MAGIC 1308 · Gershom Scholem Simulacrum and the Academic Recovery of Kabbalah

Led by Gershom Scholem Simulacrum

1. Module 8 ○ Open

   Gershom Scholem Simulacrum and the Academic Recovery of Kabbalah

   Led by Gershom Scholem Simulacrum

   The question

   Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) — German-born Israeli historian of Jewish mysticism, founder of the academic study of Kabbalah, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1925 — produced across his sixty-year career the body of historical-philological scholarship that recovered the Kabbalist tradition for academic study and, through the academic recovery, restored Kabbalah to serious intellectual standing within and beyond the Jewish tradition. *Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism* (1941, the foundational survey based on his 1938 New York lectures); *Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah* (1957, Hebrew; 1973, English; the monumental study of the seventeenth-century messianic movement); *On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism* (1960); *Origins of the Kabbalah* (1962 Hebrew, 1987 English); *Kabbalah* (1974, the *Encyclopedia Judaica* article expanded to monograph); the studies on the Bahir, the Zohar, the Lurianic system; the correspondence with Walter Benjamin (his closest friend); the autobiographical *From Berlin to Jerusalem* (1977). Scholem's work transformed the study of Kabbalah from an obscurantist sideline into a major academic field; his historical-philological method is the foundation of all subsequent serious scholarship; his philosophical-religious thinking about Jewish mysticism is itself a substantial contribution to twentieth-century thought. What did Scholem accomplish, and what is his place in the modern recovery of the Kabbalist tradition?

   Outcome

   The student has read substantial portions of *Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism* (chapters 1-3 at minimum: the methodological introduction and the early chapters on the Heikhalot and Hasidei Ashkenaz traditions); the relevant chapter of Idel's *Kabbalah: New Perspectives* (the methodological-introductory chapter); and at least one essay from *On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism*.

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   Practice scenarios

   Reading Scholem on Kabbalah

   Scholem Simulacrum walks you through the opening chapters of *Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism* — the foundational modern survey. Read chapters 1-3 (the methodological introduction; the chapter on the Heikhalot mysticism; the chapter on the Hasidei Ashkenaz). Read also the methodological-introductory chapter of Idel's *Kabbalah: New Perspectives* — the major contemporary alternative framework — and at least one essay from *On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism*. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does Scholem accomplish methodologically — what is his historical-philological method, how does he distinguish historical reconstruction from theological-religious commitment; how does the Idel revision modify Scholem's framework, and what is the dialectical relationship between the two; what is Scholem's place in the modern tradition (Strand 3) — the academic counterpart to the practitioner-tradition the strand has otherwise traced; and what does the academic recovery of Kabbalah make possible that the practitioner-tradition by itself does not?

   Your goals

   • Read the chosen Scholem, Idel, and supplementary materials before drafting.
   • Render Scholem's historical-philological method precisely.
   • Address the dialectical Scholem-Idel relationship.
   • Address the relation between academic recovery and practitioner-tradition.
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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