To the Editor:
Herbert Weiner’s “A Wedding in B’nai Brak” [July] is a vivid evocation of a remarkable event in contemporary Hasidic life. If only the author had been content with that . . . and not attempted to arrive at a new definition of the essence of Hasidism. . . .
Weiner correctly rejects Buber’s reading of Hasidism, but for the wrong reasons. Buber’s error was not in censoring out the “childlike, silly” elements in Hasidism but rather in eliminating elements much more profound. He gave the world a selected view of Hasidism, which stressed only those elements that gibed with his own existentialist, anti-Platonic teaching. His distortion was based on the erroneous . . . premises that the real source of Hasidism was in its legends and parables (and even here, only in those which appealed to him); and . . . that the earlier, theoretical writings were unimportant. For, despite Weiner, Hasidism does have a “system of ideas”—one which always gave preeminence to Torah and mitzvot. . . .
Because Buber deleted essential ingredients from classical Hasidism, the element of Hasidic joy was oversimplified, . . . a mistake which Weiner carelessly repeats. To say that Hasidic joy is merely joy in life and the world is to speak not in the voice of authentic Hasidism but in the voice of the existentialist Buber. Hasidic joy commands each Jew not so much to enjoy the present moment—which is ephemeral and fleeting—but to transcend the present and discover Him Who is hidden in the here and now. What is involved is a conquest of reality, not a fulfilling of it; this is the bitul ha-yesh, the “negation of what is,” of which the Hasidic teachers wrote. . . . Melody and dance—niggun and rikkud—were therefore not the results of the Hasid’s ecstatic realization that God is everywhere but . . . rather, the conscious means by which the human soul could take flight from the present, concentrate on higher spheres, and thus attain some measure of holiness. Perhaps the silent wooden orchestra of which Rabbi Weiner makes so much was only a self-parody of this Hasidic element, just as the wedding jester parodied other aspects of Hasidic life. . . .
Again, the Misnagdic opposition to Hasidism must be seen in its historic context. Hasidism began to flourish around 1760, with the death of its founder, the Ba’al Shem Tov. A year earlier, in 1759, the false messiah, Jacob Frank, became a Catholic, taking thousands of his Jewish followers with him. The new and unique approach of the Hasidim therefore surely aroused fears . . . of another incipient messianic movement. . . . Misnagdim like the. . . Vilna Gaon feared . . . not the “silly” elements in Hasidim . . . but the specter of . . . a new religion modeled on the false preaching of Frank. . . .
To maintain, as Weiner does, that Hasidism is essentially “childlike, silly, and grotesque” is to denigrate some of the most creative religious thinkers of the past two hundred years.
(Rabbi) Emanuel Feldman
Congregation Beth Jacob
Atlanta, Georgia
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To the Editor:
. . . It is sad to realize that the struggling, yet modern, state of Israel must reckon with a segment of its population that is politically . . . incompetent, antisocial . . . artistically barren and, worst of all, in matters of religion, idolatrous. . . .
Jacob W. Savinar
Portland, Oregon
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To the Editor:
. . . Herbert Weiner’s description of a Hasidic wedding reminded me of articles I read many years ago, of the kind written by Maskilim [“enlighteners”] like Lilienblum, Mapu, Smolenskin, etc. My impression is that Weiner’s knowledge of Hasidism stems only from his reading of Buber. . . .
Samuel Weintraub
Chicago, Illinois
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Rabbi Weiner writes:
Rabbi Feldman has raised a number of important points, but they have very little to do with my article. Nevertheless, since the matters discussed are interesting in their own right, I am sure Rabbi Feldman would want readers to know that his criticism of Martin Buber simply repeats the arguments made by Gershom Scholem in his article, “Martin Buber’s Hasidism” [COMMENTARY, October 1961]. Buber’s reply appeared in a subsequent issue. There is no point in repeating here the discussion contained in those two pieces.
Of course, my reporting of a Hasidic wedding in B’nai Brak did not attempt a “new definition” of Hasidism nor an historic explanation of the Misnagdic-Hasidic controversy. But I don’t mind offering the opinion that both of these problems increase in complexity the more closely they are examined. The problem with most facile definitions of Hasidism is that its so-called “distinguishing” elements—for example, its emphasis on joy (with or without the dialectic that Feldman and Scholem see in it); its exaltation of Kavanah, inner intent; its implicit pantheism or explicit use of Kabbalistic ideas, etc.—can all be found in normative Judaism—even in the Judaism of a Misnaged like the Vilna Gaon. Personally, the more I add to my own meager knowledge of the movement with its huge variety of schools, the less satisfaction do I find in broad generalizations. However, I don’t know of any responsible historian who so simplifies the Misnagdic-Hasidic controversy as to make the Frankist episode its major cause.
But coming back to my own article, Rabbi Feldman has correctly caught me using adjectives like “childlike, silly and grotesque,” with respect to much of Hasidic life. (Incidentally, this kind of criticism does appear in primary Misnagdic sources of that day.) But how my good colleague misreads me if he thinks that such words are used to “denigrate” Hasidic leaders! The “Fools of God”—from Abraham to St. Francis of Assisi to the Ba’al Shem Tov—have often believed and behaved in a way which has aroused the mockery of the world. But they have also changed this world. And most of us live and hope in the shadow of their “silly” dreams.
