Scholem's View of Jewish Messianism

Author(s): Joseph Dan

Source: Modern Judaism, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 117-128
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1396184
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 Joseph Dan

SCHOLEM'S VIEW OF JEWISH

MESSIANISM

The studies of Gershom Scholem revolutionized the attitude of Jewish

historians to the messianic element in Judaism. What was previously
regarded as an embarrassing, marginal abnormality of Jewish culture
became one of the most potent elements shaping Jewish history. In
importance, so it seems, Scholem's achievement in this field is equal
only to his changing the conceptions regarding the role of mysticism
in Jewish culture. In the following pages an attempt is made to present
the highlights of the results of Scholem's studies concerning Jewish
messianism. Such a survey should start with two negative points, be-
fore turning to the positive ideas describing messianism: It is as im-
portant to point out what Jewish messianism is not, as showing what
it actually is. Scholem proved that:(l) there is no inherent, constant
relationship between Jewish messianism and Jewish mysticism; and
(2) that there is no necessary linkage between catastrophes in Jewish
history and messianic movements. These two conclusions form the
first stage of Scholem's revolutionary approach to the subject.
One of the most unique characteristics of Gershom Scholem's
scholarly work was his strict adherance to a clearly-defined program
of research. Almost all his work between 1925 and his death in 1982,
nearly sixty years, is outlined in his letter to H. N. Bialik, in which he
presented his plans for the study of Jewish mysticism'. His scholarly,
scientific articles are all dedicated to various figures, books, events
and subjects in the history of Jewish mysticism. The one clear excep-
tion, so it seems, is his detailed study: "The Messianic Idea in
Judaism"2, which surveys the history of this idea from biblical times
to the 12th century, almost without dealing with Jewish mysticism,
even though it covers the periods of the development of ancientJewish
mysticism, the Hekhalot and Merkabah literature, and the early be-
ginnings of Jewish mysticism and kabbalah in Europe. The reason
for this "omission" is explained in Scholem's other important study
of Jewish messianism-the essay "The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism"3.

ModernJudaism 12 (1992): 117-128 ? 1992 by The Johns HopkinsUniversityPress

118 JosephDan

The first half of this essay is dedicated to explaining why the early
kabbalah did not deal with messianism, and why Jewish mystics for
many centuries were so uninterested in the messianic idea. The second
half of that essay is dedicated to explaining the dramatic change which
occured in the relationship between mysticism and messianism in the
15th- 16th centuries.
According to Scholem an intense connection was created between
messianism and the various schools of Jewish mystics in the late Middle
Ages and early modern times, a connection which had profound re-
sults for Jewish history and culture as a whole. But this relatively late
development does not reflect the general, intrinsic characteristics of
either Jewish messianism or of Jewish mysticism. For centuries-or
even millenia-these two basic religious attitudes existed side by side,
without one feeding meaningfully on the other. The tendency to
equate them and see them as one unit is derived from two reasons,
one valid and the other erroneous. The valid one is that the period
between the 15th and the 19th centuries is really characterised by
intense messianic expectations in Judaism, which are at least partly
motivated by mystical-mainly kabbalistic-symbolism. The wrong
one is the tendency to regard messianism as superstition, and as mys-
ticism was regarded as superstition by many 19th centlury (and some
20th century) Jewish scholars, seeing them as parts of the same em-
barrassing phenomenon was natural. By regarding them as separate
historical and cultural forces, and analyzing their historical develop-
ment, Scholem proved that each of them is an independent spiritual
element within Jewish religion.
In his detailed studies of ancient Jewish mysticism, which flour-
ished between the 2nd century C. E. to the 7th, Scholem did not find
any messianic element4. The mystical schools of the "descenders to
the chariot" were deeply interested in the structure of the divine
world, and in their own attempts to lift their souls up to the celestial
palaces and face the magnificent King, described as the enormous
figure of the Shiur Komah sitting on the throne of glory in the seventh
palace. Here they would join in the praises of the ministering angels
singing around this throne5. There was no place in this framework
for communal or national historical effort to enhance the
redemption5, an effort which is the essence of messianic activity. Thus,
in the long period of intense Jewish messianic activity in late antiquity,
the mystics seem to be absent from the historical scene6, while mes-
sianism did not use mystical symbols or speculations.
When new schools of Jewish mysticism began to develop in me-
dieval Europe in the 12th century, they did not include the messianic
element as one of their central themes. It does not mean that Jewish
mystics did not believe in the redemption and the coming of the
Scholem on Messianism 119

messiah, but only that this belief was not a part of their spiritual world
as mystics. The Ashkenazi Hasidim-the leaders of the Jewish mys-
tical-pietistic movement in Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries
did seek the date of the future redemption7, but neither their esoteric
speculation nor their ethical program contained a messianic element.
The same is true about the works of the kabbalists in the first hundred
years of the history of the kabbalah, from the late 12th century to the
late 13th century: No messianic element can be found in the book
Bahir, the first work of the kabbalah, or in the kabbalistic schools in
Provence and Gerona in the 13th century.
The reason for this absence was explained by Scholem as the result
of these mystics' adherance to the "secret of genesis": The most potent
mystical symbols used by them were dedicated to the description of
the descent of divine light from the hidden, supreme source, the
Godhead, stage by stage, until it reached the created world. This
process of emanation which brought forth the ten divine sephirot,
and below them the celestial and earthly creatures, was viewed as a
ladder leading away from the supreme unity of the Godhead to the
countless created beings of the material worlds. The descent of this
ladder is the "secret of genesis," how God brought about the multiple
divine and material beings from his eternal unity. This ladder, ex-
plained Scholem, could be used by mystics to ascend back into the
realm of supreme unity, turning one's back to the created world and
seeking the mystical way back into the pure spirituality of pre-creation
times. The aim of these mystics was, therefore, to ignore the reality
surrounding them, and to escape from it by ascending a ladder which
goes up, towards God, but also away from history and the future,
deep into the remote past. Mystical perfection is to be sought in the
process of genesis, rather than the future process of messianic re-
demption. Motivated by this mystical wish to escape the material world
the mystics, as mystics, naturally, were not interested in historical
activity, and turned their backs to messianic endeavor. The beginning
and early development of the kabbalah is thus completely separated
from messianic elements, and Scholem's magnum opus on this crucial
chapter in the history ofJewish mysticism hardly mentions this theme8.
Scholem saw this tendency to ignore the messianic element as
dominant even in the Zohar, the most important mystical work of
Jewish medieval mysticism, even though in this vast book, messianism
plays a much larger role than in earlier kabbalah9. Recent studies
seem to show that the messianic element in the Zohar was more central
than formerly believed'0, possibly based on some of its sources", but
it is still a fact that the kabbalah did not motivate a Jewish messianic
movement in the 13th and 14th centuries. This situation was changed
dramatically in the 15th century, and Scholem studied in detail the
120 Joseph Dan

process of that change, which will be described below. As a result of

Scholem's work it is impossible to regard mysticism and messianism
in Judaism as closely-connected religious phenomena. Rather, one of
the most profoundly interesting subjects in the study of Jewish spir-
ituality is the enquiry why and how these two separate elements be-
came fused in the 15th-19th centuries.

II

The tendency by Jewish historians in the 19th century to view mys-

ticism and messianism as one and the same was probably the result
of their attitude towards these two phenomena as marginal and "un-
becoming" in Judaism, which they believed to be based on pure mono-
theistic rationalism. The same apologetic motivation probably was
behind their tendency to see Jewish messianism as a result of the
frequent persecutions and catastrophes to which Judaism was subject
in the Middle Ages and modern times. It is as if they were saying:
"When left alone, Jews are rational and are not easily deceived by
messianic nonesense. Only when the hardships they are facing become
unendurable do they cling to this absurd notion." In Jewish histo-
riography of the 19th century, and some of the 20th, persecutions
and messianic movements are presented as almost one and the same
phenomenon.
Scholem had to face the full force of this apologetic prejudice
when he studied the beginnings of the Sabbatian movement in the
17th century. The works of earlier Jewish historians stressed the ex-
istence of a link between the appearance of the belief in Sabbatai Zevi
as the messiah and Nathan of Gaza as his prophet in Turkey and the
Middle East in 1665-1666 and the terrible massacre of the Jews in
Poland and the Ukraine during the Chmelnitzki revolt in 1648-1649.
The 15-year gap between the persecutions in Eastern E,urope and the
appearance of Sabbatianism in Turkey was explained by the thesis
that for some time Sabbatianism developed in secret, forming esoteric
groups of believers, which surfaced in 1665 when the movement be-
came active publicly. Scholem, who dedicated many years to assem-
bling and analyzing every piece of evidence which could shed some
light on the development of Sabbatianism, failed to find even the
smallest indication of any connection between Sabbatai Zevi's messi-
anic claims and ideology and the persecutions in Poland. Similarly,
no evidence was discovered that there were circles of Sabbatian be-
lievers prior to Nathan of Gaza's appearance in 1665. Research in the
history of Sabbatianism has become very intensive in the last three
decades, and Scholem's conclusion concerning the independence of
Scholem on Messianism 121

Sabbatianism from any direct influence by the Chmelnitzki catastro-

phe seems to be completely validated.
The attempt to link messianism with persecutions was based on
the refusal to regard messianism as an independent spiritual and
cultural force within the framework of Jewish religion. It was Scholem
in his detailed study of the subject who proved that Jewish messianism
is a constant component of Jewish belief, always present, even if for
long periods it is subdued and does not express itself strongly in
historical occurrences. In each period, among each cultural and ide-
ological group, it is expressed in a different manner, but its presence
has always to be taken into account. The study of the history of Jewish
messianism has to explain the complexity of its expressions and the
varied motivations for its employment. Some of the basic character-
istics of Jewish messianism as a whole were presented by Scholem in
his phenomenological study, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism."

III

Scholem's basic attitude towards the messianic element in Jewish re-

ligion can be characterized as viewing messianism as a basic aspect of
Judaism's conception of history. Understanding the dialectics of the
development of Jewish messianism means understanding Judaism's
views of its own and of social and even cosmic history. The main
difference between Judaism and Christianity concerning redemption
is explained by Scholem as centered in Christianity's spiritualization
of the concept of messianic redemption, thus turning it from the
historical arena into the realm of psychology, while Judaism retained,
throughout history, its insistence that messianism is an external his-
torical occurance12. The various chiliastic movements within Christi-
anity, which often were regarded as heretical and presented as rebels
and enemies of Christian orthodoxy, are, in fact, "Jewish" heresies,
wishing to return to the original Jewish historical conception of mes-
sianism. Judaism could not accept the attitude which presents re-
demption in an individual's soul, denigrating the national, social and
cosmic aspects of the messianic event.
When Scholem presented the typology of Jewish conceptions of
messianism in his major essay13,concentrating mainly on the Rabbinic
period (though finding this typology relevant also to later periods),
he presented three types: "conservative, restorative and utopian". The
conservative attitude is represented mainly by the Halachah, while
messianic phenomena usually include both restorative elements, re-
viving Jewish independence and the re-building of the temple in Je-
rusalem, and utopian ones, emphasizing the completely revolutionary
122 JosephDan

and miraculous existence of the messianic era. The interesting fact is

that the term "messianic" could be substituted in all three types with
the term "historical": These three types represent a conservative at-
titude towards history, trying to work and improve within the present,
a restorative one-the wish to return to previous historical circum-
stances which are viewed as ideal, and a utopian conception of future
history. Every group, every sect and every ideological movement de-
fined its attitudes to messianism and to history in an almost identical
manner. Scholem's deep attachment to this unity between these two
elements is clearly evident even in the structure of his analysis of the
subject: He had no interest in the phenomenological problem of the
origins and beginnings of Jewish messianism, nor in the motives which
made it an integral part of Judaism (and of Christianity). He studied
in detail the development of the concept throughout history, and
analyzed its impact on the ways in which Jews faced their present,
past and future in the light of their messianic conceptions, which were
both the cause and the result of their attitudes towards national and
cosmic history.
Two other general characteristics of Jewish messianism were em-
phasized by Scholem: The catastrophic element and the miraculous,
transcendent one. Messianic redemption is accompanied by detailed
descriptions of cosmic, social and national catastrophies in the large
apocalyptic literature written during the second temple period, and,
as Scholem emphasized, this genre of literary activity continued to
develop within Judaism consistently during the talmudic period (some
such apocalyptic material was included in the Hekhalot and Merkabah
texts of the ancient Jewish mystics), and some motives expressing this
attitude were incorporated in the midrash. During the Middle Ages
and early modern times, up to and including the Sabbatian movement
of the 17th-18th centuries, apocalypses were written by Jews, both
mystics and non-mystics, continuing the tradition which viewed the
emergence of the redeemed "next world" as following the destruction
of the present one. In both ancient and medieval apocalyptic works
a complete history of the world is indicated, revealing the authors'
attitude towards the history of their past and present, as well as the
utopian visions of the future.
This apocalyptic-utopian version of messianism, with its emphasis
on the catastrophic nature of the redemptive process, was staunchly
opposed by Jewish rationalists, especially by Maimonides. Scholem
dedicated the second half of his essay on the subject to a detailed
analysis of Maimonides's description of the messianic era in the con-
cluding chapters of his great halachic work, the Mishneh Torah. Mai-
monides was different from the apocalyptic-utopian Jewish visionaries
first and foremost in his insistence on the uninterrupted continuation
Scholem on Messianism 123

of history. The redemption, according to Maimonides, does not put

a stop to the history of this world, and its laws of nature and society
will continue without any dramatic change. Messianic times will bring
solutions to Judaism's current social and national problems, but will
not change essentially the character of human existence in the physical
world. Even more important is the Maimonidean insistence that mes-
sianic redemption will not bring any change in the nature of religious
worship. The character of the ritualistic and ethical commandments,
as well as the need for spiritual and intellectual adherance to God
which is the most important part of religion according to the ration-
alists, will not be changed by the messiah. His appearance will only
indicate that the physical circumstances for their perfomance will be
better, and Man will be able to seek his God in relative comfort.
A common element in the works of both the utopian-apocalyptic
writers and their rationalistic opponents is their shared conception of
the biblical descriptions of the messianic era as riddles to be solved,
as enigmatic statements which have to be interpreted. Both groups
used such verses to substantiate their pre-conceived conclusions,
rather than taking them as divine or divinely-inspired statements of
future events. The apocalyptic writers, according to Scholem, went
even further, and gave the whole field of messianic speculation the
aura of an esoteric realm, an area to be hidden from the public and
information to be given in veiled hints and symbolical terminology.
The second basic element (also common to all groups of Jewish
thinkers) of messianism is its transcendent, miraculous character.
Scholem repeatedly emphasized the fact that most ancient and me-
dieval Jewish descriptions of messianic times regard the beginning of
the process of redemption as one decided by God and God alone,
independently of human behaviour or religious achievements. Jewish
apocalyptic literature as well as the talmudic texts dealing with the
subject do not put forward any set of conditions that have to be
fulfilled prior to the appearance of the messiah. It is God's will alone
which will decide when and how this process will unfold. Thus, re-
demption is not the result of any earthly process, that is-a historical
one-but a miraculous intervention of God in world affairs, bringing
one era to its end and beginning a new one. Rabbinic promises, Scho-
lem observes, which connect the performance of a specific com-
mandment with messianic redemption should not be regarded as
theological statements. Essentially, ancient and most of medieval Ju-
daism viewed the redemption as an intrusion of an external, trans-
cendent force into history, bringing it to its end.
124 Joseph Dan

IV

A dramatic change in Jewish attitudes towards messianism occurred

in the second half of the 15th century and reached its peak in the
Lurianic kabbalah of the late 16th century and the Sabbatian move-
ment of the 17th-18th centuries. Based on earlier tendencies in the
kabbalah since the second half of the 13th century, Jewish mystics
gradually turned messianic redemption into a historical process, which
develops as a result of human religious behaviour. Many of Scholem's
best-known studies are dedicated to an analysis of this ideological
revolution and its consequences-the messianic works of the expul-
sion period, the Lurianic myth of zimzum, shevirah and tikkun, the
theology of the Sabbatian movement and then the Hasidic reaction
of the neutralization of the messianic element. In this period, the
history of Jewish thought concerning messianism is fused with Jewish
history in general, and becomes one of the most powerful forces
shaping Jewish attitudes to themselves and to the surrounding world
in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.
According to Scholem, the most important factor in this ideolog-
ical revolution is the new sense of exile which penetrated Jewish con-
sciousness as a result of the events in Spain which culminated with
the expulsion of the Jews from that country in 1492, thus destroying
the largest and most influential Jewish center in medieval Europe'4.
As a result of this upheaval, earlier kabbalistic ideas about the impact
Man has in his religious and mystical worship on developments within
the Godhead acquired a new strength and a new meaning: Man is
capable of influencing divine processes to the extent that the status
of the divine powers is dependent on him, and therefore he has the
power to enhance the coming of the redemption. The whole body of
the Jewish commandments, the whole realm of ethical behaviour, thus
became tools given to Man by God in order to enable him to participate
in, and even dominate, the mystical developments among the divine
powers and bring forth messianic times.
This revolution, most clearly found in Lurianic kabbalah, inter-
nalized the messianic phenomenon to some extent, and put the main
battleground of the redemptive process within the heart of the Jewish
individual. Every human thought and deed has an impact-positive
or negative-on a mystical process which decides the status of the
divine powers, and as a result-of the cosmos, the nation, and ulti-
mately that of the individual as well. This new attitude has a common
element with the spiritualization of messianism in early Christianity,
but there is also a cardinal difference: While in Christianity both the
process of redemption and its results happen within the soul of the
devout individual, in Lurianic kabbalah the result of this process
Scholem on Messianism 125

shapes the fate of the divine powers themselves, of the cosmos as a

whole, and of external history as a consequence of the deeper changes.
One element was missing from Jewish messianism from the tal-
mudic period up to the 17th century: The figure of the personal
messiah, the individual who brings forth the redemption. Since the
emergence of apocalyptic literature, this aspect remained vague and
secondary in Jewish discussions of messianic redemption. The reason,
according to Scholem, is that Christian messianism was woven around
the personal figure of Jesus, and Shiite redemption around the figure
of the hidden Imam, while Jewish messianism did not have a personal
figure in the center of the messianic drama which could shape and
dominate it. The Sabbatian movement changed that: The theology
of Nathan of Gaza put in the heart of the messianic process the figure
of an individual, Shabbatai Zevi, who is a divine messenger and a
divine power himself, and his mission is to carry out those parts of
the messianic process which Man cannot perform alone, helped only
by the religious and ethical commandments. The transcendent ele-
ment in Jewish messianism thus re-emerges in Sabbatian theology, a
divine messenger intervenes in the historical process and brings it to
an end-but in a new form, the form of a messiah who is already
here, and is already a part of the historical process.
Nearly two hundred years of Jewish mystical thought, from the
mid-17th century to the mid-19th, are characterized by the struggle
between these new, historical-activistic ideas originated by Isaac Luria
and Nathan of Gaza, and the conservative forces within Judasim-
most of them mystically-motivated and adherents of the kabbalah,
who wished to return to the pre-Lurianic world in which messianic
redemption is a transcendent, miraculous event. According to Scho-
lem, these forces had the upper hand in the Hasidic movement, thus
neutralizing the messianic upheaval and returning, in a new way, to
the sharp division between history and messianic drives'5.

Scholem concluded his essay on Jewish messianism with an observa-

tion and a question. The observation is, that messianism prevents any
human accomplishment in unredeemed times from being final. His-
tory is patiently waiting for its culmination, which will come when a
transcendent force will intervene arbitrarily and change the nature
of existence completely. Until then, everything done by human beings
is temporary and secondary in its meaning, because all will change
when messianic times will arrive and this world will be replaced by
the "next world". Scholem describes this basic phenomenon as the
126 Joseph Dan

dialectic tension between existence and messianism, the latter being

fundamentally "anti-existential." He also observes that the price paid
by Judaism when it wanted to break out of this dilemma and bring
messianism into history as a part of "existential" history, most clearly
in Sabbatian heresy, was very heavy. The question is, how does the
modern Jewish determination to participate in history, to create final
facts, like a Jewish state, within history, relate to past experience and
to the internal dynamics of the spiritual forces which shaped the
various messianic attitudes.
Even while asking the question, Scholem clearly distinguishes be-
tween Zionism and messianism, presenting them as alternatives rather
than having a common element. Zionism is an "existential" movement,
rebelling against the futility of historical activity in an unredeemed
world, claiming that historical achievements can be brought forth
without any transcendent intervention and without waiting for one
or depending on one. Zionism, according to this concept, is a complete
departure from all conflicting views and attitudes of Jewish messi-
anism put together: It rebels against the demand to wait for divine
redemption, and it refuses to see itself as a culmination of one. It does
not declare, like Sabbatianism, thatJewish entrance into history is now
possible because the messiah has come. Rather, it claims that Jewish
participation in history is now necessary and possible in spite of the
fact that the messiah has not come, and that history cannot be influ-
enced either by his absence or by his presence: Jewish participation
in history is a valid fact in any circumstance.
When writing this essay, Scholem was not sure that this new en-
terprise of Judaism would succeed, and whether it would escape the
heavy price paid in earlier centuries for messianic endeavors. A great
deal has happened since these remarks were written by Scholem, and
the problem of the relationship between Zionism and messianism has
assumed new dimensions and its discussion-a new urgency. Scholem
opposed, consistently, throughout his life, any attempt to involve
transcendent elements in Zionist thought, especially to "promise"
Zionistic success on the basis of religious, messianic or mystical cal-
culations. If the Jewish people has entered the world's historical arena
when creating the Zionist movement, it must accept completely the
laws governing this arena, even though they are "existential" and anti-
messianic. At what price freedom from the transcendent, after we
know so well the price paid before this freedom was attained? Only
future history can assess this.
HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM
Scholem on Messianism 127

NOTES

1. Scholem's letter to H. N. Bialik was sent in July, 1925, and published

by M. Ungerfeld in Hapoel Ha-Zair, Vol. 39, 11, (December 1967), pp. 18-
19. It is included in the Hebrew collection of Scholem's essays, Devarim Bego
(Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 59-63.
2. Scholem's study, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism," is based on a lecture
before the Eranos society, and was published in Eranos Jahrbuch, Vol. 28
(1959), pp. 193-239. The German version was also included in the collection
Judaica, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt, 1963), pp. 7-74, and a Hebrew translation by M.
Meislesh in Devarim Bego, pp. 155-191. The English translation by Michael
M. Meyer, entitled "Towards an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in
Judaism" opens, and gave the title to, Scholem's collection of essays "The
Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays in Jewish Spirituality," (New
York, 1971), pp. 1-36 and notes on pp. 341-343. References below refer to
this version.
3. "The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism", in "The Messianic Idea in Ju-
daism," pp. 37-48. This is Moses Hadas's translation of the Hebrew essay
(DevarimBego, pp. 191-215), first published in English in Commentary,Vol. 4
(1958). This essay was first published in Hebrew as a separate booklet (Je-
rusalem, 1942 and 1946).
4. Concerning Scholem's studies of ancient Jewish mysticism see Major
TrendsinJewish Mysticism,2nd. ed (New York, 1954), pp. 40-78, and his book:
Jewish Gnosticism,MerkabahMysticismand TalmudicTradition(New York, 1960,
revised edition, 1965). Parts of Scholem's synoptic studies of the Schekhinah
and Shiur Komah also include discussions of this subject. See: G. Scholem,
Von der mystischenGestaltder Gottheit(Zurich, 1962), pp. 7-47, 135-191.
5. See Major Trends, p. 72, and Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 9.
6. An exception to this statement may be found in the talmudic traditions
concerning Rabbi Akibah, who is described both as a mystic (Tosefta Hagiga
II, 4) and as a contributor to the messianic character of the Bar Kochbah
rebellion. These traditions, however, never create a connection between the
messianic and the mystical aspects of Rabbi Akibah's figure.
7. See Major Trends, pp. 87-89.
8. See: G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah,ed. by R. J. Zwi Werblowski,
translated from the German (UrsprungundAnfange derKabbala),[Berlin 1962])
by A. Arkush (Princeton, 1987).
9. See Major Trends, p. 224.
10. I. Tishby intended to study the Zohar's eschatology in a third volume
of his Mishnat ha-Zohar, Vols. 1 and 2, (Jerusalem 1949 and 1961); English
translation, (Oxford, 1989). A recent, detailed study of this subject was pub-
lished by Y. Liebes in his study of the messianic element in the Zohar and in
the figure of Rabbi Shimeon Bar Yohai, included in: The Messianic Idea in
Jewish Thought,A Study Conferencein Honour of the EightiethBirthdayof Gershom
Scholem,held 4-5 December1977 (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 87-236 (in Hebrew).
11. On the messianism of the second half of the 13th century and the
sources of Zoharic messianism, see my study: "The Beginnings of Messianic
128 JosephDan

Myth in 13th Century Kabbalah", in Zvi Baras (ed.), Messianismand Eschatology,

A Collectionof Essays (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 239-252 (in Hebrew).
12. The spiritualization of the messianic element can be found in some
statements of the Rabbis of the modern Hasidic movement in the late 18th
and early 19th century. See R. Shatz, QuietisticElementsin 18th CenturyHasidic
Thought (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 168-177 (in Hebrew).
13. The Messianic Idea in Judaism, pp. 3-4.
14. Some doubts concerning Scholem's thesis connecting the exile from
Spain with late-15th and 16th century messianic elements in the kabbalah,
especially Lurianic kabbalah, were expressed recently by M. Idel, who pointed
out how scarcely the exile is mentioned by messianic thinkers of the period,
and the lack of direct textual connections between Lurianic kabbalah and the
events of 1492. See Idel's introduction to the new edition of A. Z. Eshkoly,
Jewish MessianicMovements,Sourcesand Documents(Jerusalem, 1987), especially
pp. 16-28. It should be noted that Scholem emphasized especially the new
sense of exile (paradoxically expressed most fully by mystics living in Eretz-
Yisrael)on the spread and influence of messianic kabbalah.
15. As far as I know, Scholem did not refer in his works to the new
emergence of messianism in contemporary Hasidism, most evident in the
Habad sect at present as well in other prominent Hasidic groups. Present
realities, however do not necessarily reflect elements inherent in past phe-
nomena, and it does not follow that if present day Hasidism has a strong
messianic tendency that Hasidism in the past must also have had this attitude
hidden within it. Still, the dialectical development of the various Hasidic
schools between neutralization of the messianic element and being the carriers
of acute messianic endeavors remains to be studied, and it should be viewed
as a problem having an impact on the understanding of both present and
future Jewish religious and mystical thought.