The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2002) 635-637 Allan Nadler. The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Pp. xi + 254. On page 3, referring to my book, Founder of Hasidism, Allan Nadler writes, "The most recent attempt to downplay the originality of the Hasidic religious revolution is also the most outlandish . . . Rosman's conclusion about the context of the emergence of Hasidism exemplifies the misdirection of much of the most recent scholarship on the movement." Nadler's mission, therefore, is to correct "most recent scholarship" on Hasidism, which he claims has relegated Hasidic innovation to the social and political realms, and has glossed over the "religious revolution" that was the real essence of Hasidism. "Recent scholars" have neglected to explicate "the deep religious and theological divisions between Hasidism and Mithnagdim which this book documents" (p. 4). According to Nadler, they also have failed to represent the Mithnagdim, almost always portraying them superficially and in a negative light. This last point is true and there is a need to redress the imbalance. What Nadler does, however, is to try to turn back the clock. Aside from a few brief observations at the beginning of his book, he blithely ignores thirty-five years of scholarship and asserts, "The evidence from anti-Hasidic sources on the question of God's immanence supports Scholem's view of the essence of the Hasidic religious revolution" (p. 27). Having pronounced Gershom Scholem's interpretation to be the correct one, Nadler feels justified in resurrecting the dichotomy of Hasidim/Mithnagdim that was the conventional wisdom from the 19th century through the work of Scholem and his student Joseph Weiss. According to this paradigm, theologically speaking, whatever Hasidism is, Mithnagdism is the opposite. Nadler is keen to show that the clear and profound theological differences between the two groups led to the long-running, bitter controversy. But from early in Nadler's argument, it is clear that this is theology based on religious anthropology. The Mithnagdim were pessimistic about human nature and therefore did not believe that most people could attain communion with the Divine. Their pessimism made them dualists, opposing the spiritual to the material and this world's spiritual obstacle course to the world-to-come's spiritual fulfillment. On the other hand, the optimistic Hasidim held that Jews could achieve communion by means of mystically tinged everyday religious practice. They were monists, advocating a holistic view of the human being whereby body and soul cooperated harmoniously in the service of God. As monists, they denied that there was a rift between God and his creation. This is also a quite conventional view of the 636THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Hasidic-Mithnagdic divide, which can be read in somewhat less technical language in earlier works, most notably Buber's. By depicting the Hasidim as spiritually hopeful, joyous, and religiously adventurous, while the Mithnagdim are severe and religiously conventional, Nadler echoes S. A. Horodetsky 's placing of the Besht and the Vilna Gaon in symbolic opposition in his study "Ha-Gra veha-Besht" (Ha-Shiloah 17 [1907] 348-356), an article which Nadler has, in fact, roundly criticized. If not strikingly original, Nadler's exposition is nonetheless useful in summarizing and filling in the details of Mithnagdic doctrine. He explains how Mithnagdim, despite their belief in God's immanence and their respect for kabbalah, eschewed potentially antinomian mystical experiences; advocated conventional study, prayer and observance; repressed the physical side of life as a disciplinary measure; believed that only death could bring spiritual salvation; battled Haskalah; and tried to maintain the favored social and theological status of traditional Torah study and the scholarly elite who practiced it. Applying standard categories in the study of religion, Nadler dubs Mithnagdism an "exilic religion" (p. 126), which viewed life as a misery to be escaped, and "a religion of the sick soul," which taught the "impotence of the human spirit" (p. 175). As for the theological dichotomy between Hasidim and Mithnagdim, one wonders if Nadler really believes in it. After denouncing recent scholars for concentrating on the social and political aspects of this controversy, he repeatedly notes...