Martin Buber Introduction to The Tales of Rabbi Nachman and the Early 20th Century

Construction of `Jewish Mysticism`.

Boaz Huss

One hundered years ago the bright young scholar and philosopher, Martin Buber,

who had received his Doctorate on the problem of individuation in the thought of

Nicholas Cusa and Jakob Boehme the year before, was preparing, in Florence, Italy,

his first book on Hasidism The Tales of Rabbi Nachman. Buber's freely retold

collection of Rabbi Nachman of Braslav's tales was printed in 1906,1 and made a very

strong impression on the Jewish, as well as non Jewish German reading public.

Buber's introduced The Tales of Rabbi Nachman with two short articles, the

one, entitled `Jewish Mysticism` and the second, `Rabbi Nachman of Braslav`. Buber

described the first introduction, as a `first and very general introduction to the

subject`, which, indeed it is. Nonetheless, Buber's `Jewish Mysticism` is also a very

important formulation and expression of the construction of this `subject` i.e., of

`Jewish Mysticism`. As Ron Margolin, from Tel Aviv University, argued in his

recently published book, The Human Temple, Buber's `Jewish Mysticism`, was a

major contribution to the study of Kabbalah in the 20th century. Margolin observed

that Buber's introduction presented the scheme according to which Gershom Scholem

wrote, almost forty years later, the founding text of the academic study of Kabbalah,

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism2. According to Margolin, Scholem continued and

elaborated the basic perception of `Jewish Mysticism` which Buber had presented in

his introduction to Rabbi Nachman's Tales. Indeed, Scholem himself stated in an

1
M. Buber, Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman, Frankfurt 1906. For an English Translation see: M.
.Buber, The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (translated by M. Friedman), New York 1956
2
Ron Margolin, The Human Temple, Jerusalem 2005 [Hebrew], p. 8
article dedicated to Buber's perception of Judaism, that: `Buber was the first Jewish

thinker who saw in mysticism a basic feature and continuously operating tendency of

Judaism`3.

In this short e-lecture, I would like to describe briefly the major perceptions of

Jewish Mysticism as portrayed by Buber in his introduction to The Tales of Rabbi.

Nachman, to present a preliminary genealogy of the notion of `Jewish Mysticism`,

and explain the context in which this notion was constructed by Buber and turned into

an academic discipline. Finally, I will raise a few critical thoughts about the use of

`Jewish Mysticism` as the central and guiding category in this discipline.

Buber opens his short article on `Jewish Mysticism` with the assertion that R.

`Nachman of Braslav is perhaps the last Jewish Mystic. He stands at the end of an

unbroken Jewish tradition, whose beginning we do not know`4. The major assumption

of Buber's introduction is that `Jewish Mysticism` is as an autonomous, essential force

in Judaism, which has its own unity and individuality. Buber does not define

Mysticism explicitly in this short article, but portrays it, in his words, as a breaking

forth of the `limitless, which now governs the soul, that surrendered itself to it`.5

Buber asserts that the tendency towards Mysticism is `native to the Jews from

antiquity`.6 Although he perceives Mysticism as a universal phenomenon, he

emphasizes the unique nature and strength of Jewish Mysticism, which arose, in his

words, out of `the original characteristics of the people that produced it` and was

shaped by `the imprint of Jewish destiny`.7 Buber asserts that although Jewish

Mysticism was influenced by other cultures, as well as by the particular historical

3
G. Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays, New York 1976, p. 145

.Buber, The Tales, p. 3 4

.Ibid, p. 4 5
.Ibid, Ibid 6
.Ibid, Ibid 7
conditions of the Jews, it: `preserved the power of its own stream, receiving all influx

without being mastered by it`.8

Nonetheless, Buber expressed an ambivalent stance towards Jewish

Mysticism, which he saw as deficient in comparison to other mystical forms. Thus,

although he describes Jewish Mysticism a `marvelous bloom of an ancient tree`, he

points out that: `Jewish mysticism may appear quite disproportionate, often confused,

at times trivial when we compare it with Meister Eckhart, with Plotinus, with Lau-

tzu`.9 In a paragraph whose last words were censored, probably by Buber himself, in

the English translation of The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, Buber says::

The wandering and martyrdom of the Jews have again and again transposed

their souls into that vibration of despair out of which, at times, the lightning

flash of ecstasy breaks forth. But at the same time they have hindered them

from attaining the pure expression of ecstasy. They have led them to confuse

the necessary, the actually experienced, with the superfluous, the borrowed…

Thus arouse works like the "Zohar", the book of Splendor10, which elicited

both admiration and disgust.11

Buber depicts in his article the guidelines of the history of Jewish mysticism. As

mentioned above, Buber states that the beginnings of Jewish Mysticism are unknown.

Yet, his assertion that in the time of the Talmud the mystical teachings were still kept

as an esoteric oral tradition, indicates that he assumed Jewish Mysticism was of pre-

Talmudic origin. Buber regards Sefer Yezira, which he assumes was written between

the 7th and 9th centuries, as the first Jewish mystical text, and sees the period between

the writing of Sefer Yezira to the writing of the Zohar in the 13th century as the `time
.Ibid, p. 3 8
.Ibid, p. 4 9
Ibid, p. 5 10
The last words do not appear in the English translation. The German original reads: `So sind 11
Schriften wie der 'Sohar', das buch des Glanzes, entstanden, die ein Entzücken und ein Abscheu sind`.
.M. Buber, Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman, Leipzig 1920, p. 8
of the real unfolding of the Kabbalah`.12 Yet, Buber asserts that until the expulsion

from Spain, Kabbalah remained limited to a narrow circle, and its teaching remain:

`Alien to life, it… desires nothing of the reality of human existence. It does not

demand that one live it, it has no contact with action`13. Only after the expulsion from

Spain, writes Buber, a `new era of Jewish mysticism began`. This new era,

inaugurated by R. Isaac Luria, proclaimed, according to Buber: `the ecstatic act of the

individual as a co-working with God to achieve redemption`14. The basic feeling of

the Lurianic Kabbalah, found its elemental expression only a hundred years later, in

the Sabbatianist movement, which was: `an eruption of the unknown powers of the

people and a revelation of the hidden reality of the folk-soul`.15 The collapse of the

Sabbatianist movement, opened the way for what Buber described as the `last, and

highest development of Jewish mysticism`,16 that is, Hasidism, whose core, is,

according to Buber: `a highly realistic guidance to ecstasy as to the summit of

existence`.17 Buber portrayed Hasidism as a religious renewal movement which

liberated the people, who were inclined from old to mystical immediacy, from the

dominance of the Law, which, according to Buber, was `poor in joy and hostile to

it`.18 Nonetheless, the Hasidic movement declined in the end, because it demanded a

spiritual intensity that the people did not posses, and because of the abuse and

degeneration of the institution of Zaddikim. This was, in Buber's view, the end of the

Jewish Mystical tradition. While exalting Jewish Mysticism as a historical

phenomenon, Buber, who regarded Rabbi Nachman of Braslav as the last Jewish

Mystic, regarded present day east European Hasidism as a declined and degenerated

.Buber, The Tales, p. 5 12

.Ibid, 6 13
.Ibid, Ibid 14
.Ibid, p. 9 15
.Ibid, p. 10 16
.Ibid, Ibid 17
.Ibid, p. 15 18
movement. Yet, Buber hoped for a resurrection of Jewish Mysticism, which he

regarded as essential for the destiny of Judaism. Buber concluded the second

introduction to the Tales of Rabbi Nachman, with the observation that the Jews were

not strong enough, or pure enough to preserve their mystical tradition. According to

Buber: `It is not given to us to know whether a resurrection will be granted it, But the

inner destiny of Judaism seems to me to depend on whether – no matter if in this

shape or another – its pathos will again become deed`.19

Before turning to examine the influence of Buber's introduction on the

subsequent perception and study of Jewish mysticism, I would like to examine briefly

the genealogy of the term `Jewish Mysticism`, and the historical and ideological

context of the construction of the notion of `Jewish Mysticism` by Buber and other

scholars of his generation,

The notion of Kabbalah as `mystical theology` emerged amongst Christian

Kabbalists in the 17th century. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that in this period

the term `Mystical` was not used to denote a universal religious phenomenon of

some-kind of experiential and ecstatic experience of the divine. The mystical at this

period was still connected to the revelation of Christian religious truths, mostly,

through interpretation of Scriptures, but also, through a direct experience of the

Divine. Thus, it seems to me, that when Christian Kabbalist referred to Kabbalah as

`Mystical` at this period, they expressed their perception of Kabbalah as a

hermeneutical system that revealed Christian truths, and not the modern notion of

Kabbalah as a Jewish form of a universal religious experience.

Ibid, p. 34. Like many other themes in Buber's introduction to The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, this 19
paragraph is also echoed in Scholem's famous concluding remarks of Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism (New York, 1974, p. 350): `The Story is not ended, it has not yet become history, and the
secret life it holds can break out tomorrow in you or in me. Under what aspects this invisible stream of
`Jewish Mysticism will again come to the surface we cannon tell
 The modern perception of Mysticism as a universal core religious experience,

and of Kabbalah as the Jewish expression of this universal religious phenomenon,

emerged only in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, amongst the German romantics,

that expressed great interest in Christian Mysticism, Oriental religions and Kabbalah.

Under the impact of the new perception of Mysticism as a universal religious

phenomenon, we find also some Jewish scholars of the Haskala period, using the term

`Mystical` in reference to Kabbalah. Yet the use of the term `Mystical` was not

prominent amongst Jewish Maskilim prior to the middle of the 19th century. Thus, for

instance, Adolph Franck, the French Jewish scholar, who wrote in 1843 the first large

scale and sympathetic study of what we would now call `Jewish Mysticism`, entitled

his book, La Kabbale, ou la philophie religieuse des Hébreux. Franck does use the

term `mystical` in his book, but as his title reveals, this is not the main category he

uses in his study of what he perceives as `Jewish religious philosophy`.

Since the mid 19th century, there is a growing use of the term Mystical in

reference to Kabbalah amongst Jewish scholars, both by those who treated it

negatively, as well as by the few scholars who had a more positive view of Kabbalah.

One of the first of these was Adolph Jellinek, who in 1853 published his Auswahl

Kabbalisticher Mystik. In the introduction to this collection of Kabbalistic texts,

Jellinek states that Mysticism is an essential stage in the development of humanity

which can be found in every nation and religion.20

The expression `Jewish Mysticism` and the perception of mostly Kabbalah,

but also some other Jewish cultural phenomena, as being the Jewish expression of a

universal spiritual phenomenon, became more prominent in the late 19th, and early

20th century. A survey of Scholem's Bibliographia Kabbalistica (Leipzig 1927) reveals

that the terms `Mystical` and `Jewish Mysticism` appear in growing numbers in the
A. Jellink, Auswahl Kabbalisticher Mystik, Erstes Heft, Leipzig 1853, pp. 3-4 20
titles of books and articles published since the 80's of the 19th century. Thus, for

instance, Shlomo Rubin, published an article in German on `Kabbalistic Mysticism`

in 1889; David Gunzburg published an article in Russian entitled: `Kabbalah, the

Jewish Mystical Philosophy` in 1896; Samuel Karppe introduced his book on the

Zohar, published in Paris in 1901, with a chapter on the history of Jewish Mysticism,

and Maurice Fluegel published Philosophy, Qabbalah and Vedanata: Comparative

Metaphysics and Ethics, Rationalism and Mysticism of of the Jews, the Hindus and

most of the Historic Nations in Baltimore, in 1902. In 1906, as we recall, Buber

published his `Jewish Mysticism`, as an introduction to The Tales of Rabbi Nachman.

The growing use of the term `Mystical` in reference to various Jewish groups,

texts, doctrines, and practices, and the perception of `Jewish Mysticism` as a national

expression of a universal spiritual phenomena, became prominent in the late 19th and

early 20th century, in the context of the New Romanticism, fin de siècle Orientalism,

and emerging Jewish Nationalism and Zionism.

The connection between these late 19th and early 20th century cultural

phenomena and the construction of `Jewish Mysticism` comes to the fore in the

political and intellectual history of Buber, who, previous to turning his interest to

`Jewish Mysticism` in general and Hasidism in particular, was active in the Zionist

movement, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on two Christian mystics. Buber's

1906 introduction to the Tales of R. Nachman, in which he classified various cultural

phenomena as `Mystical` and depicted a history of `Jewish mysticism`, served the

ideological and political agenda of Buber, by emphasizing both the universal nature of

`Jewish Mysticism` and its specific national characteristics.

The very choice of the term `Mysticism`, as well as the emphasis that `Jewish

Mysticism` is part of a universal spiritual phenomenon, a `breaking forth` of `the

limitless, which governs the soul, that surrenders itself to it`, in Buber's words, reflect

the New Romantic positive evaluation of `Mysticism`. As Paul Mendes-Flohr has

shown in his study of `Fin de Siècle Orientalism, the Ostjuden and the Aesthetics of

Jewish self-Affirmation`,21 Buber's notion of `Jewish Mysticism` expressed the New

Romantic enthusiastic interest in Mysticism, Oriental religions and the Occult. Buber

(as well as other contemporary Jewish scholars) depicted Hasidism, Kabbalah, and

various other Jewish cultural phenomena as an expression of a universal mystical

experience that provided a liberating alternative to European Bourgeois materialistic

rationality.

At the same time, Buber emphasized the unique national character of Jewish

Mysticism, which arose, in his words, out of `the original characteristics of the people

that produced it` and was shaped by `the imprint of Jewish destiny`. The perception

of Jewish Mysticism as an expression of Jewish national vitality stands behind

Buber's perception of Jewish mysticism as an `unbroken tradition` and his hope for a

resurrection of the Jewish Mystical spirit.

Buber's perception, and construction, of Jewish Mysticism, emerged in the

context of late 19th and early 20th century Orientalist perspective. Both Mysticism and

Judaism were perceived in the turn of the century as `Oriental` categories. Buber's

turn to the `East`, manifested in his Zionist activity and in his interest in universal

Mystical traditions, Jewish mysticism, and mostly, East European Hasidism, entailed

a typical Orientalist ambivalence, of being both drawn to and repelled by the East,

which was simultaneously regarded as exotic and as degenerate, as authentic and as

21
P. Mendes-Flohr, P., `Fin de Siecle Orientalism: The Oustjuden and Aesthetics of Jewish Self
Affirmation`, in Idem, Divided Passions, Detroit, MI, 1991, pp. 77-132.
primitive. This posture is expressed in Buber's perception of the degeneration of

contemporary Hasidism and in his expression of admiration and disgust from Jewish

Kabbalistic texts.

Buber's interest in Kabbalah and Hasidism, and his Neo-Romantic,

Nationalist, and Orientalist perspectives of what was termed `Jewish Mysticism` were

shared, mutatis mutandis, by other Jewish scholars of his period, which included

Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, Samuel Abba Horodezki, Hillel Zeitlin and others. In the

years that followed the publication of Buber's Tales of Rabbi Nachman, the notion of

`Jewish Mysticism`, and many of Buber's assumptions concerning its nature and role

in Jewish history, were adopted and developed by other scholars. The most famous,

and influential of these, was Gershom Scholem. As I mentioned above many of

Buber's assumptions concerning the characteristics and history of `Jewish Mysticism`

were adopted by Scholem, and as Ron Margolin observed, the main structure of

Scholem's classic Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, written in 1941, follows the

guidelines portrayed in Buber's introduction to The Tales of R. Nachman of Braslav

written in 1905. Although, as it is well known, Scholem differed from Buber in many

issues, especially, in his evaluation of the Hasidic movement, he followed Buber's

fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of `Jewish Mysticism` and its

historical significance. Scholem accepted Buber's, and other early 20th century

scholars`, identification of Kabbalah, Hasidism and other Jewish cultural phenomena

as the national expression of the universal, human, mystical experience. Scholem

followed Buber's framework of the historical development of Jewish Mysticism,

regarding its first public manifestations in the post Talmudic period, and its last stage

in Hasidism. Similar to Buber, Scholem assumed that the expulsion from Spain was a

turning point in the history of Jewish Mysticism, and that the last major stages of
Jewish Mysticism developed from Lurianic Kabbalah to Sabbatianism and finally to

Hasidism.

Scholem shared with Buber, and other early 20 th century scholars of Kabbalah

and Hasidism, the national Zionist perspective on `Jewish Mysticism` and its

significance. Like Buber, Scholem turned his interest to Kabbalah following his Zionist

convictions, and regarded `Jewish Mysticism` as the vital, national force that enabled

Judaism's survival in the Diaspora. Like Buber, Scholem regarded the study of `Jewish

Mysticism` as an essential part of Jewish national and spiritual revival, and similarly, he

retained an Orientalist, ambivalent stance towards `Jewish Mysticism`. While exalting

the role of Kabbalah and Hasidism as a historical phenomenon, Scholem denied the

significance of present day East European and Oriental `Jewish Mystics`. Following the

same phrase Buber used - and later omitted - from his introduction to the Tales of Rabbi

Nachman, Scholem wrote in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism that: `If one turns to the

writings of the great Kabbalists one seldom fails to be torn between alternate admiration

and disgust`.22

Gershom Scholem and his students and colleagues created an academic

discipline, dedicated to the study of `Jewish Mysticism` as perceived and constructed

in the early 20th century, by Martin Buber and other Jewish scholars. The academic

study of Jewish Mysticism gained a central place in Jewish studies in the second half

of the 20th century, and is practiced today in all Israeli Universities, as well as many

academic institutions around the world. Since the 80's of the last century, many of

Scholem's assumptions were criticized and revised. New perspectives and directions

of study were offered by a new generation of scholars, including Moshe Idel, Yehuda

Liebes, Elliot Wolfson and others.23 Notwithstanding these new perspectives and

22
Scholem, Major Trends, p. 36.
23
See B. Huss, '"Ask No Question": Gershom Scholem and the Study of Contemporary Jewish
.Mysticism', Modern Judaism 25 (2005), p. 149
directions of study, the academic field of Kabbalah studies retains the fundamental

assumption expressed in Buber's introduction to the Tales of Rabbi Nachman, which

identifies various cultural phenomena as the Jewish manifestation of a universal

mystical phenomenon. The perception of various Jewish cultural practices and

products as `Mystical` and the assumption that these practices and products share

essential affinities to each other, as well as to the so called mystical phenomena of

other cultures is still the fundamental assumption that underlies the academic study of

Kabbalah and Hasidism.

I would like to conclude this short presentation with a call for a

reconsideration, and problematization of this fundamental assumption. As the short

and preliminary genealogy of the notion of `Jewish Mysticism` that I offered today

suggests, this notion was constructed in the early 20th century, on the basis of

previous Christian Kabbalists and German Romantic philosophers use of the term, in

the framework of fin de siècle Neo-Romanticism and emerging Jewish nationalism.

The different cultural framework from which we operate today enables – and calls for

- a critical examination not only of the texts and practices we refer to as part of

`Jewish Mysticism` but also of the very notion of `Jewish Mysticism` and the

assumptions and discursive practices this term entails.