic
conceptions
and
movements
-
at
the
same
time
reaffirming
and
rejecting
it,
itwas both constructive and destructive in its
thrust.
Zionism made
use
of the
accumulated
energy
of
messianic
expectations
without itself
being
messianic
(only
toward
the end
of
his life
was
Scholem
able
to
witness the
emergent
dynamism
of
the Gush
Emunim
setders'
movement
in the West
Bank).
This
is
why
Zionism
represented
a
real,
concrete
and
genuine
chance.
It is instructive
at
this
juncture
to
compare
Scholem's
metahistorical
conceptions
widi
two
other
contemporary
interpretations
of
messianism,
no
less dialectical
in
nature,
namely
those
of Franz
Rosenzweig
and Walter
Benjamin.
In
Rosenzweig's
view,
Judaism
had
long
since arrived
at
the
goal
which other
peoples
(i.e.
Christianity)
were
still
striving
to
attain. Phrased
differendy,
the
messianic
element
-
what is
valuable
and
permanent
in
messianism
-
is,
Rosenzweig
suggested,
nothing
but the
present
extrapolated
to
a
higher
power,
that-which-has-always-been-eternally-present,
the here
and
now
in
purified
form.9
In
Benjamin's
theses
on
the
philosophy
of
history,
the messianic
dimension
is the
135
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opportunity,
constantly
present
and
repeatedly
lost,
the
wind
blowing
out
from
paradise
behind
our
backs,
that-which-has
become-eternalty-impossible,
i.e. the
past
enhanced, raised to a
higher
power.
By
the
way,
I
suspect
that these famous
theses
on
history,
as
well
as
Scholem's
non-historical theses
on
the
Kabbalah,
were
conceived
in
a
consciously
antithetical relation
to
Lessing's
theses
on
the
philosophy
of
history
referred
to
earlier
-
namely,
the
dream
of
a
third,
eternal
covenant
which
was
no mere
"whim
of
fancy."
For
Scholem,
the
positive
core
of messianism
only
became
clearly
visible after its
apparent
destruction
in
Shabbateanism
and Frankism: messianism now
existed,
albeit in a tamed
form,
within the
framework
of what had become
a
concrete
possibility,
the
realistic
planning
of
the
future.
In
my
view,
these
three modes
of
messianism
-
that-which-has-always-been
eternally-present
(Rosenzweig),
that-which-has-become-eternally
impossible
(Benjamin)
and
that-which-has-now-become-possible
(Scholem)
-
represent
one
of
the last
and
most
fruitful
trialogues
in the
history
of
Germanjewish
intellectual
discourse.
I have
spoken
at
length
about the 1930s and 1940s. But how
can we
account
for
the
continued fascination
generated by
Scholem's
oeuvre
in later
decades,
and
particularly
among
that
generation
of Israelis born
or
brought
up
in
Israel after the
establishment
of the
state? For
these,
Scholem
conjured
up
the welcome
image
of
a
Judaism
that
was
creative,
thoroughly
authentic
and
not-merely-halakhic.
This and
more:
he
invited
them
to
embark
upon
an
adventure
of
discovery,
the creative
reconstruction
of
a
mythopoeic symbolic
world,
a
reconstructive
enterprise
that
was
fully
equal
to earlier creative
endeavors
-
a
contemporary
form
of
Jewish creativity.
On
top
of
this,
Scholem's
view
of
history
suggested
that the crucial
contrast
between
tradition
and
secularization
was
indeed
dialectical
in
nature
-
interactive,
and
not
merely
antithetical.
Indeed,
an
interesting
question
for
research
would be
to
determine
and
explore
the
extent
and
scope
of kabbalistic
motifs
and
symbolism
in
Israeli
fiction
and
poetry
of the
1950s
and
1960s, particularly among
writers who otherwise
adopted
a
somewhat
distant
relation
to
Judaism
such
as
Nathan
Zach.
A
136
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Kairos and theMessianic Dialectic
further
related
task
is the
investigation
of
the
German
poet
Paul
Celan's
relation
to
Scholem and
the
symbolism
of the
Kabbalah. These are by no means isolated phenomena, but
remain
symptomatic
of
the
age.
It
is
also
necessary
to
explain
the
attraction
which
Scholem's
opus
has
had
for
other,
nonjewish
intellectuals
and its
impact
on
more
removed
scholarly
disciplines.
When,
after
World
War
II,
the interest
in
Judaism
and
its
forms
of
expression
became
manifest
in
circles
beyond
the
immediate
compass
of
Jews
and
Jewish
scholarship
-
this for the
first time since the humanism
of
the sixteenth
century
-
Scholem's
image
of
the Kabbalah
offered a rich,
heavily
nuanced
language
woven of
symbolism,
speculation
and
tradition,
one
that
bore the
stamp
of
authenticity.
This
was
in marked
contrast to
the
wooden,
universal and
saccharine
forms of
traditional
Jewish
philosophy
or
the
literature
of
moral
edification;
it
also differed
from
the
legalistic
edifice
presented
by
orthodox
Judaism,
which
did
not
generate
any
formulae
or
worldviews
whatsoever
ex
officio,
nor
wished to do
so.
Finally,
a
further
reason
for fascination with the Scholem
oeuvre should be
mentioned,
despite
the difficulties in
trying
to
grasp
it
in
precise
terms.
This element is
very
general,
almost trivial
in
character,
so
that it
would
appear
to
be valid
universally,
serving
to
motivate
an
attitude of
identificational
involvement
as
well
as
distanced observation.
Everything
mysterious
exercises
a
certain
fascination
on
human
beings.
The attraction
to
decipher
strange
mysteries
is all the
more
irresistible
when
it
involves
a
system
imbued with the
aura
of
ancient
tradition,
an
entire
corpus
of
secret
and esoteric
knowledge.
In such
cases,
the scholar
may
even have
something
in
common
with
the
voyeur.
This
holds
true
in
respect
to
far
less
imposing
terrain than that
represented by
kabbalism. Studies
dealing
with
freemasonry,
for
example,
are
consumed with
as
great
an
ardor
as
they
are
written. Yet the
motivating
force
behind
such
curiosity
is
not
merely
a
desire
to
reveal
what
was
hidden,
to
remove
a
mask
or
lift
a
veil.
In
the
background
there
always
lurks
the
faint
hope
of
unearthing
a
precious
gem
buried
in
such
fields of
esoterica,
a
motivation alluded
to
in
candid
terms
by
Scholem
in
his
137
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Amos
Funkenstein
letter
to
Bialik cited above.
Arguably,
this
is
a
quite legitimate
urge;
indeed,
it
remains
one
of
the
most
original
and
basic
of
motivations
underpinning
all
knowledge
and the thirst for its
revelation.
After
all,
is
not
the
uncovering
of
a
secret
-
i.e.
dis
covery
in
its
literal
sense
-
the
pure
Urbild
of
any
and
all
modes
of
understanding?
Scholem's
lasting
influence
in
academia
can
also
be
measured
in
terms
of
the
degree
of institutionalization
of
kabbalistic
studies.
Indeed,
institutionalization
is
the
only
sure
criterion for
assessing
whether
a
particular
subfield
has
gained
the
status
of
a
separate
and
independent discipline.
In
many
institutes of
Jewish
studies, we now find as
many
chairs for the
history
of
the
Kabbalah
as
for the
history
of
Jewish
philosophy.
A
chair for the
history
of
the Kabbalah has become
indispensable
today
for
every
institution
of
higher
learning
where
Jewish
studies
are
seriously
pursued.
Supply
does
not
only
follow
demand
but also stimulates
it,
thus
creating
a
critical
mass
for
scholarly dispute
and
interaction.
The
"institutionalization
of
charisma,,
can
most
certainly
be
seen
manifest
in Scholem's
successors,
in
bonam
et
malam
partem.
5.
By
Way
of
Conclusion
Our
original
question
was:
how
was
Scholem able
to
anchor
and
maintain
his
charisma
as
a
scholar?
In
part,
we
have
seen,
this
proved
possible
as
a
result
of the
consistency
of
the
dramatic
portrait
of
Jewish
intellectual
history
which he
delineated
and
for
which he
provided
evidence.
In Scholem's
interpretation,
the Kabbalah
was
shaped by
the circumstances
of the times
in which it
arose;
yet
it also acted to mold those
same
circumstances,
influencing
the
course
of
Jewish
history,
sometimes
even
decisively.
We
have also
seen
that
this
unified,
self-contained
and
persuasive
picture
was,
on
occasion,
of
tremendous
relevance
for
interpreting
and
dealing
with
the
immediate
present
-
without
doing
violence
to
history
by
harsh
anachronisms.
I
have
labeled
this
correspondence
between
scholarly
and
present-oriented
interest
in
Scholem,
and
among
his
public,
the dimension
of
kairos,
without
which
there
can
be
no
charisma.
Yet this
correspondence
was
also
138
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Charisma,
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articulated
at
times
in
terms
of Scholem's
vision
of
a
dialectical messianism.
As
Rosenzweig
once
noted
in
respect
to
Hegel,
Scholem also
possessed
an
"incredibly bright
consciousness
of
time." This
consciousness
permeated
his
image
of
history,
assuring
him
a
role of
intellectual eminence.
The
view
of
history
mapped
out
by
Scholem
was
not
uncontroversial
and
sparked
critique
both
during
his
lifetime
and
after his
death.
Most
recently,
it
has
been
attacked
precisely
in
connection
with the
alleged
contemporary
relevance
of the Kabbalah. Has kabbalism
really
served
as
an
answer,
since
the
sixteenth
century,
to
messianic
urges?
In
actual
fact,
did Shabbateanism function to
pave
the
way
for
the
Enlightenment?
Is the
history
of the Kabbalah
merely
the
tradition
of
its
texts
and views
-
or
rather
the
history
of
unwritten
theurgic
and
meditative
practices?
In
regard
to
such
controversies,
can one
demonstrate
that Scholem
anticipated
the
standpoint
of his
apparent
critics,
demonstrating
that
what
is
at
issue is litde
more
than
a
matter
of
emphasis?
Questions
abound.
This much
remains
clear: Gershom
Scholem relished
controversy;
he
saw
it
as
living
proof
of
the
vitality
of his
discipline.
In this
spirit,
it is
fitting
to
recall
the
closing
words
of
Solomon
Maimon,
Enlightenment
philo
sopher,
in his Versuch
uber die
Transzendentalphilosophie.
"Our
Talmudists
(who
most
certainly
expressed
ideas
at
times
worthy
of
a
Plato)
said: 'The
pupils
of wisdom
find
no
repose,
neither
in this life
nor
in
any
future
one.'
To which
they
then
relate
the words of the
Psalmist
(84.8):
'They
go
from
strength
to
strength,
Every
one
of
them
appears
before God
in
Zion.'
"
Translated
from
the
German
by
Bill
Tempter
139
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Notes
1 Gotthold
Ephraim
Lessing,
Die
Erziehung
des
Menschen
geschlechts,
in
SdmtlicheWerke
(Leipzig,
1841),
945.
2
Gershom
Scholem,
Devarim
be-Go
(English
title:
Explications
and
Implications:
Writings
on
Jewish
Heritage
and
Renaissance)
(Tel
Aviv,
1975),
63.
3
Scholem,
Reshit ha-Kabbalah
(Origins
of the
Kabbalah)
(Jerusalem,
1948),
154.
Not
included
in
the
(expanded)
German
version
or
in
its
English
translation.
4
Babylonian
Talmud,
Megillah
8a.
5
Scholem,
"Mitzvah
ha-Ba'ah
baAverah,"
translated
as
"Redemption
through
Sin,"
in
idem,
The
Messianic
Idea
in
Judaism
(New
York,
1971),
78-141.
6
J.
Tishby,
Torat ha-Ra
ve-ha-Kelippah
be-Kabbalat ha-Ari
(The
doctrine
of evil and
the
kelippah
in
the
Kabbalah
of
Luria)
(Jerusalem,
1942),
131.
7
Nahman
of
Bratslav,
Likkutei ha-Moharan
(Anthology
of
writings)
(Jerusalem,
1930),
78a-80a.
8 G.
W.
F.
Hegel,
Philosophie
der
Geschichte,
ed.
F. Brunstadt
(Reclam,
1961),
61, 65, 69,
78.
See
also
my
Theology
and the
Scientific
Imagination
from
the
Middle
Ages
to
the Seventeenth
Century (Princeton, 1986),
204.
9 See
my
article,
"An
Escape
from
History: Rosenzweig
on
the
Destiny
of
Judaism,"
History
6f
Memory
2,
no.
2
(Winter
1990):
117-35.
140