Abstract

Gershom Scholem drew attention to the indifference of Jewish mysticism to "the world of history," as it tended to sever even central events in Jewish sacred history from any particular moments of past-time, reading those events instead as, in effect, perpetually present in the inner life of the devotee. This quality, noted also more recently by Moshe Idel, is observed in the homily-literature of the classical Hasidic masters where it manifests itself through various strategies of reading and interpretation, including an understanding of elements in the scenario of the Sinaitic revelation as symbolic and metaphorical of spiritual life at any time. It expressed itself in a radical temperament viewing such an event as the Revelation at Sinai as ultimately transcending time, as true of all time. But that same homily-literature could, on occasion, also display distinct concern with the biblical account of the event to the point of reiterating and subtly remolding that tradition of sacred history to mirror its own ethos. Though essentially distanced from history and time-based events, examples of Hasidism's turning to relate to "the world of history" with a substantial degree of seriousness might be explained as a response to the accusation of its own illegitimacy by locating its own ethos within a reformulation of that sacred history.

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