Messianic Scholars: On Early Israeli Scholarship, Politics and Messianism

A Messianic Orientation in Early Israeli Scholarship

The present discussion of messianism in the thought of certain contemporary scholars in Jerusalem, especially Gershom G. Scholem, is certainly not the first of its kind, ¹ neither is it my first treatment of the subject. ² In fact, there are several discussions on the topic and it is not my intention here to summarize or even argue with them. Some of them were written referring to Scholem's European background but without the authors being acquainted with the original messianic texts that Scholem so carefully analyzed; others are simply rephrased assessments of what Scholem had thought on this important topic. I have chosen to return to this topic because previously unknown and, in my opinion, fascinating material on the place of messianism in Scholem's lifetime in the land of Israel, emerged only recently. This new material can be found especially in Hebrew studies written by Shmuel Werses, ³ Shalom Ratzabi, ⁴ Yonah Hadari, ⁵ Jonathan Garb, ⁶ and, especially important for our discussions below, in David Ohana's recent book, ⁷ as well as in Scholem's disparate material put together in the last twenty five years in the three collections of his articles edited by Abraham Shapira. ⁸

The accumulation of this new material and related analyses broadens the perspectives concerning Scholem's views and gives us a better understanding of his intellectual background in the State of Israel, as well as of his European background. Even in the most recent analyses, however, a number of issues, which I will engage in detail below, are not dealt with at all. But just as it would not be wise to separate Scholem's thought from his European background, it would be equally wrong to ignore the more pressing reality of his daily life in the land of Israel, and to neglect the intellectual processes that he witnessed and was influenced by over the years. The discussions below should be seen as an exercise that seeks to prove that extracting Scholem from the intellectual milieu in the country in which he lived most of his life, and analyzing him solely on the basis of his background of Central Europe, may miss some crucial aspects of his thought.

Let me start with a confession that will put much of the discussion below in its proper context. Scholem formulated a vision of Zionism as being, de facto, a non-messianic mass-movement. As an ideal, someone may share this same vision. I, for example, would like, personally, to separate, as Scholem did, the national movement that created a Jewish state, where Jews can find their home and refuge, without resorting to theological arguments or messianic views. However, as I shall try to show here, Scholem claimed that his purist vision was not only a desideratum but also a reality. Moreover, he attempted to preach that Zionism was not a messianic movement since, so I assume, he believed that the latter invoked apocalyptic elements, while the former is a voluntaristic enterprise based upon what he called a process of "entering history," ⁹ that is, taking political responsibility for the fate of the Jews.

This reading of reality is, in my opinion, simplistic and, to a certain extent, dogmatic. However, this is not just a matter of Scholem reading present developments in a utopian and, in my opinion, inaccurate manner. It has also to do with his more professional reading of the traditional texts on messianism in a dogmatic and inaccurate manner. Therefore, while I fully agree, as a citizen, with a utopian non-messianic understanding of Zionism, I believe that what actually happened historically, and not just in the utopia, is different from the non-messianic descriptions of Zionism offered by Scholem. Or, to put it in a nutshell: I agree with much of the utopian vision of Scholem the citizen, but have many doubts about the picture of both messianism and Zionism that he offers as a scholar.

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