Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:47:41.761Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hasidic mysticism as an activism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2006

JEROME GELLMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105 Israel

Abstract

In her important work, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, the late Rivkah Schatz-Uffenheimer depicted early eighteenth-century Hasidism as a movement with pronounced ‘quietist tendencies’. In this paper I raise several difficulties with this thesis. These follow from social-activist features of early Hasidism as well as from a selection from the writings of leading early Hasidic masters. I conclude that a major stream of thought in early Hasidim was not quietist in tendency. Finally, I compare the intentions of the masters I cite to some non-quietist themes in Eastern mystical thought.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)