Nothing could be more difficult for the modern mind to grasp than the reality of Hasidism—the mystical movement that flourished in Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries and still exercises a far-flung influence on Jewish religious thinking and culture today. For as Kierkegaard has pointed out, and Valéry after him, modern man is crammed with knowledge but estranged from inwardness.
Thus there is a way not to read Martin Buber’s novel of Hasidism, For The Sake Of Heaven. Unfortunately, it is just this wrong way that the publisher is recommending. We are told somewhat apologetically on the jacket that For The Sake of Heaven describes a historical struggle that “resembles strikingly the events of the past few years,” and that “though its conversation is quaint and seemingly unreal, its religious attitudes, hopes, fears, and spiritual conflicts have their counterparts in our contemporary life.” In short, we are to read the book with one eye on ourselves; it is interesting and we can learn from it because it says something about us and our situation.
Exactly the opposite is true: Buber’s novel is interesting,. even fascinating, and extremely suggestive, precisely because the Hasidic rabbis who are its heroes are so different from us, and because Buber has preserved that difference. For The Sake Of Heaven tells of the Hasidic congregation, the communion, of Lublin in the years of the Napoleonic wars, and of the strange process whereby a second communion was formed inside the body of the first under the shaping pressures of world history. Such a communion is a thing that we today in America know nothing about; we can hardly imagine it; its inner phenomena, its assumptions, its real relations are as strange to us as the life of the Hindus in E. M. Forster’s Passage to India.
In Lublin, men communicated with one another in a symbolic language drawn from the Torah’s hoard of metaphors. “Of the high things they spoke as of things which were taking place in the here and now; of earthly happenings they spoke as though these were woven of a heavenly substance.” Spirit could speak to spirit with the directness of gesture. Neither fact nor concept stood between minds. The rabbis of For The Sake Of Heaven touch and understand each other’s consciousness with the precise and subtle contact of poetic intuition. . . .
To see this immensely developed form of communication from the outside as “quaint and seemingly unreal conversation”; to describe the original synthesis attained by the rabbis as “the mystical, somewhat naive and otherworldly range of thought and action evoked by the term ‘Hasidism’”—what is this bur to assume, perhaps without realizing that one is doing so, that one can now look down from a height upon these philosophers of existence?
Another caution—one can read this book in such a manner that he will see in it mainly (to quote the publisher again) a “picture of Hasidic life and . . . provocative tales of Hasidic lore.” On the surface, For The Sake Of Heaven does seem to resemble an anthology of character sketches, anecdotes, and metaphysical exchanges, loosely held together by a rather vague plot. But as a “picture of Hasidic life” it is by no means adequate. For it contains few details of the mise en scéne of Lublin or of the secular routine of the Hasidim. We learn almost nothing of what Lublin, and the Lubliners, looked like, how the ordinary Hasid earned his living, what he ate, how he married, how he educated his children, was governed by the Kahal. We are not shown what his position was in Russian-Polish society, nor even his relation with the non-Hasidic Jews, the mithnagdim—at that time fiercely anti-Hasidic. We are not given the data upon which to judge the degree to which the tensions caused by poverty, segregation, government restrictions, and Jewish communal autonomy influenced the rise of certain extreme attitudes, particularly under the still echoing resonances of the Sabbatian Messianism of the century before. For The Sake Of Heaven has little in common with such a solid diorama of Jewish life as The Brothers Ashkenazi. Buber has seen Hasidic existence as the devout Hasidim themselves saw it—from within, as spirit concentrated in saints and miracle-workers, in symbols, ecstasies, legends and compelling promises of freedom and greatness. Only when the physical facts break into the metaphysical adventure and become part of it do they have any experienced reality.
As Buber approached the Hasid, so must the reader approach For The Sake Of Heaven. Read from within, the book shows itself to be an absorbing drama of the inner development of communities and individuals, a work unified in mood and coherent in plan. It is an authentic summary of Hasidic views and images of the world. But far more than that, it grasps the internal attitudes of soul that created and accompanied Hasidic pantheism and transcendentalism.
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Jaacob Yitzhak ben Matel, the “Seer” of Lublin and “leader of his generation,” learned in a vision that the leader who would one day replace him would also be named Jaacob Yitzhak ben Matel. Soon a name sake did appear in Lublin and took his place as the rabbi’s favorite. But this youth proved to be a vain wretch, almost an incarnation of evil. Thus, like Hamlet, For The Sake Of Heaven opens with the theme of the baffling and ambiguous character of a visitation.
When the truly-predicted Jaacob Yitzhak arrived, however, he could be promptly recognized by the signs of election he bore—, “It shows,” said the rabbi. The newcomer was called the “Yehudi,” because “here for once is a Jew.” No sooner had he joined the Seer’s disciples than a nucleus of minds began to form about him. At the same time he became the object of tense opposition and even hatred. The Seer, too, was troubled by this pupil whom he loved, and he gave ear to the gossip of the malicious—he did not exactly believe it but he listened. For his part, the disciple remained utterly loyal to his master, though in time he actually did, by destiny, what his enemies said he was planning to do from the start: he became the head of a congregation of his own.
The relation between the two Jaacob Yitzhaks is a highly intimate one. Yet it is shaped by supernatural and traditional elements, and the men feel both a closeness to each other and a detachment beyond our sense of the personal. For instance, at the “Third Meal” on the Sabbath, the rabbi would send a piece of fish from his plate to someone to whom he felt drawn. “Thus within this great communal sacrifice, as this meal was interpreted and within which the Zaddik functioned as high priest, there were included these special personal unions between himself and certain of the faithful. The head of a pike was sent in this manner to the young Jaacob Yitzhak and he blushed . . .”
The unity and health of Lublin flowed from the spirit of the Seer—“all that sustains belongs to the realm of the hidden.” But history was sending an enormous alien tremor across the clear ebb and flow of the rabbi’s despairs and ecstasies. Napoleon’s movements were upsetting Europe and reviving in the Jewish soul ancient prophetic voices. Napoleon? Napollyon? Apollyon—the Destroyer! Abaddon! Were not these wars that were ploughing up and remaking Europe the pre-visioned wars of Gog and Magog, the final conflict, the terrors of which were to precede the redemption of Israel?
The Seer’s position was the traditional apocalyptic one—what we might call today “dialectical.” Napoleon’s devastation was evil, but it was evil growing to the scope and completeness of world catastrophe, so that its magnitude would make it creative and its violence became the pangs of birth. The Zaddik should therefore intensify the evil through his magical influence with the heavenly powers. (“God has placed within the power of his Zaddikim” the timing of the final phase.) By bringing the destruction to its term, the birth of the new world would be achieved and Israel saved.
To the Yehudi the evil of Gog is not an independent phenomenon of the material world; it derives its strength from /?/k-ness in man. The Yehudi’s path to /?/ is not through the dialectics of destruction but, like the ancient prophets, directly through spiritual purification by repentance. Therefore he is opposed to magical intervention. Even if successful, it would in itself accomplish nothing, since it would not purify. “The miracle is not of such great importance. . . . The miracle merely bears witness.” The task is to lift up the Shekhinah, which lies faint and weeping in the dust of exile—and to do this one must penetrate evil to free the good from it and create within the self a place for the Kingdom.
But will Israel be redeemed through the turning of teshuvah?; The Seer’s decision to manipulate external forces is based on a profound despair over Israel’s moral strength. “The men of Israel will not repent,” he said. “And yet will the Redeemer come.”
As the Seer’s undertaking in support of Napoleon clarifies itself, a crack appears in the congregation of Lublin. On Shavuot he had gathered about his table sixty chosen disciples, corresponding to the sixty heroes around the bed of Solomon. There, in an inspired exegesis of the fires of Mount Sinai, he announced that world conflict was to be kindled and the mountain melted once more. It was then that the Yehudi, Rabbi David of Lelov, and Rabbi Bunam, the apothecary, confessed to the Seer that they had undergone “an experience which severely shook their integration with Lublin.” The bond had been loosened. And immediately thereafter Rabbi Bunam told the Yehudi that a house was waiting for him in the town of Pshysha.
A striking scene betwen the Seer and Rabbi Bunam, whom the Seer had once saved from the egotism of studying other men with detached curiosity, brings to an end the First Part and discloses that the split in Lublin has been accomplished. With the dark psychological absoluteness of Kafka, the dialogue of the two philosophers recapitulates the spiritual ties between them and resolves itself into declaration of the breach as Bunam responds to the Seer’s, “We, too, need you, Bunam, for our purpose,” with, “Rabbi, my lungs and my mouth could never learn to blow this shofar.”
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The Second Part is more fragmentary and anecdotal than the First; and there are more wonder-workings, visions and telepathy.
For a while events in Europe seemed to disappoint the Lublin rabbi’s hope that the last days were coming, but his spirit remained fixed on the duty of the Zaddik “to make Napoleon into Gog” and not to allow “the density of happenings to thin out.” And when Napoleon moved toward Poland and Russia, the rabbi’s resolve deepened and he undertook the practice of magic in earnest, seeking to heighten the European conflagration by influencing the dreams of Napoleon and the Czar and by concentrating the will of the Hasidic communities.At the same time he began to hate the humanistic Yehudi whose attitude, he felt, was interfering with the gathering of spiritual force needed for his plan.
With Napoleon defeated in Russia, the Seer had to acknowledge a severe setback. But though he had now lost all inner direction, he would not give up his effort. Instead he determined to “send a messenger to Heaven” for guidance. For this role he selected the Yehudi, and though the latter was opposed to his doings he obeyed the discipline of the Hasid. Thus on the Feast of Tabernacles he sent himself off to the other world, entering through the ecstasy of prayer into a state of voluntary possession which brought about his death.
So terminated the conflict between the leaders of Lublin and Pshysha, between him who saw Gog in the world and him who saw the evil within.
The Epilogue is mysterious. With increasing desperation the Seer and the rabbi of Rymanov continued their efforts even after Napoleon had fallen. Finally, the Seer fixed the coming of the Messiah for the noon hour of the Ninth of Ab, and at that hour, with a look of astonishment on his face, he expired suddenly. A disciple noted the irony that “in this manner (in the prediction of the Messiah) the time of his death was being made known to him.” And the death of the Seer brought to an end the school of Lublin. It was said later that, “The true Lublin never saw the light of day.”
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For The Sake of Heaven is a philosophical novel, not in the ordinary sense of a novel of ideas, but of a human struggle with existence and non-existence. The supernatural world of the rabbis is not merely a myth and concept of the mind; it takes on reality through their action as adepts of spirit—they know themselves and perfect themselves in it with a concreteness and clarity impossible to the detached empirical ego. The experiments of both Lublin and Pshysha failed; they were doomed in advance, since both the miraculous and the pure are impossible. But theirs was the doom of poetic tragedy, not the doom of primitiveness and ignorance.
It is true that Hasidism reflected the stagnation, disintegration and essential hopelessness of Jewish life in 18th-and 19th-century Poland; and that by movement upward toward heaven and away from the objective facts of its situation, it did nothing to break the stasis in which the Jew was trapped, but even deepened and confirmed it. From the point of view of historical progress and practical reason, Zaddikism was therefore opium and decadence.
There is, however, no indication that practical historical thinking could have solved the problems of the settlements in the Russian Pale, based on trading, inn-keeping, and petty crafts within a sea of feudalism, and steadily compressed by restrictions imposed under the promptings of Gentile commercial competitors and the rancor of the Church.
Moreover, granted that the Hasidim were insensible to progress, men and nations are valued for what they are, and for the quality of their vision of the world, not for their ability to take advantage of opportunities. T9 live in a state of inspiration and delicate understanding, to create exalted men and exalted ideas in the midst of poverty and isolation (or under any conditions for that matter), is a value in itself—a value of human existence that cannot be negated by the contention that more attention should have been paid to the conditions of existence.
Hasidism was a creative surge in perhaps the only direction in which it was possible for Jewish life in Poland to go—upwards. It is of special interest to us that the core of this movement is disclosed by Buber to be a remarkably sensitive education by Which individuals were held in communion with one another. By the measure of the spiritual stature of the men created in the Hasidic communions, under conditions that crushed other groups into insensibility, they were perhaps not failures at all.
