The Secret of Jewish Existence: A Metaphysical Analysis of Gershom Scholem’s Idea of Jewish Historical Continuity

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The Secret of Jewish Existence: A Metaphysical Analysis of Gershom Scholem’s Idea of Jewish Historical Continuity

Ronny MironBar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel

[email protected]

Abstract

The issue of historical continuity has been of great interest to Jewish historians and intellectuals from the establishing of the Wissenschaft des Judentums at the beginning of the nineteenth century until our time. In the era of secularization, religious practice and the very identification as a Jew turned out to be a volitional choice of individuals. Therefore, the modern coping with the question “to be or not to be a Jew” necessitated a radical scrutinizing of the essence of Jewish existence, of its shaping power, and of the possibilities of realization of historical continuity vis-à-vis past generations. This study exposes a metaphysical perspective on the issue of historical continuity through a critical view of the writings of Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), who proposed a com-plicated understanding of the secret of Jewish existence.

Keywords

Gershom Scholem – historical continuity – metaphysics – Jewish historicism – mysticism – secularization

1 Preface: History and Metaphysics

The issue of historical continuity has been of great interest to Jewish historians and intellectuals from the establishing of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Jewish historicism, at the beginning of the nineteenth century until our time. In the era of secularization, religious practice and the very identification as a Jew turned out to be a volitional choice of individuals to take part in Jewish

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identity. Therefore, the modern coping with the challenge “to be or not to be a Jew” necessitated a radical scrutinizing of the essence of Jewish existence, of its shaping power, and of the conditions and possibilities of realization of historical continuity vis-à-vis past generations.

The following discussion exposes a metaphysical perspective on the issue of historical continuity through a critical view of the writings of Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), the founder of the Jewish mysticism research field. My interpretation seeks to demonstrate the influencing presence of two observa-tions upon the issue: historical and metaphysical.1 The historical observation is at the basis of the spectrum of objectivity and truth-seeking,2 while focusing attention on the historical occurrence itself, free of the influence of external considerations or preconditions. However, these are not crystallized into a uni-form and general object to which historical research is directed. At least on the immediate level, Scholem attributes equal weight to the different and various appearances of the historical phenomenon under examination. Against this background he states: “As a historian I do not believe there is one Judaism. I was not able to find it in all the years I dealt with its problems” (Scholem, 1990, 195).3 This insight accords with the historicistic ethos demanding that historians liberate themselves, as much as possible, from preconceptions or authoritative positions and devote themselves to the historical appearances of the phenomenon they face. This approach can be described as phenomeno-logical diachronic observation, focused on the immanent layers of the histori-cal phenomenon, meaning the real expressions of the phenomenon and the consciousness of those who partook of it. This is in contrast to an approach that explains the phenomenon in causal terms or through another theory. The diachronic view characterizing the historical observation directed Scholem to search for the meaning of phenomena on the exposed level of overt reality and the meanings given to it by people involved in it at the time, in contrast to

1 In my forthcoming books, I demonstrate the coherence of both the historical and metaphysi-cal observations in Scholem’s entire thinking; see Miron, forthcoming, 2014 (the book is also published in Hebrew: Miron, 2014).

2 In this context, see Scholem’s essay about Ben-Zion Dinur, in which he criticizes him for the lack of objectivity in his oeuvre: “Dinur [. . .] is merely a universal historian of that universe known as the Israeli nation, the historian who followed the light of ideology” (Scholem, 1976a, 510). Some saw Scholem’s approach as “the pot calling the kettle black.” See, for exam-ple, Shapira, 1995a, p. 171. David Myers also stressed the criticism Scholem shared to some extent with the Jerusalem School regarding the rigidity typical of classical Jewish historicism. See Myers, 1995, pp. 152, 167.

3 The citations from Scholem’s writings refer to the year of publication, as listed at the end of this article. The emphases in the citations are mine, unless otherwise stated.

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interpretations assuming the influence of aspects from the past, of a transcen-dent factor, or even of God in Jewish history.4

Along with the effort to achieve individuality while realizing distance and separation from the object of his research as a historian, the metaphysician’s viewpoint was also active in Scholem’s work. It directed his attention to the personalities of the Kabbalists whose writings he studied and helped him reflect on his choice to research Kabbalah in general. It appears that the pas-sive disposition that guided his observation as a historian and that was aimed at establishing separation and independence between the subject and the external reality did not exhaust his perception regarding the status of individu-als in history. The historical observation directs the observers from the outside into the reality revealed to them, while the metaphysical observation directs individuals to the depths of their internality, now transpiring as pathways to the secrets of reality itself.

2 The Historical Continuity Thesis

Scholem positions the thesis of historical continuity in the Jewish nation as a premise for studying its history. In this spirit he states that without “the assumption that there is continuity in our history’ (Scholem, 1976a, 74), it is impossible to discuss the meanings and possibilities of mysticism in our time. The “intuitive affirmation of mystical theses” (ibid., 29), meaning the a priori incorporation of mystical phenomena into Jewish history, is an essential con-dition for formulating the continuity thesis.

In the background of this thesis lies Scholem’s complicated attitude to the Wissenschaft des Judentums. On the one hand he regards himself as an historian (Scholem, 1976b, 594, Scholem 1990, 114) and thus very much committed to the historicistic principles that strive for objective truth. On the other hand, on the historical level itself he warns against the historicistic demand for the absence

4 The diachronic approach in the study of history bears within it features typical of the phe-nomenological approach, and Scholem himself recommended it as a tool for “seeing things as a whole” that complements the “gift of historical analysis” (Scholem, 1965, p. 3). First, it seeks to distance itself as much as possible from providing abstract explanations, whose ori-gin is outside the real and distinct appearances of the historical phenomenon under discus-sion. Second, the detailed description of the discussed phenomenon aims to achieve a varied, complex, and as rich as possible picture of the historical appearance. The premise is that the appearances of the phenomenon, rather than patterns or prepared definitions of it, are the key to its essence, which cannot be separated from its particular dimensions.



of presuppositions5 and established his personal commitment to correct what he saw as deliberate exclusion from the very beginning of Jewish historiog-raphy in the activity of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Scholem, 1990, 319): “Liberating our religious thinking from the quarantine of a distorting ideology that is alienating the sources of its vision, both heavenly and earthly, requires destroying the wall of this quarantine built over generations” (Scholem, 1976a, 399). In his famous essay about the Wissenschaft des Judentums he opposes the sovereignty, and perhaps also the excessive rationalism, typical of the approach of the first Jewish historians toward the overall progression of Jewish history. In his opinion, within this approach was formed the illusion in which historical reality appears as clay in the hands of the creator historian, who can treat it with what he called “tonsural arrogance” (Scholem, 1976a, 392). Unlike them, Scholem assumes that the past’s presence in the present real-ity has a life of its own. This presence may emerge from the depths of history and take center stage or even breach the rational path some of the founders of the Wissenschaft des Judentums predicted for it. The independence of Jewish history, in Scholem’s perception, is an important expression of its entity-like and holistic nature, thanks to which the various layers that compose it are rewoven together, and, as will be shown below, the continuity of Jewish history is enabled.

In the following discussion, the two observations, the historical and the metaphysical, will transpire as working to establish the historical continu-ity thesis in Scholem’s thought. The historical one directs Scholem to reveal sources and chapters of the past, some of which were hidden and even sup-pressed, and to place them on the continuum of the historical process. In parallel, the premise underlying the metaphysical observation regarding the permanent presence of “substance” (Scholem, 1990, 195) and “something” undefined in the history of the Jewish nation (Scholem, 1995, 34) establishes the intuitive affirmation of the mystical phenomena and grants depth to the thesis of continuity, which as a result cannot be exhausted on the plane of real occurrences. The two observations directed to the issue of historical continuity reflect upon it, and in this respect already deviate from the phenomena com-posing the real historical reality. However, as we shall see, the deviation of the metaphysical observation is deeper and more thorough.

5 On the ideal of science during the early constituting of German historicism contemporary with the Wissenschaft des Judentums, see Ringer, 1969, pp. 102–113. On the reception of the ideal of science by the founders of the Wissenschaft, see Mendes-Flohr, 1991, pp. 135–140.

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2.1 The Metaphysical View of Historical Continuity The main mark of the metaphysical observation in Scholem’s continuity thesis is apparent in the many expressions of personal connection to Judaism, which he described as “an attraction that contained little of wisdom and much of charm and love” (Scholem, 1976a, 64), for example: “I approached from curios-ity that contained something of mine” (ibid., 28), and “Already from my youth I had a strong historical consciousness and a strong historical sense. I think that I started dealing with Jewish matters from reading books about Jewish history. From this I began thinking: At last this is me” (Scholem, 1995, 120–121).6 Unsurprisingly, Scholem found expression of the connection to the personal dimension also in his basic view of Kabbalah: “The immense literature of the interpretations reflects not only the Jews’ understanding of the book but also their self-understanding” (Scholem, 1990, 157). The words “a full world of deep personal and human experience, fitting into the nation’s historical experience, is opened here (Scholem, 1976a, 67), through which Scholem described the work of the Kabbalists, may also be relevant to himself.7

Scholem’s fundamental argument is that “Man’s personal decision” [. . .] requires “the continuity of our history” (Scholem, 1976a, 219, emphasis in the original). He clearly links his interest in the Kabbalah to the sense of certainty that accompanied him regarding the continuing reality and vitality of the mystical tradition in Jewish existence: “A strong attraction to tradition arose in me, whose archaic nature was clear to me, and despite this I felt its pulse beats” (ibid., 301). The significant attention to the world outside Judaism, typical of Jews at the end of the emancipation period seemed problematic to

6 Scholem’s texts, especially in the collections of articles in Hebrew that appeared shortly before his death and afterwards, are rich in expressions of personal connection to Judaism. This attracted his commentators, see Rotenstreich, 1983; Breuer, 1986, p. 191; Shapira, 1995a, p. 172. Yet, others regarded these writings as relatively marginal to Scholem’s work. Josef Dan, for instance, presents Scholem as “a historian who chose himself an area of specialization” (Dan, 2010, p. 67). In his opinion, Scholem’s writings did not contain any explanation “why he chose the Kabbalah in particular and what attracted his heart to its internality and secrets” (ibid., p. 67, n. 5). Harold Bloom also assumed a split between Scholem and normative Judaism; see Bloom, 1987, pp. 6–77. See also Dan, 1994.

7 In this context, see the words of Fania Scholem: “Everything he did stem from his search for himself,” in a conversation held on 12 August 1986. The citation appears in Shapira, 1995b, p. 14. The discussion of the presence of the personal dimension in the process of forming Scholem’s continuity thesis does not relate primarily to psychological elements of his per-sonality, nor does it serve here as a source for psycho-biographical understanding of his work. Furthermore, Scholem explicitly rejected the attempts to psychologize his work, mainly from the direction of psychoanalysis (Scholem, 1976a, p. 37).



Scholem even when it was accompanied by clear identification with the Jews and Judaism. Scholem himself sketches a straight line between his criticism of the world of his parents and their surroundings and the exposure to Jewish sources and the affirmation of himself as belonging to the Jewish tradition: “I told my father he was deceiving himself [ . . . and that] ‘I want to be Jewish. [. . .] I announced I would study Hebrew. This is how my decision to rebel was expressed.” Thus, against everything that he saw as his parents’ delusion and self-deception (Scholem, 1990, 215; Scholem, 1980, 26) the young Scholem per-ceived as “very rational” his desire to learn Hebrew and deepen his interest in Judaism (Scholem, 1976a, 14). His path from Berlin to Jerusalem seemed to him “singularly direct and illuminated by clear sign-posts” (Scholem, 1980, 1).8

The need for an intuitive and a priori relation that contains activism, con-nection, and personal involvement arises due to the nature of the mystical object of the Kabbalists, which does not present itself to the observer but is contained within a system of tensions and concealments: “You find yourself saying: It was not in a static or backwards environment in the Jewish develop-ment of its generation that Kabbalah was discovered, but in an environment rich in dilemmas and high tension, which absorbed into itself rich assets of tradition, both overt and covert” (Scholem, 1948, 16). The mists of uncertainty shrouding the mystical traditions in Jewish existence are here revealed as a basic facet of the mystical object that grants it its permanent and independent transcendent nature. Thus, even if the strong attraction to the mystical is an experience of individuals, it cannot be considered a premise of the metaphysi-cal observation in terms of its contents and meaning, since what forms it is a transcendent element experienced by the individual as an autonomous and external power that directs to what is beyond it. Already directing the self-search to studying the sources should serve as a barrier against being sucked into the realm of introspection.

In another context, Scholem clarifies that transcendence itself remains completely unelucidated, and he wonders “whether there is such a special

8 Similar processes were in the background of Rosenzweig’s work, regarding which Rivka Horwitz wrote “his part was a return from assimilation to the Torah and Judaism, and from idealism—to existentialism” (Horwitz, 1987, p. 7). In this context, see how Scholem describes the world of the German Jews in his essay on Franz Rosenzweig, whom he described: “he came from the neglect and the desert of Jews in Germany for which the word assimilation gives only a restricted and limited concept [. . .]” (Scholem, 1976a, p. 409). In a similar spirit, Martin Buber criticized Herman Cohen: “There are layers within the German Jews concern-ing which I hardly feel any more that I am facing a nation. They are not supra-national but rather sub-national, an offshoot, denying its roots, lacking memory and spineless” (Buber, 1964, p. 152).

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meaning” of “believing in God’s unity in the Jewish sense” (ibid., 149). Here too, Scholem’s insights as a Kabbalah researcher are reflected in the image of the Kabbalists he saw: “Even for a Jewish thinker like Nahmanides the infinite personal God of the Bible is merely the dark element, the secret of the mystery, which is hidden even in the depths of the mystical zero, and it cannot be spo-ken of at all, let alone using personal adjectives” (ibid., 149). It transpires that standing in the face of the vagueness, hiddenness, and darkness that shroud the mystical object is essential for experiencing its transcendent essence.

From the beginning of his path as a Kabbalah researcher, Scholem noted the severity of the problem of locating the precise starting point of research deal-ing with a human phenomenon: “The problem of the first beginnings is very complicated and requires detailed clarification” (ibid., 12).9 Later, concerning the development of the Kabbalah in Provence during the twelfth century, he leaves no answer to the questions he raised himself: “Some might say these are ideas and fragments of ideas, which pamphlets or scrolls or remnants of old lit-erary material flowed with this stream” (ibid., 16). It seems that Scholem’s deep persuasion of the Kabbalah’s “feeding from hidden sources” (ibid., 27) enabled him to position its tradition within the continuum of Jewish history, despite his admission that “the pipes of the penetration [of the mystical tradition . . . ] are still hidden” (ibid., 138). The assumption of continuity provides a sort of ad hoc answer, not only for the vagueness but also for the mentioned prob-lem of beginnings: “In vain we seek an answer to the question: from whence could these terms and concepts have been born and formed during the twelfth century, were they not feeding from hidden sources related somehow to the ancient gnostic tradition?” (ibid., 27). Scholem does not mention here whether this is the ancient Jewish gnosis, which he perceived as part of the rabbini-cal establishment, or non-Jewish gnosis, whose influence apparently poses a problem for his historical continuity thesis. This problem may become even more severe in light of his words elsewhere, indicating the penetration of non-Jewish elements into the Kabbalistic tradition:

The big pictures of the Kabbalah, even when they really stemmed from the depths of original Jewish creative forces, always contained something from the foreign mythical worlds. Without them the drives that acted among the first Kabbalists would not have reached formation [. . .] and it

9 Perhaps in the background to this statement was Scholem’s awareness of the problem of the beginning in the phenomenological approach. In this context, see Husserl, 1952, §63.



is this in particular that gave the Jewish mystics quite a bit of their special language (Scholem, 2003, 97).10

Nevertheless, it appears that his conviction regarding the connection between the various mystical traditions within the Jewish tradition remained strong, even in cases where the transmission routes of these traditions were unknown and their starting point cannot be determined.11

The personal dimension involved in dealing with mysticism, which Scholem identified in himself and in the world of the Kabbalists, and the stress on the transcendent nature of the mystical object, cannot alone support his histori-cal continuity thesis. These aspects were indeed not raised beyond what was essential for the constituting of the metaphysical observation. The focus of his interest was actually the importance and value of the non-subjective dimen-sion in Jewish mysticism: “What makes the Kabbalah interesting is the power to turn things into symbols. And the symbols are not subjective. They are an objec-tive illustration of the internal side of Jewish externality” (Scholem, 1976a, 53).12

10 Moshe Idel explains that “Scholem uses the term ‘gnosis’ without the anarchic and revolu-tionary connotations typical of his discussion of the connection between gnosis and the Kabbalah in the middle ages. The ancient Jewish gnosis is presented as a thought pattern that was part of the Rabbinical establishment. In contrast, the influence of the gnosis—meaning the historical non-Jewish thought—on medieval Jewish mystics is described in terms of the penetration of perceptions that were suppressed” (Idel, 1997, p. 86, n. 25). Idel expands his discussion of these two senses in a separate article, Idel, 1997/1998.

11 The proposed interpretation stresses the certainty dimension accompanying Scholem’s work that served as a sold substrate for the formation of his metaphysical world view. Moshe Idel referred to the above citation on the factual level. In his opinion, Scholem’s argument regarding the presence of foreign mythical worlds within the Kabbalah has yet to be proven: “This turning to foreign sources, and even to the most anti-Jewish sources, as a key to the spirituality in Judaism reveals Scholem’s most basic uncertainty—or should we say his skepticism—regarding the spiritual forces residing in Judaism in its classical forms, starting with the Bible” (Idel, 1997, p. 81). However, reservations about this statement may be found in Idel’s words about Scholem’s expression in another context (Scholem, 2003, p. 97). Idel writes there that “Scholem’s discussion is basically paradoxi-cal” (Idel, 1997, p. 84, n. 12).

12 The emphasis on striving for objectivity that directs Scholem’s work accords with the interpretation of Josef Dan, according to which even if Scholem “never claimed that his researches presented the absolute truth,” he did search for the objective meaning of the Kabbalistic texts he studied, and the work he dedicated to the bibliographical discussion was intended to put it to the objective test. See Dan, 1979, p. 361. These words were written in a review of David Biale’s book, Gershom Sholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History, which in Dan’s opinion was wrong to interpret Scholem’s work as guided by his personal

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Scholem approves of an approach seeking to minimize the concrete personal-ity component both in relation to himself and to the positions of the Kabbalists themselves. He describes this approach: “The psychological root is connected to the feeling that it would be inappropriate for the Kabbalist to make himself prominent, let alone if he was blessed with hours of divine inspiration,” since alongside this component there is also the “historical root connected with the desire to act upon the generation” (Scholem, 1948, 101). Finally, Scholem himself links the two—minimizing the self-presence and the leadership aspect—into the historical continuity thesis: “seeking the historical continuity and influenc-ing the public are connected here with an element of modesty or a desire for personal anonymity” (ibid., 101).

The affirmation of the “continuity of our history” (Scholem, 1976a, 219), at the basis of the constituting of the metaphysical observation of the issue of continuity, now receives its full meaning. This is not merely a description of a series of historical events that the Jewish nation experienced, since historical continuity requires a unique observation of a subject who assumes in advance the reality of something hidden. However, the continuity thesis does not denote mainly the observer’s personal worldview, but a statement regarding the historical reality upon which this thesis is based. This reality, it transpires, bears within itself some hidden portions whose reality must be assumed in order to form access to them, even if it always remains transcendent.

2.2 The Historical View of Historical ContinuityThe metaphysical observation of historical continuity, which relied upon a personal decision and the experience of the transcendent nature of the mysti-cal object, provided the abstract framework and the commitment essential for this thesis. However, the filling of this framework with content required the activation of the historical observation, which would reveal “the small experi-ences of the human race” hidden in Jewish history (Scholem, 1990, 198) from “a willingness to know all the forces that revived and maintained the Jewish nation as a living body throughout its historical incarnations” (Scholem, 1976a, 66, emphases in the original).

Like the metaphysical observation of the issue of continuity, the histori-cal one too reflects the images of the Kabbalists. But now it is important to Scholem to determine the boundary distinguishing them from his own view of the mystical phenomena: “We do not approach this world of the secret as secret-owners, but not without a tremor and awe” (ibid., 66). Unlike a

approach, seeing “mysticism [. . . as] a ‘model’ Scholem used to express his perception of counter-history” (ibid., p. 360).



“secret-owner” who experiences discovery and presence, as a historian Scholem experiences the distance that is “essential to the scientist in order to under-stand the object and refer to it” (Scholem, 1990, 126). This approach is apparent in his explicit statement: “I am not a Kabbalist or a neo-Kabbalist [. . .] I do not view Jewish history from the view of the Kabbalah” (ibid., 238–239). A similar principle appears in other contexts too. For example: “I was not interested in educating” (Scholem, 1976a, 20), and elsewhere, “I, however, wanted to make an attempt to unlock these mysterious texts, written in peculiar symbols, and make them comprehensible—to myself or to others” (Scholem, 1980, 115).13 This distance, containing alienation, may enable avoidance of what he called in another context “overflowing weeping sentimentality” (Scholem, 1976a, 396).14

Thus the distance transpires as helping constitute the passive stance essen-tial for the historian who seeks to approach without bias the range of appear-ances of the historical phenomenon. Indeed, Scholem himself testifies that “one thing was central for the great turning-point in the historical assessment of the phenomena that were the contents of my life’s work, and more than I caused this turning-point in my work, my work was caused by it” (ibid., 66).15 With hindsight, even the mathematical studies in his early days appear to Scholem to be a significant part that influenced his formation as a historian: “Their impression was apparent in a discipline that lit warning lights against

13 Scholem’s clear words in these citations are reflected in the assessment of Ita Shadelzki that Bergman’s demand from Scholem, implied in a letter wrote to Escha and Hugo Bergman (on 15 December 1947) was directed at the wrong person, who “had never pre-tended to be a ‘prophet’ or ‘harbinger’.” This is also true regarding the words of Eliezer Schweid, who states that in Scholem’s opinion, historical research is perhaps the only authentic way a contemporary Jew living in modern times can create a connection to his national-religious heritage;see Schweid, 1982–1983, pp. 65–67 (a similar approach appears in Verblovsky, 1985/1986, p. 125). In any case, unlike Shadelzki, I believe the origin of Scholem’s choice to limit himself within the boundaries of the researching historian does not stem from a “constant sense of distance from unobtainable Judaism,” which she attri-butes to Scholem, but from the basic intuition behind his work that contained positive insights regarding Judaism. See Shadelzki, 1997/1998, p. 84 (the aforementioned letter of Scholem appears as an appendix to this article).

14 For more on “the weeping perception of Jewish history,” see Shoresh, 2000, pp. 437–451. See also Moshe Idel’s argument that “Scholem appoints the historian to decipher the meaning of the symbols-tears that are the oracles for elucidating history” (Idel, 2006, pp. 184–185).

15 Avraham Shapira quotes a question that “forced itself” upon him, “whether Judaism as a heritage or experience is still alive and even continues to grow, or exists just as an object for knowing?” (Shapira, 1988, pp. 20–21).

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the deviations and leaps of my imagination. My experiences with certain his-torians and literature researchers over the next fifty years taught me that the accepted methods in the research of these subjects were no barrier against weeds growing in the fields of historical imagination” (Scholem, 1982, 128). The rational criteria restrain the wishes and can remove the distorting potential embodied in activity that involves deep personal engagement.

More important, Scholem hoped that as a historian he would be able to illuminate “the flesh and bones of these phenomena [mystery in Judaism] as historical units, and even more: as one continuous living chain with historical meaning;” namely, to replace their previous representation by “philosophers and ideologues, aesthetes and poets [. . .] not to mention the charlatans;” to illuminate these phenomena as “lonely, incomprehensible in their communi-cation with each other and in their connection to larger historical processes in the Jewish and non-Jewish world” (Scholem, 1976a, 67). Scholem did not deny the constructivisitic dimension in his work and did not attempt to hide it, despite the clear contradiction between it and the scientific ethos accompany-ing historical research from its inception. In fact, the absence of this dimension in the Wissenschaft des Judentums constitutes one of Scholem’s basic points of criticism of its founders: “The power of the Wissenschaft des Judentums to change anything was zero [. . .] Many of these swift workers seem in our eyes as giants in knowledge and dwarves in opinions. And it appears that this is what the generation sought” (ibid., 395, emphasis in the original). In an open declaration of his connection to that rational ethos that was behind the estab-lishment of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, Scholem writes:

Rationality is a dialectical instrument that serves to construct and to destroy, but its successes are more apparent in destruction. The rational people tried to build positive thinking systems—but these systems were much less sustainable than the criticism, the creative destruction. I know this is a very painful point, and many of the admirers of reason (I belong to them myself ) do not like hearing this opinion. But I tend to think that in summarizing historical researches, in the history of religion, in philos-ophy, and in ethics, that reason is a successful instrument of destruction. To construct one needs something beyond this (ibid., 38).

Against this background we can understand Scholem’s wish to find “in the his-torical failures the power that can seek its repair” (Scholem, 1990, 189). Typically, Scholem identifies a similar move in the first Kabbalists after the expulsion from Spain:



The Kabbalist’s persistence and profundity [. . .] removed the flaw in his-tory from trying to return the viewing of the world’s structure and cre-ation to before that primeval deception [. . .] that withdrawal and return to the depths of the primary elements of our being could have [. . .] been the path of redemption: restoring things to their being, to their original state of unity and purity (Scholem, 1976a, 263).

Like the Kabbalist, the historian seeks a grasp in the reality that preceded the distortion, but he seeks it in history, assuming that this reality left its mark upon it. As a historian, Scholem therefore assumes that “the historical condi-tions” serve not only as the context for the appearance of mystical phenomena, but that these phenomena themselves testify to the historical conditions.16 So in his opinion it is important to see the mystical phenomena naturally as part of the historical continuity.

It is important to clarify that Scholem was far from seeing the historical observation as free of problems and flaws. Thus, for example, he states that historical criticism “is not a key that opens all the closed halls” in which he had searched for the hidden all his life, and he describes it “as if it were a member of the ‘petit bourgeoisie’ ” compared to what the “intuitions and [ . . . the] obser-vations that descend [. . .] to the foundations” seek (ibid., 67). But precisely to this restriction he attributed the possibility to act as a restraining and moderat-ing force over the metaphysical observation:

In the generation of boastful and empty “existential analysis” the scholar in the Humanities should rise up and declare where he stands. Anyone denying the methods of historical criticism and disrespecting its con-clusions or trying to avoid them is building upon chaos and will end up paying the price of his alienation. Intuition and faith have their respected place. Historical science rises and falls with historical criticism (ibid., 68).

Or elsewhere:

Our picture about the past is changing, and we ask: what can we learn from it and can we learn from it at all. Jewish history can join a completely different combination than the one our ancestors saw in it [. . .] Today we seek a picture of the past in order to transmit something to the next generation [. . .] The essential interest we all show in the actualization of

16 E.g., Scholem, 1948, pp. 21, 38, 192.

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Jewish history contains a great danger, the danger of biased subjectiv-ity [. . .] The only guarantee is the desire for the truth. A man is required to seek the truth even if he knows it is beyond him [. . .] but if he starts making combinations based on his desires [. . .] we are buried in advance (Scholem, 1990, 191).

Now the possible contribution of the historical observation to the formation of the continuity thesis transpires. The commitment to the truth that it nurtures, and its power to give “Jewish scientific research [. . .] a lasting value” (ibid., 126), can serve as a tool for breaking through the walls of the conventions in which mysticism was granted a marginal status in Jewish history. The early state-ment that gave “what beliefs are possible or impossible within the framework of Judaism” an important role in the question of “The ‘Jewishness’ in the reli-giosity of any particular period” (Scholem, 1976c, 283), later gave way to the argument “The agreed is insufficient, because they killed those who opposed or did not leave any trace of them” (Scholem, 1990, 105), though “despite the rejections and reservations of religious sages, historical memory and mythi-cal legend have joined together to preserve and maintain the memory of the Messianic attempts of Bar-Kochva or Sabbatai Sevi, which appeared periodi-cally in Jewish history” (Scholem, 1976a, 169). The later approach is apparent already in Scholem’s early work, Origins of the Kabbalah, in which he noted the pointlessness of using defined criteria for examining early Jewish mysticism:

If these early circles from which the Bahir emerged were God-fearing and complete in their faith, “Orthodox” in the theological sense of the purity of their formulas—is a vain question. [. . .] This concept has no relevance regarding the Judaism of those states unless you say that nobody is God-fearing and complete unless he believes in the way of Rabbi Saadya or Maimonides, and we end up saying that ninety-five percent of that gen-eration were heretics (Scholem, 1948, 58).

In his opinion, “we should not seek [the roots of the phenomenon] among the main speakers of the generation, but among those on the boundary between the sages and the people, and who share the qualities of both” (ibid., 59).

The challenge Scholem expresses in Origins of the Kabbalah about research seeking to sketch the nature of a period while relying on an elitist approach (ibid., 59) is repeated in his criticism of the historians of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, who limited themselves to the literary level of Jewish existence (Scholem, 1976a, 395–396) and as a result reached, in his opinion, scientific



esotericism that celebrates what he called “the cult of the zero” (ibid., 386).17 Scholem emphasizes the element of continuity also in the phenomena he found innovative: “You find here more of an attempt to speak about the divine things from a new approach that is in fact old” (Scholem, 1948, 58), or elsewhere: “Here [in the Bahir] something new is added whose analysis shows us it is merely a remnant of an old and forgotten world” (ibid., 36), and: “Despite this we learn from the analysis of several articles in the Bahir: if that gnostic approach ever existed or was resurrected during the middle ages—then from the very same premises, and from premises equal or identical to them, new mythical material might have been formed, in the spirit of the old material” (ibid., 38, emphases in the original). The perception arising from these citations, accord-ing to which the new clears its path from within the old that continues to be embodied in it, is very important for establishing Scholem’s continuity thesis.18 It seems that Scholem’s approach to studying the Kabbalah is based on his understanding that a sort of “law of matter conservation” operates in history that does not allow the formation of vacuums in tradition.

3 Dialectical Conservatism and Daring

One of the interesting means Scholem employs to strengthen and establish his historical continuity thesis is the expressions of conservatism he found in the self-perception of the mystics, who, in his opinion, “saw themselves as

17 Scholem is implying here what is called the “fallacy of origins,” meaning the danger entailed in the archaeological approach to historical phenomena, or as Amos Funkenstein defined it, “the classical ethnographic topos of autochtony: it went hand in hand with the preconception that, by uncovering the origins of a nation, you lay bare its nature or essence” (Funkenstein, 1995, p. 10). However, David Myers, 1995, p. 23, rightly notes that despite Scholem’s criticism, he was never interested in studying the Jews’ material existence.

18 In David Myers’s interpretation, this position is linked to Scholem’s rejection of the argu-ment that early forms of Jewish mysticism in the ancient era were the product of Christian or non-Jewish influence. In Myers’s opinion, the fear of external influence accords with an immanent drive (Myers, 2003, p. 163). In principle, this suits my argument regarding the coherence of the continuity argument in Scholem’s work. But the proposed interpre-tation links Scholem’s position to his personal metaphysical worldview, while Myers’s interpretation adopts the alternative models to the influence and assimilation approach, offered by Funkenstein, Cohen, and Rawidowitz (ibid., pp. 164–166). In this context, see also Shäfer, 2002, p. 210 (cited ibid., p. 228, n. 26).

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guardians of Israel” [shlomey emunei yesrael] (Scholem, 2003, 69) and adapted themselves to the “ ‘orthodox’ vocabulary” that served as a vehicle for their thoughts (Scholem, 1941, 10). Scholem expresses this distinction in different contexts. For example: “The mystic is naturally conservative, even if he is revo-lutionary! He seeks to maintain the continuity of tradition, and therefore does not deviate from the framework and he leaves the existing values” (Scholem, 1976a, 195), or “This cautious use of the secret word and the special meaning it has for Nahmanides indicates the basic nature of the Kabbalah for him: it appears for him already in its full force as a conservative power” (Scholem, 1948, 151), and: “It is worth stressing that such a pillar of strict Judaism in his time as Nahmanides did not see in these ideas any deviation from the one revela-tion” (ibid., 182). Scholem attributes the success of the Kabbalah, among other things, to its positive attitude to the spiritual tradition of Rabbinical Judaism, which, unlike that of rational philosophy, was more deeply and vividly con-nected to the main forces operating in Judaism (1941, 23). He also found in the Kabbalistic interpretations the historical interest committed to Judaism’s authoritative heritage, not only in the contexts where the Kabbalists presented a utopian interpretation of the written Torah. For instance, regarding the issue of granting the commandment tablets to Moses in Sinai, Scholem writes:

It would be a mistake to term these passages antinomistic and anti- Talmudic. The author is far from wishing to do away with the Talmudic law, to which he accorded full validity and legitimacy as the historical form in which the Torah was given. The detailed discussions of elements of the Halakhah in these books are purely positive in character and show no sign of hostility. But there can be no doubt that the author expected the utopian and purely mystical aspect of the Torah to be made fully manifest and to enter into full force on the day of Redemption (Scholem, 1965, 70).

In Scholem’s opinion, even the early writings of the Kabbalah bearing a clear mythical character, “[mysticism] preserves its character as a specific historical phenomenon within a concrete religion” (ibid., 94).19 In this spirit, he inter-prets the world of mythical images of divinity in ancient Jewish mysticism as having a “completely orthodox Jewish character” and the connection of this literature to the secrets of the Merkabah as rooted in the center of Rabbinical Judaism during the period of the Tannaites and Amorites (Scholem, 2003, 170).

19 See also Scholem, 2003, p. 113; Scholem, 1941, p. 6. Scholem rejects in this context the pos-sibility of a mystical religion, and argues that this is a “modern invention” (Scholem, 1976a, p. 71).



The conclusion appears already at an early stage in Scholem’s work, when he states that there is something misguided in the common perception of mono-theism as opposed to myth and that perhaps monotheism also contains room for every development of mythical knowledge at a deeper level.20 It seems that the unreserved commitment to the sources of authority in Judaism, which Scholem found in the Kabbalists’ intentions and motivations, enable him to interpret in a conservative way even the idea of the “relativity of the Torah” and to harness it to the historical continuity thesis.

Scholem exposes some of the dialectics in which his personal approach was rooted when he indicates the “strong connection” between conservatism and innovation. In other words, “between the strict Jewish observance of the ways of the Torah given at Sinai and the vision of changing the Torah” is hidden “the most wonderful side” that attracts the historian of religion (Scholem, 1948, 187–188). Similarly, elsewhere he mentions “that paradox that charms and attracts the observer, and at the same time annoys and vexes his spirit” (Scholem, 2003, 86) and admits that “we are interested in the position of the Kabbalists, who in their interpretation deeply changed the Biblical world, while essentially continuing to hold it” (ibid., 189). The wonder and charm Scholem describes in the contexts where he refers to distinct Kabbalistic issues constitute essen-tial components in the formation of his personal anarchic position, which will later transpire as challenging the identification of the continuity with the overt levels of history.21

In principle, metaphysical certainty can overcome the contrasts and gaps that raise the sense of wonder through their assimilation into one whole agreed complex. However, Scholem is not satisfied with this certainty and con-stantly feeds it through the historical observation that phrases as a “problem” the question, “How can the mystic be conservative, an interpreter of religious and traditional authority, and the fighter of its wars?” Scholem replies that, “These mystics [. . .] repeatedly reveal from within themselves the sources of traditional authority. Their path returned them to the source from which that authority stemmed. Since this authority is revealed to them with the same face it had for generations, nothing motivated them to try to change it; indeed, they try to preserve it in its strictest sense” (ibid., 11).

20 See Scholem, 1941, p. 23. Moshe Idel’s interpretation stressed the gap between the world of the Sages and that of the Kabbalists, and in general between Halakhah and myth in Scholem’s approach; see Idel, 1997, pp. 76–80.

21 David Biale stresses the dominance of the personal and identifying dimension, in com-parison with that of the historian and researcher, in Scholem’s discussion of anarchy and Kabbalah. See Biale, 1979, pp. 94–102.

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Scholem believes that the mystic’s education and raising within the reli-gious tradition make it difficult for him to shed its heritage, especially when the religious authority itself tries to integrate him into itself (ibid., 30–31), but the mystic “usually does not wish to try this” (ibid., 20).22 Scholem adds that history teaches us that a mystic who has chosen another way, that is, a non-conservative one, is “the most halted and chained; since historical reality, as embodied in human society, prevents him more than it prevents any other mys-tic from being able to express his tidings as he wishes” (ibid., 32). Either way, it transpires that the mystic is subject to the authority of tradition and of history in general.

Scholem explains that the conservative nature of mysticism is enabled by its duality: the absence of a typical form of the mystical experience on the one hand, and the mystic’s usage of ideas and symbols taken from the world of the traditional religious authority on the other hand.23 In his opinion, “Only the most general formal elements remain identical in the different structures [. . . and] through this process of constructing and destroying forms opinions frequently arise regarding the nature of reality, originating in the philosophical tradition and drawing their authority from it [. . . and these] are now confirmed precisely in the mystical experience” (ibid., 12–13).

Thus, not only does the mystic not break the boundaries of tradition, he also affirms tradition through his very mystical experience and his interpreta-tion of its sources. It transpires that as innovative and ground-breaking as the mystical experience may be, it is still anchored in the world of authoritative religious tradition. So the mystic “adds [. . .] validity, through his personal expe-rience, to the religious authority to which he is subject” (ibid., 13). Indeed the interpretation the mystic directs to scripture reveals new dimensions in it, and “the divine speech that is a supreme authority deviates from its cage.” But this interpretation acts as “a key to open the meaning of revelation” (Scholem, 2003, 16, emphasis in the original), meaning that it was there from the beginning. Thus from the metaphysical viewpoint the possibility prevents in advance any

22 In his opinion, this power of the tradition also operates on secular mysticism, which despite appearing to be unrelated to religious authority, and even detached from it and rejecting it, is still inevitably saturated in interpretations and images taken from the world of religious tradition. Scholem demonstrates this regarding non-Jewish cultures (Scholem, 2003, pp. 20–21).

23 In this context, see Scholem, 2003, pp. 361–365; Scholem, 1941, p. 240. For more regarding the philosophical sources from the world of Platonic and Aristotelian perceptions of the soul, which served Scholem in this context, see Ben Shlomo, 1997, p. 115.



real innovation from penetrating the existing perception regarding the array of entities of which the ontology of religion is composed.24

It is important to clarify that the conservative nature of Jewish mysticism in no way forces uniformity upon it or guarantees its continued loyalty to tradi-tion. Scholem explains:

By its very nature, the mystical experience involves the danger of devi-ating from traditional authority into the realm without control or the possibility of control. The community’s religious education still leaves an opening for many adventures of the spirit that could contradict the accepted teachings and images and to lead to a clash between the mystic and the religious authority as established within the community’s tradi-tion [. . .] The mystic’s path is full of obstacles and surrounded by danger; it leads over chasms of consciousness and requires a measured, steady step (ibid., 22).

So we should not be surprised that the mystic deviates, consciously or uncon-sciously, from the boundaries of his religion (Scholem, 1941, 9). Later, Scholem describes antinomianism as “inevitable” and states that only through “religious feeling so long as it is strong and unbroken” can it be overcome (ibid., 30). Scholem concludes that one cannot predict in advance the type of mysticism that would clash with tradition and that this does not depend decisively on the personality of the mystic or his teachings, but “only on the historical circum-stances, whose relation to the religious area—relations that change frequently and cannot be brought to a unambiguous common denominator.” Scholem states that history teaches that the clash with the religious tradition “is forced upon the people involved against their will, without any connection to the mys-tical teachings themselves, while it is required due to a specific historical situa-tion” (Scholem, 2003, 28–29). The dialectical nature of the historical continuity thesis thus thwarts the possibility that unity, permanence, and predictability could control the character of Jewish history it sketches.

24 Scholem also refers to the nihilistic horizon, which in extreme cases the mystical experi-ence can reach and can turn into the destruction of religious authority. In his opinion, only “in rare border-line cases [. . .] mystical theories in themselves involve an inevitable clash with the authority” (Scholem, 2003, p. 29, emphasis in the original). However, his basic phenomenological approach leads him to state that the extreme case is not isolated “completely from the mystics’ original drive [. . .] and despite the revulsion is arouses in us, it is a legitimate outcome of the mental shock in mysticism” (ibid., p. 15). This means that even the extreme cases indicate the conservatism of mysticism.

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4 Vitality, Paradox, and the Presence of the Nothingness

On the face of it, recognizing that mysticism is liable to breach the boundar-ies of tradition could undermine the permanent and independent metaphysi-cal substrate on which Scholem sought to establish the historical continuity thesis. But Scholem’s complex understanding of historical reality, identifying in it the active and constant presence of constructive and destructive forces, was far from viewing this possibility as a threat, even when it was realized, for example in the phenomenon of Frankism. It seems the continuity thesis is protected not just by the strength of the relation to the past and tradition but also by the understanding of Judaism as a living and lively reality whose future horizon is open before it:

I am among those who believe Judaism is full of vitality and with all its rich past—still eternally future-rich; that it is a phenomenon in which the not-yet-revealed, the concealed, and the visible are as abundant as the past assets remaining to us—still present. As a great German poet said: “The master of his futures—whoever can change” (Scholem, 1976a, 129).

In many contexts in his writings, Scholem makes his argument regarding the existence of continuity in Jewish history dependent on characterizing Judaism as a living and lively reality. It seems that both premises, or beliefs, were equally primary in his continuity thesis. They express the metaphysical desire for com-pleteness embodied in both the observations constituting Scholem’s work: the continuity argument aims to recognize “all the forces, to remove from the heart those who sought or seek to restrict these forces, and to see only those whose action for some reason is convenient and agreeable to them,” while the vital-ity argument sees Jewish existence as “a living body, to remove from the heart those who saw or see our history as the embodiment of a mere idea, let alone of an idea forever enslaved to the definition they gave it” (ibid., 66, empha-ses in the original). In contrast to “almost all the workers and creators of the study of Jewish history and the Wissenschaft des Judentums [who] were theo-logians,” whom he regarded as “the attempt to ignore what was a very living factor,” he states: “The Jewish nation as a whole was always very vital and lively, and was always more than a phenomenon fixed once and for all, and certainly more than a matter that can be given a permanent theological phrasing and definition” (Scholem, 1990, 134). Moreover, Scholem believes that the “vitality point” in the Kabbalah is “a worthy tool for the historian and anyone interested in the thought of the generations of Israel” (Scholem, 1976a, 66), despite the



difficulty it presents anyone trying to understand the contradictions of the past or to predict the future. Thus, for instance, he stresses the advantage of the Kabbalah after the Spanish expulsion as bearing “a living feeling and burst-ing power” thanks to which it should not be condemned (ibid., 263). Scholem admits that this perception was not the conclusion of historical research but of his starting premise: “Judaism as a living phenomenon attracted me. I wanted to enter the world of the Kabbalah from my thoughts and faith in Zionism as a living thing, as the renewal of a nation that had become very degenerate” (ibid., 26), or elsewhere: “During my search for the tradition that had been lost to my circle, a tradition that had a great attraction for me, the writings of the ancient Jews seemed infinitely rich and alive” (Scholem, 1980, 50).25

The personal attraction and the presuppositions described in these citations directed Scholem to seek in that “lost tradition” the reality of the continuity of generations: “I believed one should study and clarify which elements had been preserved in Judaism in their full vitality” (Scholem, 1995, 89). Elsewhere he adds that “The Kabbalah in its final dialectical forms is the last theological area where the questions of my Jewish life found a living answer” (Scholem, 1976a, 415). This is how the two observations, metaphysical and historical, are joined together: research clarifies the appearances of the vitality that cannot be dog-matically defined (see Scholem, 1995, 36), but the very existence of this vitality is not the conclusion of historical research and is not subject to discussion, being the fruit of metaphysical intuition. It transpires that Scholem’s obser-vation of Judaism as a real historical phenomenon moves aside its dynamic aspects in favor of the study of the truth and objectivity, which in them-selves denote supra-historical values. In contrast, the metaphysical observa-tion, assuming the presence of a permanent entity-like element or substance enables the expression of the dynamic aspects related to Judaism’s being a real historical phenomenon full of vitality. Scholem sketches the complex relations between historical continuity and the element of vitality as follows:

In my life I have been pulled between two poles that attracted my atten-tion in the study of the Kabbalah. I will confess the truth that in my publications they have not been revealed to me in all their acuity. One pole—let us call it the overt—was the scientific interest I had in the lit-erature of the Kabbalists, both from the historical aspect and from the

25 In this context, see Rotenstreich’s argument that Scholem attributed to Zionism a radical meaning beyond the survival of Judaism and Jewish culture. In his opinion, Scholem saw Zionism as a factor that would cause a revolution in Jewish existence. See Rotenstreich, 1983, pp. 71–75.

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theoretical-philosophical aspect [. . .] Gradually the full and immense dynamic in the development of this movement was revealed to me [. . . and enabled] the understanding of these internal processes involved in the significant roles the Kabbalah possessed as a historical and public factor in our history [. . .] However, the second pole of my attention was not made equally prominent in my many publications over fifty years, though it was no less important to me, meaning to a man who saw and sees Judaism as a living, renewing, and changing body, that takes on vari-ous forms, that cannot be given a fixed and agreed definition. I am refer-ring to the interest I found in the imaginative world of the Kabbalists [. . .] the images and symbols that grew on this soil [. . .] seemed to me as saturated in poetical and lyrical meaning equivalent to the theoretical meaning I had devoted myself to deciphering (Scholem, 1990, 44–45).

On the face of it, it is not difficult to locate within the realm of the histori-cal observation both the comment regarding the developmental dimension of Judaism and the recognition of the lack of an unambiguous definition of its living reality.26 Scholem himself links the two arguments: “If we knew how to define in formulas what is Judaism, there would not be a comprehensive spiritual phenomenon here, but we would have a body whose vitality is deter-mined by definitions. I renounce this perception. I say that in the complex of life, the continuity of generations, some very different trends have developed in Judaism” (Scholem, 1995, 37). The undefinable vitality of Judaism arises from a holistic observation of the continuity of its history. If so, what is the mean-ing of Scholem’s choice, in the above citation, to locate the two arguments at the two poles—continuity at one end and vitality at the other? It appears that within the boundary of the historical observation there is no answer to this question, and indeed, in another context Scholem himself expressed his dis-comfort with the assumption of continuity as a tool for deciphering the vitality of Jewish existence: “We do not live on the level of citations from the words of the ancients,” but on a living thing arising from the vital factors in history (ibid., 56). It is interesting that the need for a complementing metaphysical observa-tion, containing a priori certainty regarding the meaning that has precedence over the details revealed on the overt level of the historical observation tran-spires to Scholem when he reflects on his work as a historian:

26 While Scholem characterizes the first pole as a “theoretical-philosophical aspect” (Scholem, 1990, p. 45), his description suits what I have defined as the historical viewpoint.



We wanted to return to science with all its strictness and lack of com-promise as we found it in the words of Zunz or Steinschneider, but we wanted to direct it towards the constructive and positive. We sought to invest ourselves in studying details and details of details. We were rav-enous for the dry details, the ‘small and large’, to open with them the blocked well of lively vitality; because we knew: its place is there and that is where it is hidden, from there its water will rise and from there we will quench our thirst. We sought the light of the great scientific ideal that illuminates the details [. . .] and we knew—is there any serious scientist whose heart does not contain that eternal quarrel?—that it dwells only in the details themselves. We knew the power of a ‘fact’—and knew that ‘nothing is more misleading than a fact’ [. . .] So we sought the tension of ideas within the facts and from the facts (Scholem, 1976a, 400–401).

The “quarrel” and the “polarity” thus take place between the two viewpoints simultaneously active in forming the continuity thesis: the historical obser-vation criticized the Wissenschaft des Judentums for, under the influence of romanticism, ignoring “what was the most alive factor, beating at the very heart of the nation as one perfection” (Scholem, 1990, 134), and therefore wished “to remove from the heart those who saw or see our history as the embodiment of a mere idea” (Scholem, 1976a, 66). From this point of view, Scholem’s achieve-ment is that his approach was freed from dependence upon a rational idea and included within the history of the Jewish nation also mystical phenomena. In contrast, the metaphysical observation is presented here as seeking the “light of the scientific idea” and “the tension of ideas within the facts and from the facts” (Scholem, 1976a, 401). From this point of view the argument that Judaism is a living body seems on the one hand as the fruit of the historical observation that achieved the historical continuity through absorption in details, and on the other hand as an argument exceeding the boundaries of the historical con-tinuity itself and entering the realm of the metaphysical observation.27

Scholem’s historical “innovation” stems from his seeing the “vitality point” in the Kabbalah “while greater and better than him in previous generations did not see it” (ibid., 66). However, Scholem’s metaphysical observation cannot be satisfied with this, and it constantly searches for the discovery of autonomous ontological guarantees. These are intended to release Scholem’s continuity thesis from dependence upon the thought that would confirm it in the shape of dogmatic conventions or interpretations. So we can state that Scholem’s thought attributes the secret of the vitality of Jewish existence to its freedom

27 Compare Scholem, 1995, p. 36.

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from the chains of the thought thinking it, and in any case the historical conti-nuity itself is liberated as well.

Furthermore, the contribution of the metaphysical viewpoint is not exhausted in the meaning it granted to the relations between the claim that Jewish existence constitutes a living body and the argument that its history is characterized by continuity. The activism of the metaphysical observation, thanks to which Scholem was able to exceed the boundaries of the historical observation, reveals a section of a significant experience of absence and noth-ing that constantly feeds it. This experience was at the basis of Scholem’s wish “to know the Judaism that I did not know and that nobody could be found to explain” (ibid., 28). Unlike the experience of the historian and the Kabbalist, who address differently what appears to them as overt reality, the metaphysi-cian seeks a “hidden and concealed” world and wishes to study the distance of this world from real reality. In principle, the metaphysician addresses that “hidden rooted reality, which for its own part and by its own rules cannot be expressed” (ibid., 227) that filled the world of the Kabbalists. But while the Kabbalists experience its revelation and at least for some moment dissolve the distance between it and them, the metaphysician constantly strives for the articulation of the distance and gap from this reality.

So it transpires that recognizing that “the faith in one-time revelation” fell victim to historical criticism, on the one hand, and the understanding that the distance from a subjective approach that transfers the revelation to a secular humanistic approach is not so great,28 on the other hand, left Scholem no way other than that of the metaphysician, which also seemed to him appropriate for his time: “This is the situation in which the vast majority of those currently exist whose faith in the reality of God cannot be damaged by historical criti-cism” (ibid., 568–569, emphasis in the original). The difficulty in expressing this complex position in the tools of historical criticism and also in the language of metaphysics led Scholem to try his hand at poetry (Scholem, 1990, 338):

Only thus is thy face revealed, God,To the generation that kicked you.Only your nothingness is everythingIn which you may be experienced.29

28 The anchoring of the revelation in the world of the individual creates in practice a secu-larization of religious symbols. In this context, see Katz, 1979, p. 81.

29 Part of a poem that was found on a copy of Kafka’s The Trial. The poem was originally written in Hebrew and appeared in Shimon Sandbank’s Hebrew translation in the Culture



The metaphysical intuition regarding the existence of that “something spe-cial,” that “substance” Scholem was certain “is present in our reality” (ibid., 195) brings his approach closer to that of the Kabbalists, in which, “Some flow, something of God’s, always flows anew into the nothingness” (Scholem, 1976a, 577). The presence of the divine within human existence, including secular existence, bears a complexity that may explain the secret Scholem identified as a permanent given in Jewish history, weaving into it simultaneously the—being [ontos?] and the nothing. This position is fundamentally different from the secular position, in which, according to his description, “nothing remains of God but merely a nothing” and also from the Kafkaesque position where it is a “nothing-of-God” (Scholem, 1976a, 577), since it enfolds a perception regard-ing the real presence of the nothing that is no less than that of the existing itself. In this spirit, Scholem describes the divine presence in the era of secu-larization: “God will appear as a non-God” (Scholem, 1995, 52).30

The combination of the daring entailed in the metaphysical observation striving for self-understanding and the historian recognizing the boundaries originating in the context and horizon in which the individual seeking it is rooted was expressed in Scholem’s testimony that among the qualities required from “whoever wishes to enter this world and these studies” he was gifted with two: “courage and humility” (Scholem, 1976a, 67, emphasis in the original). The courage enables him to respond to the basic demands of the metaphysical observation, meaning to assume the living and continuous presence of what is hidden from view. The humility describes the historian’s self-withdrawal, thanks to which it may become possible to expose the details and the range of forces that maintained the Jewish nation in the iterations of its history. But at the depth of the matter, fulfilling the requirements of the metaphysical observation can actually be considered as courage from the viewpoint of the historian, who is expected to permanently avoid it. Similarly, the character-ization of the disposition of self-withdrawal in the face of the overt historical phenomena as humility assumes the metaphysician’s criterion that constantly dares to the hidden. In other words, the courage that indicates the mark of the metaphysical observation contains the historian’s view, and conversely, the historian’s stance seems as humility particularly to the metaphysician.31

and Literature supplement of Haaretz, December 2, 1977, dedicated to Gershom Scholem upon his eightieth birthday.

30 Scholem’s concept of nothing is similar to that of Heidegger. On Heidegger’s perception of nothing, see Motzkin, 1987.

31 The interpretation identifying in Scholem’s work a combination of the depths of self and an appeal to what is beyond the self is clearly expressed in Gadamer’s definition of

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The discussion of the historical continuity thesis in Scholem’s thought reveals the complexity with which the basic features of the two observations, the historical and the metaphysical, permeated it and filled it with contents and meaning; both require each other and intertwine so that the path of “most rational skepticism” serves at the same time as a foundation for what Scholem termed “intuitive affirmation of mystical theses” (Scholem, 1990, 29). This means that searching for the hidden in Jewish history presupposes its imma-nent connection to its continuity, and only later puts it to the test. At the same time, assuming the presence of a substantive reality present in Jewish history transcends this reality, but the transcending requires the immanent founda-tion to accept the presence of the substance.

5 Secularization, Anarchism, and Transcendence

Scholem’s historical continuity thesis that Judaism is a living reality and that Jewish history contains a wide range of human and religious phenomena, some of which are rich in concealment and secret, also serves for him as a setting for clarifying the phenomenon of secularization in the Jewish nation. The mark of both discussed observations is apparent in secularization too: the historical discusses the phenomenon of secularization in its being a reality whose impact is apparent in the present-day real reality, while the metaphysi-cal clarifies the perception of entities on which secularization is based, and in particular the implications of the rejection of the transcendent element. Scholem attributes to the phenomenon of secularization significant power and presence in present-day Judaism; thus he determines that “secularism is a powerful reality, and one must live with its meaning and deal with it directly” (Scholem, 1990, 122), since it is a real phenomenon “within Judaism” (Scholem, 1995, 50) and part of “the process of our entry into history” (Scholem, 1976a, 41).

However, Scholem’s realistic understanding of the reality of the present-day does not detract from his metaphysical certainty regarding the permanent, autonomous, and independent presence of a transcendent and even religious element in Jewish existence throughout the generations. He links the rejection of the transcendent element from Jewish existence to the work of Wissenschaft des Judentums positing that its failure stemmed from its not understanding “that even accurate historical analysis cannot solve the riddle hidden in the

Scholem’s approach as an “amazed identification” (erschrockene Identifikation). This term is taken from a text of Gadamer’s lecture found in Scholem’s estate and cited by Shadelzki, 1997/1998, p. 84.



unexplained essence of religion” (Scholem, 1990, 196), particularly that the existence of the Jewish nation “cannot be exhausted rationally” (ibid., 115). Moreover, they did not note the inability to exhaust the transcendent dimen-sion using the tools of historical research, and this damaged their ability to realize the optimism entailed in their rational ambitions (Scholem, 1976a, 390). The misguidedness of the founders of Jewish historicism transpires to Scholem as a direct result of the limited perspective, which was unable to establish an access route to the complex appearances of the religious dimension in Jewish existence.

Yet, at this point an unavoidable clash between metaphysical consciousness and the observation whose exhaustion may be realized in the arena of real his-tory takes place. The constant confrontation of the ontological and metaphysi-cal element with the historical reality, and the meeting between them creates a dialectic whose solution cannot be immediate or even guaranteed. Indeed, the complexity creates a deep delay that serves as a space not only for the appear-ances of the transcendent entity in Jewish history, but also for the expressions of real historical processes. The weakness of the historical observation, which is prominent in light of the described complexity, directs Scholem’s gaze to the metaphysical one. But it immediately transpires that the metaphysical obser-vation does not contain the solution to the contradiction to whose formation it had contributed. Instead, it contains the ability to establish the stance of the individual or the historian before that “ ‘something’—the secret of its being, the secret of the nation’s reality,” before the “very wonderful riddle [. . .] how this living body that survived in special circumstances that other nations did not face” (Scholem, 1990, 115–116). Beyond its accessibility to the entity-like dimen-sion of historical experience, the vitality of the metaphysical observation stems from its ability to absorb into itself the experience of what is hidden and shows itself as a nothingness, about which Scholem testifies in this context: “Beyond all the disguises, masks, and philological games at which I excel, something hidden [. . .] must have operated me” (Scholem, 1976a, 52), and “I had an opin-ion that perhaps there was a hidden internal side in the historical process tak-ing place here, that it might have a metaphysical-religious aspect” (ibid., 49). It appears that Scholem’s realization that the most basic insight upon which the historical observation is based, i.e., the power of real circumstances to mani-fest internal factors, is denied here by another unexplained force, responsible for an even deeper hiding to take place in realm of the overt than the previous one. The puzzle Scholem identified in Jewish history stems from the transla-tion of the apocalypse, in fact of all the appearances of the crisis on the his-torical level, into a secret (ibid., 160). In his opinion, the very manifestation of the essence creates counter processes of hiding and shrouding, which feed

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anew the messianic drive seeking to rescue the essence from its hiding-place in history. The result is confusion, in which “we are not entitled to distinguish completely between secularism and religion.” Scholem states that “we should be precise in using the concepts ‘secularism’ and ‘religiosity’. It is clear that there is secularism that is not at all related to religion, but we should note that sometimes secular phenomena appear in religious clothing” (Scholem, 1990, 196). Scholem’s thought that confronts the metaphysical with the historical prevents in advance the possibility of finding a “solution” to the described con-tradiction, to the point that from his phrasing it sometimes seems that there is no possibility of demarking the boundary that distinguishes them.

Scholem’s complex perception of the phenomenon of secularization, which revealed the tension between the historical observation and the metaphysical one, is behind his choice to place anarchism as a starting point for the discus-sion of the situation of present-day Judaism: “Our problematic arises because the formulated religious tradition has crumbled and we have entered a no-man’s-land, anarchy in evaluation, and no boundary” (ibid., 116). Within the “no-man’s-land” of history are displayed the phenomena that compose Jewish existence, as candidates for doubt and evaluation while the certainty and truth attributed to them by tradition, with which Scholem himself identified, are suspended. Scholem connects the anarchic position directly to the loosening to the point of loss of the principle of “Torah from Heaven,” according to which “every word, every letter [ . . . is] a discovery of the shekhina, and discovery of sanctity is ‘Torah from heaven’ ” (Scholem, 1976a, 78). Scholem holds that “The anarchic point enters only in that we do not know what the religious author-ity is today. Whoever has lost faith in Torah from heaven must today decide according to the best of his understanding and conscience” (Scholem, 1995, 40). From Scholem’s point of view, this is a far-reaching turning point.

Scholem’s overarching statement that “today we are all, to a large degree, anarchists from a religious point of view, and this should be said openly,”32 raises a question regarding the implications of the concept of anarchy on the perception of “Torah from heaven” and the issue of historical continuity: “When the degree of confidence in Torah from heaven declines [. . .] the ques-tion is asked: where can it [our nation] find a stable basis for that continuity, for that feeling that the gates of interpretation have not been locked before the infinite wealth of the divine word known for its simplicity?” The mark of the historical observation is apparent in determining the factuality of anarchism, since it embodies avoidance of the retroactive commitment to the existence

32 See Naomi Frankl’s essay, 1998, according to which Scholem tried all his life to solve the problem of Jewish identity in a generation of the breaking of the vessels (shevirat kelim).



of distinct essences in history, let alone the argument that history can pres-ent them. Moreover, this observation is also apparent in Scholem’s determina-tion that “Jewish continuity in religious conception is today beyond this principle of Torah from heaven. This conclusion necessarily leads to anarchic forms of religion” (ibid., 80). This means that anarchism denotes a sober view of the reality in which the separation from the principle of “Torah from heaven” and from the perception of continuity based upon it has started. However, in Scholem’s opinion this does not rule out the possibility of historical continuity or even of the continuity of religious perception. It appears that the funda-mental connection between the perception of Judaism as a living reality and the continuity thesis enables the inclusion of the secularization phenomenon and even of anarchism along with the other real appearances in the present-day reality. This thesis expands the horizons of Jewish history toward the past, thus enabling the inclusion of the Kabbalistic tradition and toward the new phenomena revealed in the present, including anarchism and future utopian possibilities.

6 The Future Religious Horizon

The inadequacy of the historical observation directed at the present-day real-ity, which initiates the constituting of the metaphysical observation and con-stantly feeds it, serves as a reflection not only of the limitations of anarchism as a real state of affairs but also of secularization as a possibility that has already been realized within it. Hence, Scholem holds that the social theory is “the least possible in practical terms. It has no chance because it does not take human beings into account” (Scholem, 1976a, 39). For the same reason, secularization is “merely a short transition from one religious dogma to another. Secularism will last as long as no sacrifices are required on its altar; it leaves when people are required to die for something [. . .] People have not been killed for secular-ism in history, and are not be killed today either. People give their lives only for a value they consider absolute (Scholem, 1990, 197).33 Since “The religious impulse, the religious force in man’s soul, is not necessarily related to a one-time divine revelation [. . . but] stems from the very root of the human soul”

33 The transition from the level of the historical observation that sketches the possibilities available in reality to the level of judgment and evaluation is also apparent in Scholem’s discussion of the issue of the false messiah: “I argue that the vision of the false messiah is intolerable for the Jewish tradition as a positive thing, but I do not say that this aspect is not a possible and legitimate examination of the Jewish tradition” (Scholem, 1976a, p. 40).

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(Scholem, 1976a, 192), “secularity contains the religious dynamic” (Scholem, 1995, 63, emphasis in the original) and thus “is not the end” (Scholem, 1995, 43). Scholem presents faith in God as the foundation of morality and the founda-tion of worthwhile human existence in general. Furthermore, in a wide range of references he expresses his personal reservations about the secularization of the Jewish nation (ibid., 63; Scholem, 1976a, 51; Scholem, 1990, 124; Scholem, 1976a, 41; Scholem, 1995, 99). Elsewhere he stresses the “risk” embodied in Jewish secularism “as in any destruction” (Scholem, 1976a, 41). With retrospect he describes “the danger of death, the loss,” the “barbarization” of secular cul-ture, and states sadly that these are “serious processes in which it is difficult to detect the seed of a future, a fertile seed” (ibid., 30).34 It appears that while the historian can observe, even tranquilly, phenomena such as anarchism and sec-ularization and see them as part of the appearances of the human spirit, the metaphysician nurtured in Scholem’s thought is depicted as rising up against these phenomena because they challenge the certainty he bears regarding the existence of transcendent entities that appear and influence in Jewish history.35 In observing the reality of present-day life a paradox emerges between the two observations, so that the historical one that is basically anchored in real real-ity reveals abstract dimensions within itself, while the metaphysical one tran-spires as holding onto what has not yet reached realization.

Scholem repeats, at various levels of severity, his position regarding the reli-gious stage expected at the other side of secularism. Among the many exam-ples: “The Lord is such that even if you forget him for three generations he will live

34 Scholem’s references to the issue of secularization from the educational aspect repeat-edly stress the severe criticism he directed at his parents’ assimilated world. Thus, he notes that “the secularization of education [. . .] contains a large degree of cheating, of self-deception. We assume that the documents we teach about at school are national documents that have nothing positive for us [. . .]. Completely consciously we remove from the documents those values due to which they were preserved, became memorable. And my heart is not quiet” (Scholem, 1990, p. 192). Eliezer Schweid indicates a develop-ment on this issue. While at first Scholem believed, like other Zionist thinkers, that Jewish life in Eretz Israel and knowledge of the historical sources would be sufficient for creating Jewish cultural renewal, at a later stage, portrayed in the article “Thoughts on Jewish Theology” (Scholem, 1976a, pp. 557–590), he has reservations about this and requires a connection to tradition and recognition of a transcendent layer in Jewish existence. See Schweid, 1982–83, pp. 67–69.

35 Viewing anarchism as a distinct dimension or stage in the development of modern Judaism has been blurred in Biale’s interpretation, which presents Scholem’s anarchism as a sort of modern version of the Kabbalah that might protect Judaism against dogma-tism. See Biale, 1983.



in the fourth” (Scholem, 1995, 63, emphasis in the original);36 “I think that this transition through secularity to something that will emerge again is inevitable, it is within the spirit of what we are doing here” (Scholem, 1976a, 48); “I am convinced that behind the whole secular front of its structure Zionism poten-tially enfolds within itself religious contents, and that this religious content is much stronger than all those actual contents [. . .]” (ibid., 587–588); “I do not believe in [being] ‘like all nations,’ [kekhol he’amim] secularity is impossible, and it will not be realized. I do not believe we will destroy ourselves [. . .] I do not believe in a world of complete secularism, in which the religious element will not be revealed with doubly renewed strength” (ibid., 41); and finally:

What we blur today will burst out with greater strength tomorrow, at a dif-ferent turning. You do not know at all where the religious problem embed-ded in our historical memory appears, where it will appear tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. This cannot be predicted in advance. It is very diffi-cult to describe the possibility of historical continuity in Israel is we deny this problem (Scholem, 1990, 192, emphasis in the original).

Like anarchy, Scholem characterizes the secularization phenomenon as a temporary but necessary stage. In principle, these two phenomena represent in his reading challenges to present-day Jewish existence, in stressing its real and exposed dimensions, and naturally the historical observation serves as an essential tool in clarifying them. However, as has transpired, the historical observation cannot exhaust them, and so the need arises for the metaphysical observation to burrow behind the screens of the overt historical phenomena, reveal the essence that constitutes them, and channel the fundamental threat they entail in favor of the ongoing establishment of the continuity, which Scholem believes is not in question at all.

However, Scholem’s anarchism is not limited to challenging the existing order, which often seems to provoke the achievements of the historical obser-vation in absorbing various historical phenomena in Jewish history from the past and the present, or denying the great power it contains, causing the “loos-ening of the old ties that are emptied of their meaning in the new situation”

36 In another context, Scholem similarly stresses the inability to avoid dealing with the reli-gious meaning of history: “[. . .] such questions: the eternal life of the eternal nation before the eternal God cannot be forgotten. After the Zionist movement turns to realization, the old question that the Jewish nation is not free to dispose of or ignore should have awoken and arisen with double force and the quivering vitality involved in any real question, the question: where are we headed [. . .]” (Scholem, 1976a, p. 416).

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(Scholem, 1976a, 173). These important substrates, located within the boundar-ies of the historical observation in which the anarchistic position is primar-ily formed, will find fertile ground for their realization in the realm of the metaphysical observation striving for the affirmative and realization, in which history is revealed as an arena “in which people yearn for their redemption” (Scholem, 1990, 198). The directing of the metaphysical observation toward the new anarchic order, which on the overt level seems to lack a dimension of authority, is intended to help expose and discover the essence encoded in the world of phenomena.37 Now the metaphysical observation is summoned to induce the transcendent presence that has already been realized in reality, or at least serve as a mirror for it. Scholem determines stridently: “I have never departed from the opinion that the element of destruction, with all the poten-tial nihilism it contains, was always also an element of utopian hope for the affirmative” (Scholem, 1976a, 40).

Perhaps we can state that the anarchic position shows independence not only in relation to the image of Judaism held as an ideal by orthodox Jews (“guardians of Israel”), but also toward the image viewed by the historical observation focused on the overt levels of the world of phenomena. However, Scholem makes a significant effort to anchor the anarchic position in imma-nent processes taking place within the historical reality itself. Thus, Scholem finds in historical reality itself the roots of the drive for affirmation and realiza-tion entailed in destruction and negation embodied in the anarchic position (Scholem, 1976b, 579–580).

The appearance out of the historical arena itself of forces striving for affir-mation and realization conclusively put an end to the identification of history with the world of phenomena, and to the picture of continuity based upon it. Furthermore, loosening the connection between history and realism, which among other things enabled the entry of the metaphysical observation into this historical arena, serves as a suitable substrate for the anarchic position itself. The process of restraining the subject observing history while facing the overt appearances of historical reality is an important tool for the anarchic position. This, it transpires, does not itself disrupt the overt order presented by historical reality to the observer. It seems that this is the background to the statement that anarchism is “the only social theory with meaning—even reli-gious meaning” (ibid., 39).

The anchor of the anarchic position within the historical arena enables it to serve as a social theory. At the same time, since in anarchism the order in

37 Scholem defines metaphysics as the study of order. See letter no. 57 (addressed to Ludwig Strauss), in Scholem, 1989, pp. 148–150. Also cited by Shadelzki, 1997/1998, p. 83.



which the exposed historical phenomena are arranged is disrupted and their internality is rescued from its hiding place, it is indicated by Scholem as a source for “religious meaning.” Finally the affirmative and negative dimensions entailed in the anarchic position become clear as reflections of the forces of conservatism and utopian revolutionism active in Jewish history itself. Thus, the joining together of the restorative and the utopian is a reflection of the fact that, since anarchy is a basic element in the attempt to exhaust to the point of discovery the forces existing in history, it serves as a source for a new utopian order—which is not more than the first revealing of the forces already hidden within existing historical reality. These are the forces the metaphysical obser-vation exposes as appearances of a transcendent presence.

This reading of Jewish history, which seeks to remove the shroud from forces that had been denied or suppressed within it, does not become a revolution or nihilism that are part of the attempt to destroy the existing order.38 Scholem’s statement that, in the world of Kabbalah, the perception that “it is not neces-sary for it [the restoration of things to their original state of otherness and purity] to always be realized [. . .] in the historical arena” (Scholem, 1976a, 263) acted as a defense, clearly indicates that history does not reliably reveal the range of forces active in the world. In contrast, the efforts directed at affirma-tion and establishment, from the evidence of the metaphysical observation, may fill in the gaps in the picture revealed by the historical observation and thus serve as an efficient brake against the anarchist position’s turning into a revolution or nihilism.

One of the important contributions of the interpretation proposed here to Scholem’s religious anarchism stems from its being a context for clarifying the unique dialectic taking place between the two types of observations. The dual connection of the anarchic position—on the one hand to the historical observation that views the overt reality without bias, and on the other hand the metaphysical observation through which the signals of the transcendent presence are revealed—makes it a very tense context in Scholem’s thought and eventually creates a strong clash between the two observations. The exhaus-tion of the metaphysical observation seems to lead to pushing aside the histor-ical one. An expression of this may be found in Scholem’s words: “perhaps we are anarchic, but we are against anarchy” (Scholem, 1990, 97). This means that the historian can and perhaps even should be an anarchist, or at least aspire to this; but only a historian who is also a metaphysician can be simultaneously an anarchist who rejects anarchy or, alternately, someone whose “secularism is not secular (Scholem, 1976a, 51). At the same time, the pushing aside of the

38 Please provide footnote text.

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historical observation does not bear a negative character at all, and Scholem attests to this in the first person: “A lot attracted me in anarchy, especially its positive utopia” (ibid., 39).

Finally, the pushing aside of the historical observation can and should be temporary and partial, since the “materials” from which the “affirmative” will be constructed, meaning the new utopian order, are taken from the world of the Jewish tradition and serve as a direct object of the historical observation:

There is also a life of tradition based not only on continuation and on the conservative nurturing of the community’s heritage. This too is certainly a meaning of tradition [. . .] but tradition is also something apart from this. There are areas of tradition that have been covered up and hidden among the fallen rocks of the generations, and they are awaiting their uncovering and activation. There is a return to the forgotten or to things that have not yet reached exhaustion. There is an uncovering of hidden treasures within tradition, from whose power a living relation is formed, and to this must be attributed much of the Jewish consciousness in our generation, even when it exists outside the orthodox framework (ibid., 139).

These words imply that the tradition to which Scholem directs the historical observation is not fundamentally static, and even in the reality of the secular-ization of tradition it appears with life bubbling within it. The aim for holism that guides the historical observation is itself permeated with certainty regard-ing the presence of additional forces active under the surface of real reality. Here Scholem expresses an ontological approach viewing the past as an arena in which transcendent forces are present and active.

7 Summary

Despite Scholem’s determination that “the personal, intimate element is what will decide if we are demanded personal demands” (Scholem, 1976a, 144–145), his commitment was nevertheless given to “the continuity of our history” (ibid., 219), that as such exceeds the boundaries of the one’s personal yearn-ing and personal intuitions. The seeking of approval for his selfhood as a Jew without making “propaganda for his opinions” (Scholem, 1990, 238), which constituted a significant component in the metaphysical observation, joins Scholem’s activity as a historian who took upon himself the responsibility for the array of phenomena in Jewish history. Through research free of conven-tions and external goals he hoped to be allowed to deal with “the life of the



nation requiring definition and refinement,” in what up to his time remained “concealed and hidden,” yet according to his belief is “one continuous living chain with historical significance” (Scholem, 1990, 67). In any event, the his-torical continuity of Jewish history is assumed as an almost cognitive matter or at least as a fact, and is not under investigation. It is the first layer and only after its assumption can Scholem declare “The work of digging deep founda-tions and the construction work of placing stone on stone has started, and our hands are still outstretched” (ibid., 67).

As one who closely witnessed the assimilation of Jews into their German sur-rounding as well as the choice of others to realize a secular and national iden-tity in Israel, Scholem strived to remove from the understanding of historical continuity the obvious identification with adherence to religious practice and orthodox theological assumptions. His research into Jewish mysticism allowed him to establish that the Jewish historical sequence comprised a “hidden life” and “secret chapters” that seem to deviate from the main path of Jewish history yet are indispensable part of the substance of the Jewish history. Thus, instead of the binary setting of the question “to be or not to be a Jew” that modernity has conveyed to Jews, Scholem’s approach to Jewish mysticism introduces a more complicated understanding of the secret of Jewish existence.

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―――, “Between Philology and Historiography: Jewish Studies in Gershom Scholem’s Approach,” in Porat, Dina, Mina Rosen, and Anita Shapira, eds., Jahrbuch for Daniel Carafi (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1995a), pp. 155–182 [Hebrew: אברהם שפירא, ”בין .[פילולוגיה להיסטוריוסופיה: מדעי היהדות בתפיסת גרשם שלום“

―――, “Introduction: The Existential and the Historical in the Biographical Looking Glass of Gershom Scholem,” in Scholem, Gershom, ed., Continuity and Revolt: Gershom Scholem in Dialogue (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1995b), pp. 7–24 [Hebrew: אברהם .[שפירא, ”מבוא: הקיומי וההיסטורי באספקלריה הביוגרפית של גרשם שלום“

Shoresh, Yizhak, Referring to the Past in Modern Judaism (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000) [Hebrew: שורש, הפנייה לעבר ביהדות המודרנית].

Verblovsky, Raphael Jehudah Zwi, “Gershom Scholem: The Man, the Jew, the Researcher,” in Molad 42 (1985/1986), pp. 122–128 [Hebrew: :ורבלובסקי, ”גרשם שלום .[האדם, היהודי, החוקר“

The Secret of Jewish Existence: A Metaphysical Analysis of Gershom Scholem’s Idea of Jewish Historical Continuity

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