Scholem, A Life in Letters

Reading Note
(p. 2) Weiss claimed in his 1947 essay that those with a glimpse into his teachers singularly
sculpted personality could decipher his philological and historical studies as Scholem incognito.
He went on to compare Scholem to a medieval painter who paints his own face onto a figure in a
crowd. The master camouflage himself in his scholarly compositions; he used a painters
techniques to recast personal concerns into a different era and even to portray himself in historical
garb.
Scholems first correspondents:
Erich Brauer (with whom Scholem founded the Blau-Weisse Brille)
Edgar Blum
Harry Heymann
Grete Brauer (Scholems first love)
Aharon Heller
Meta Jahr
Gerda Goldberg
Pension Struck: Full of Eastern Jews. He met Agnon, whom he defined one of the most perfect
incarnations [] of all the mysteries of Jewish existence.
(p. 15) He met Walter Benjamin during the summer of 1915 at a discussion group on the meaning
of history. In the course of the evening, both Scholem and Benjamin rose to challenge the main
speakers assertion that history has no meaning. What most impressed Scholem was Benjamins use
of what he assumed were Jewish ideas, for Benjamin contrasted the liberal fiction of eternal
progress with the Messianic kingdom.
(p. 26) Dear Werner, I do not believe in the philosophy of history whether it be Hegels (that is,
Marxs), Rankes, or Treitschkes, or (for all I care) even the negative form of it preached by
Nietzsche. In other words, I believe that if history produces laws at all, either history or the laws are
worthless. At the very most, I think that only anarchism can be of some use if you really want to
prove something through history
Heinrich Margulies
Siegfried Lehmann
(p. 36) To Siegfried Lehmann
the true difference between us lies [] in the fact that I have, in fact, come to comprehend the
totality of Judaism in its total sense and I know that, internally, the totality of Judaism contains
certain essential ingredients. [] And this includes the creation of most post-biblical Judaism
(basically the pharisaic literature, massively deepened and its truth expanded through the
Kabbalah), withouth which the soul of Judaism, its creator, can never be grasped and enriched and
without which the Jewish notion of God (its foolish to speak this way) is unthinkable.
(pp. 36-37)
Indeed, he who has the Word has Judaism; but you cannot understand this word if you do not
know the text; and you cannot comprehend the Torah if you dont know it; and you cannot
experience if you do not know Gods work, Gods actions. Gods actions, however, constitute the
Tradition, the Torah. And the Torah is not just the Pentateuch. The Torah is the essence and
integral of all religious tradition, from Moishe Rabbenu to Israel Hildesheimer and, if you are a
Jew, Herr Lehmann, to you yourself.

(p. 38) To Edgar Blum

I am and must be against him from the very essence of my being. It has become utterly
transparent to me that Buber, despite all of his Jewishness, is ultimately not a Jewish figure but a
modern one. Not only is his philosophy of history wrong, its even demonstrably so.
Harry Heymann
In November, 12 1916 Scholem says hes reading S.R. Hirschs Pentateuch.
In July 1917 he wrote to Werner Kraft that Ricarda Huchs detective novels are awful.
VERY IMPORTANT LETTER to Gerda Goldberg (August, 6 1917)
On Torah and vision of History. On culture and Judaism. On Zionism!!!!!!! (pp. 54-55)
(p. 57) To Werner Kraft
Judaism makes the highest demands on someone who wants to look into it seriously. Getting to
know it presents nearly insurmountable difficulties to those who do not possess (like Walter
Benjamin, as far as I can tell) a tremendous intuition for it, which is to say an eminently positive
relationship with it. If it is a concern of the ultimate importance, it cannot be any other way.
Moreover, the complete inner certainty that it is precisely this has guided me through all of my
initial years of study.
(p. 66) To Herry Heymann
Over the past 2000 years, there have been two texts in particular that have presented the central
questions of philosophy in a truly and absolutely grand fashion. By this I mean Platos Theaetetus, a
work of a mere one hundred pages whose magnificent contents can give you an infinite amount.
Perhaps even more shattering is Kants Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics (which Reklam has
published in two volumes). If you werent in the army, I would direct you straight to his Critique of
Pure Reason, though for a complete novice its exceptionally difficult and as such wont be helpful
as the shorter though splendid excerpt contained in the Prolegomena. He who reads the
Prolegomena and still has no use for philosophy should stay away from it. Its a perfect litmus test.
On March, 1st 1918, Scholem wrote to Harry Heymann: I think I must have written to you that I
did a translation of the Lamentations, though its different from my accursed translation of the Song
of Songs.
In March, 7th 1918, he wrote to Grete Brauer I have no doubt that even now the most vital things
can be said only in silence. [Same words appear in Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on Jewish
Mysticism].
March, 15th 1918 Scholem receives a letter from Ludwig Strauss, discussing his translation of the
Lamentations (p. 72).
In his answer Scholem wrote: I take Tradition to be the only absolute object of mysticism, which is
the reason I call the mystical laws of the people genuine mystical laws. This statement which you
can find in the essay no doubt requires a more exhaustive and expansive formulation than I
provided.
Letter to Aharon Heller (June, 23th 1918)
I sit completely withdrawn in my attic room above the fields like Agnons Torah scribe, minus
his peace of mind.

Letter to Escha Burchardt (July, 23th 1918)

We [me and Benjamin] study Cohen two hours a day. [] In addition Im working on the Book of
Isaiah for six to eight hours daily, in the most comprehensive fashion. I can already give a truly
philosophical seminar on it. The most tremendous things have come to me in every respect
regarding not only Isaiah (this least of all, since the procedure here is that at the beginning one can
just ask questions), but primarily the things that come to mind through it above all, lamentations;
the philosophy of the Hebrew language (oh, if only someday these things could be the focus of my
worthy labors!). [] Philology is the greatest confirmation of my view of the central importance of
Tradition, though of course in a new sense of the word.
Referring to Benjamin, in the letter of October, 26 th 1918, Scholem speaks of the sterling purity of
his existence.
I know no one else besides my friend who has become such a teacher to me, owing not only to the
ingeniousness of his mind, but also to the sterling purity of his existence.
To Ludwig Strauss, November 1st 1918
As always, I remain completely absorbed in the literature of lamentation. I have translated and
worked through all of the biblical lamentations with the exception of Job (in particular, I should
draw your attention to Chapter 1 of Joel and Chapter 3 of Job). [] Reflecting on the system of
rules in the genre of lamentations leads me ever deeper into fundamental problems concerning the
philosophy of history precisely the spot where I end up in all of my other studies, such as those on
the Bible; the philosophy of religion in the Middle Ages, Cohen, and Hirsch; rules of pronunciation;
and, last but not least, the Kabbalah. The essential categories of Judaism are becoming more and
more evident to me. [] Above all, I am preoccupied with three ideas, along with their
corresponding categorical connections (the first and perhaps final task of a Jewish thinker is to
systematically establish internal links between them) namely, the ideas of doctrine, messianic
time, and justice. Ive worked especially diligently on the last, and I think I have uncovered a great
deal. Not only can I define justice systematically, but its relation to canon, doctrine, and
messianic time has also become far less foggy. The most decisive things flow from all of this.
November 23th 1918. To Escha Burchardt
More I cannot do, for the simple reason that this revolution (even if it naturally has something
messianic about it) is not identical to the theological one. Joining this revolution is something I
would regard as the greatest task of all.
1919-1932
Important thing: In Weimar Republic were diffuse a lot of works, not in academic style, but very
popular, concerning some aspects of Judaism that lately Scholem make the object of his work. See
for example Gustav Meyrink, The Golem, but also Josef Kasteins Sabbatai Sevi: The Messiah of
Ismir, and so on
Thus: Could we say that in Scholem lived the same idea we find in Benjamin? See Benjamins
interest for old toys, children books, and so on
Scholem preferred reading Jean-Paul and Scheerbart. He appreciated Rosenzweigs Stern der
Erlsung, but he refused Ernst Blochs Geist der Utopie as a sort of short-cut to Judaism.
Gadamer (see Introduction to Scholems Briefe) says the in his dissertation on Bahir Scholem
approached his topic not with skeptical distance of the professional deciphering something foreign,
but with a shocking degree of identification (p. 90).

Scholem went to Frankfurt in the Summer 1922. He was invited by Ernst Simon, one of Bubers
disciples, to give lectures at the Lehrhaus. He lectured there on Agnon, the book of Daniel, and the
Kabbalah. He also led small seminars based on readings from Jewish mystical, apocalyptic, and
midrashic texts.
In February 1923 Scholem shipped to Palestine his 2000-volume Hebrew library (including 600
volumes of kabbalistic texts), along with his volumes of Scheerbart and Jean Paul and his collection
of detective novels. He followed his books several months later. When he arrived in Jerusalem after
the two-week journey, he found temporary lodging in the Bergmann home (p. 91).
(p. 94) Chaim Norman Bialik, the greatest living Hebrew poet of the time and a resident of the
pioneer city of Tel Aviv, admired the twenty-six-year-old for combining so many contradictory
talents and passions; he considered Scholem the leading candidate to find the lost key to the locked
gate of the temple of Jewish mysticism. Cfr. David N. Myers, Reinventing the Jewish Past, p. 159
(p. 94) Agnon endowed a fictional character with Scholems scholarly features and habits. See
Robert Alter, Sabbatai Sevi and the Jewish Imagination, Commentary (June 67).
(p. 102) To Werner Kraft: I can be with Walter only very rarely, and this for deeply personal
reasons. I feel the need to stay for a spell within an exclusively Jewish circle, even if its made up of
only myself and my books, or in an anarchistic community with other humans.
(p. 107) To Meta Jahr: Besides sorcery and black magic, the other bit of systematic learning Im
doing is to continue work on the book of Jeremiah with Frulein Burchhardt.
(p. 110) To Walter Benjamin (Ferbruary, 5th 1920), concerning Blochs Geist der Utopie: I have the
impression that, using inadequate means in the worst possible sense, Bloch has committed a border
violation leading him into territory which should be kept to an absolute minimum in such a book.
With a sorcerers flourish (and take care I know the source of this magic!), he makes claims about
the historical development of Judaism, about history, and about Judaism per se that clearly bear the
terrible stigmata of Prague (which means Buber, in my book). No matter how you look at it, even
the phraseology stems from Prague.
March, 10th 1921: Letter From Franz Rosenzweig on his translation of Jewish Poetry. The specific
impossibility is in every case different. In my case its name is Luther. And not only Luther, for he is
merely the point of passage in which the most ancient and most contemporary writers are briefly
bound together; but, to be more exact, Notker Luther Hlderlin. There is no such things as a
simple linguistic fact. The German language became Christian through these three names. He who
translates into German must in one way or another translate into a Christian language.
To Robert Weltsch and Hans Kohn (July, 30 th 1921): Instead of the upheavals you lay claim to, I
know only the deep continuity of the Teaching which has obviously faded from Zion, though
Zionists havent noticed this (p. 121).
From Walter Benjamin (November, 27th 1921): I was delighted, albeit silently, with the slight
allusion to my Task of the Translator that I believe I discovered in the original version of your
Lyric of the Kabbalah?. To be specific, the allusion is that, in your words, the true principles of
translation have already been established often enough.

After Scholem completed his doctorate in March 1922, he left Munich and went to Frankfurt, where
he taught various courses at Franz Rosenzweigs Lehrhaus. In the fall, upon returning to Berlin, he
worked on a number of translations and prepared for the oral defense of his dissertation.
To Werner Kraft (December, 17th 1924): Concerning the fate of the Zionist movement, I have
unconditionally committed myself to the sect with apocalyptic view. You cant possibly imagine the
sorts of worlds that bump into each other in this place. For thinking minds, its an open invitation to
go overboard. And even if you dont want to make some kind of public appearance, you
necessarily assume a theological pose, sometimes in the most ridiculous forms now a messiah,
now a labor union leader, now in still stranger costumes. You can get away with all kinds of remarks
about the new Palestine (if I make myself clear), especially bad ones and how could it be
otherwise, given this unimaginable collision between the various types of creativity released from
the four corners of heaven and earth? But it seems to me a brute fact that this occurs here more
often than elsewhere. Personally, I suffer catastrophically from linguistic conditions that escape
rational description.
To Ernst Simon (January, 24th 1925): The galut will eat you alive; you cannot expose yourself to
this without paying a price (p. 141).
Scholem had met Simon at Rosenzweigs Lehrhaus in Frankfurt.
To Ernst Simon (September, 2nd 1925): You know that I came to Palestine without many illusions.
After two years, I can now assure you that I unfortunately have even fewer than before. We are in
Gods hands on this boat and we surely have no other. We can no longer expect much help from
history. No one should foster the illusion that what happens here and will occur in the future (after
the open retreat from everything to do with human tikkun) has the slightest thing in common, in
substantia et essentia, with Zionism, in whose name your faithful servant is here.
To Ernst Simon (December, 22th 1925): I read an interesting article by Rosenzweig in Der
Morgen. Do you still see him? Send him my greetings when you get the chance. Incidentally, Im of
the keen opinion that he hit the nail on the head when he admitted not being the best interpreter of
his own work. Its really most curious that his book hasnt been mentioned in the Hebrew literature
not a syllable. Often I must fight back the temptation to write a few words about this in Hebrew.
And especially now that the classic work on Jewish Satanism has appeared: Goldbergs Reality of
the Hebrews a book that I highly recommend to you. Ive been unable to say a good word about
Hirsch since reading it. The Orthodox should actually be forced to say what they think about such
satanic work, which concedes everything to them. Rarely have I had such fun as with this
polytheistic Torah commentary (so similar to excellent detective novels!). It ultimately tells you
how the devil reads the Bible if hes snooty enough to try.
But back to Rosenzweig. To my utter amazement, I read in the latest edition of the Jdische
Rundschau a truly hellish promotional blurb concerning a Bible translation undertaken by Buber
and Rosenzweig. I was flabbergasted, even though I saw it coming flabbergasted at the very
possibility that such authors could reap this kind of praise. I fear the absolute worst from this
translation. After working through the entire text, I consider Rosenzweigs translation of Judah HaLevy really quite poor (Rosenzweig is without question the driving force behind the Bible project).
The annotations are all that redeem it. But by the time you get to them, theyve lost their sense. I
have always been of the secret opinion that the last xenia the Jews would be required to provide
before, or during, their exit from Germany would be a Bible translation. Will this be it? []?.
From Ernst Simon (January, 1st 1926): As for the translation of the Bible, I consider it very good
beyond all of my expectations (though I, too, am wary of the Judah Ha-Levy translation). The blurb

in the Rundschau was indeed hellish, as you so lovingly described it. Right after I saw it, I
phoned Frau Rosenzweig and asked her to relay my outrage to her husband. I then repeated this in
person, but he denied that it was a blurb. [] Yet despite the blurb and the occasional pomposity
and a number of individual anomalies, its a good translation. Taken as a whole, I think of it as a
Jewish Luther-Bible.
To Ernst Simon (January 1926): I wasnt in the least happy with your reply to my observations
about the new targum [hes referring to the Bible translation]. Meanwhile, Ive read both excerpts
printed in the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Jdische Rundschau. I await the book. In my opinion, the
excerpts have an unmistakable false pathos without the slightest trace of the Luther Bible. Luther
had a fine and genuine sense for the musical pitch of language; and in this regard Buber and
Rosenzweig are totally off key to say nothing of the wild pretentiousness of their language. You
call this good, but youll atid atah latet et ha-din [Youll have to answer for this someday]. [] If
I were better acquainted with Buber, I would grumble to him too. Im deeply disappointed that such
barber-shop German has suddenly raised its head again. [].
Benjamin had been in Moscow during the winter of 1926-27.
Letter to Buber (April, 27th 1926): In your translation, I admire the magnificent objective clarity. In
it, I find the best expression of the way in which you, in your own way, so unmistakably respond to
the Bible. What fills me with doubt is the excessive tone of this prose, which leaps out almost
uncannily from the particular phrasing (this word is wrong: I mean the niggun of your translation).
[] I am planning to attempt a coherent presentation of the thoughts stirred by your translation in a
Hebrew debate with another reader, Agnon. If it materializes, we shall certainly present you with a
transcript.
Letters from 1927 have been omitted. Scholem wrote relatively few because he spent much of the
year in Europe, conducting research. During the spring and summer he was in Germany and France,
and during August and September he was in London, studying Sabbatian texts for the first time. A
number of his publications came out, including Bibliographia kabbalistica, a bibliography of all
books published on the Kabbalah from the time of the German humanist Johann Reuchlin to the
1920s.
On April, 25th he asked her mother to bring him in Palestine The Castle and The Trial.
To his mother (May, 10th 1928): I place full trust in the unerring instincts of future generations,
who will be able to follow the track of purest joy (mine in receiving, yours in giving) running
between the lines of our respective letters. Who at the moment is thinking about publishing our
letters anyway??.
To Werner Kraft, May 10th 1928: Long ago (this is an answer to a question you posed in an earlier
letter!) I read Kafkas The Trial and The Castle. I own all of his books, and cannot deny that I had a
long discussion with Max Brod, who was here three weeks ago. I consider The Trial an absolutely
magnificent work. It is the first retelling of the book of Job that a human being naturally a Jew
has managed to produce. Rarely have I been so moved. By the way, Brod is crazy about
commentary on Kafkas books. Youd be doing yourself a service if you told him what you thought.
Brod truly delighted me when he (like many people here) claimed that I bear a remarkable
similarity to Kafka. Lord, how I loved to hear that!.
To Werner Kraft (February, 27th 1929) [to compare with the letter to Benjamin]: I read your remark
on Kafka in the Weltbhne, along with the womans response. I have no idea what this woman

means by mentally ill, though the issue seems to revolve around it. Authoritative Kafka experts
(such as Hugo Bergmann) also assure me that Brods description of Kafka in his last book hits the
mark, all the way down to the demonic details. It must be true, given the fact that Kafkas friends
had until the end a deep and abiding mistrust of Brod. Brods depiction of the mood around Kafka
seems wonderfully successful. Ultimately, the service Brod has done in this case is so great that we
can easily forgive him five bas novels even though, surprisingly enough, they are not nearly as
bad as one would expect.
September, 22nd 1929: Scholem, Simon, and Bergmann wrote a letter to Robert Weltsch where they
presented their position in relation to the political problems raised up after the Arab revolts (from
25 to 29). Their position is related to Brith Shalom, association founded in 1925.
N.B. pp. 181-183: LETTER TO FRAU ROSENZWEIG ON THE STAR OF REDEMPTION
Letter to Martin Buber (February, 27 th 1930): On the translation of the Star of Redemption in
Hebrew: I sent you today a copy of the talk about Rosenzweig and his book that I gave at the
university. I hope it will reach you safely []. . The day may come when people will study and
discuss this book as they do The Guide of Perplexed. Ernst Simon always says that Rosenzweig
cared greatly about a Hebrew translation of his Star of Redemption its being saved by being put
into that language. [] There are pages in it that are not translatable, at least not in this generation.
The very fact that the philosophy of language is tied to a substantially different language places a
great burden on the Hebrew language, and I cannot imagine anyone who could undertake this
translation without completely rethinking entire portions something that cannot be done, of
course. These are difficulties that are bound to become quite apparent in the translation of your own
writings (such as I and Thou) as well.
N.B. Letter dated May, 22nd 1930 to Martin Buber: CONCERNING ROSENZWEIGS BOOK AND
ZIONISM. EVEN ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF RIGHT JUDGING THE STAR OF
REDEMPTION BEING IN ISRAEL (pp. 184-185).
Letter to his mother, August 28th 1930: Our friends still consist of the same old crowd: Bergmann,
Hans Kohn, Frulein Lasker, and so on.
Letter to his mother: May, 1st 1932: I would like to order the following books and dont be
shocked because theyre by Franz Kafka, a writer you dont care much for: The Trial (Kurt Wolff
Verlag); Posthumous Writings (Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag). []
From March to October 1932 Scholem was in Europe doing archival research, mostly in Italy.
Else Lasker-Schler described Scholem as the Kabbalistic of the Holy City (see her Hebraerland,
1937).
Scholem in 1933 moved to Rehavia, a street populated by German Jews. Agnon, who set his last
and greatest work, Shira, in the Rehavia of the 1930s, once again used Scholem as a model for one
of his protagonists: Dr. Weltfremd (which might be translated as Dr. Starryeyed) (p. 210).
In 1933 arrived in Palestine Werner Kraft, together with Hans Jonas.
Scholem became a full professor in 1934.

Skinner writes: In the course of the essay [Redemption through Sin], Scholem identified a
dialectical cunning of reason that, among Frankists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, had
transformed the priceless pearl buried within Franks messianic nihilism into a positive force for
emancipation. The old immorality had disappeared, leaving as its purified core the longing for
freedom and dream of a universal revolution and renewal of the world. Later Frankists had come
to support the Jacobins in France, and Franks nephew had been an adviser to the governor of
revolutionary Paris [] Scholem maintained, though, that the thrust of their revolution had not
been overtly political; rather, it had consisted in the new and creative ways they had returned to the
sources of tradition. They had perused the Bible, Midrash, and the Zohar for fresh readings and
meanings (p. 213).
In New York Scholem got the occasion to formulate his dialectical philosophy of Jewish history
(p. 213).
Letter from his mother: March, 19th 1933: Your father and Grandfather Hermann L. and the entire
Central Verein beat themselves on the breast and said with absolute conviction, We are Germans!.
And now were being told that we are not Germans after all! []
Letter from his mother: April, 9th 1933 (to be related with Brechts poetry): Now I cannot digest
what is happening and I refuse to do so. Im completely speechless. I simply cant imagine that
there are not 10.000 or 1.000 upright Christians who refuse to go along by raising their voice in
protest. What happened first to the lawyers, who from one day to the next have had their livelihood
taken from them, can occur tomorrow to the doctors. This wont happen so quickly to the
merchants, since Christian suppliers will not give up their customers so easily. [].
Letter from his mother: April, 18th 1933: The Seder evening at Theos was completely
overshadowed by recent events. Before the Seder, Theo gave a lovely speech and said that Jewry
will overcome this persecution, too. Jewry, no doubt but what about German Jewry?.
Letter to his mother: April, 20th 1933: But we do not think it right to suggest that you come
unless you have no other choice. For Palestine is a land of the young and for the young.
Letter to his mother: April, 26th 1933: As an aside, its curious how the nature of the Jewish
Question fundamentally changes here. In Germany people view the Jews as foreigners, and even
some German Jews have considered themselves to be foreigners. But here the Jews, who are for the
most part from eastern Europe, look upon German Jews as foreigners. They seem them as being
more German than Jewish.
Letter from December, 27th 1933 to encourage Bubers arrival to the University of Jerusalem.
(p. 253): It seems to me that one of the principal and most specific tasks of our university is to
examine the issues and phenomenology of religion and to awaken an understanding of the historical
developments that stem from these sources.
To Walter Benjamin (February, 6th 1935): In this country, nothing ever happens as planned (p.
263) (Speaking about Palestine).
N.B. Scholem letter to Edith Rosenzweig, commenting the first volume of Rosenzweigs letters,
appeared in 1935, where Rosenzweig said about him: Scholem is here and is behaving in his usual
beastly fashion, but at the same time he is as dazzling as always (pp. 267-268).

Letter to Walter Benjamin (August, 25th 1935): A few weeks ago I saw your cousins wife, Hannah
Stern. Shes now working in Paris, preparing children for the trip to Palestine. I did not get the
feeling that she was in close contact with you; otherwise she would have brought greetings from
you. For this reason I didnt ask her about you. She is said to have been Heideggers most brilliant
student.
Letter to Benjamin (December, 29th 1936): after his second marriage: Somehow well have to find
a place to live. You can easily imagine what its like, since you yourself are such a leading expert in
the diasporic way of life []
Letter to Benjamin (March, 25th 1938): From New York Scholem informed Benjamin about having
met Tillich on his way to New York. He reports to his friend Tillichs opinion on Benjamin, and his
vision concerning the relations between Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin himself (pp. 285-286).
Letter from Theodor Adorno (April, 19th 1939). Adorno has received a copy of the Zohar with an
introduction written by Scholem. If the Zohar is in fact a Jewish document in some significant
way, then it is such only in the sense of a mediation and mediation, in the diaspora, has been
essentially the Jewish fate. This seems to me of great importance because it brings the text into a
broader historical-philosophical context than the unsuspecting person who hears the word
Kabbalah could ever imagine. Perhaps I may be so bold as to raise the question whether the
metaphysical intuitions expressed in the text arent more graspable under the historicalphilosophical aspect of the decline of occidental Gnosticism (as you well know, the term
decline when I use it has no connotations of decadence) than under the aspect of a primal
religious experience. You, who have made the great commentaries your bailiwick, are surely just as
skeptical as I am about a primordial experience. For philosophical reasons, I dont believe in any
such thing. I cannot imagine the life of truth being anything other than something mediated. []
Response to Theodor Adorno (June, 4th 1939): Of course, the strangest and most alluring thing is
the fact that the most original products of Jewish thinking are, as it were, products of assimilation.
All of these various questions no doubt lead to paradoxes in other words, to dialectical
connections. [] What is remarkable about every rational form of mysticism lies in the relation
between tradition and experience (to be on the safe side, I naturally avoid using such a dubious
expression as primordial experience). It seems to have escaped you that Jewish mysticism, in its
very name, points to this relation; for Kabbalah, in German, translates as tradition and not Urexperience. From the outset the Kabbalists, including the greatest visionaries among them, always
and with awesome energy affirmed that their insights were a species of commentary.
Letter to Adorno (November, 11th 1940): The events of world history are such that the destruction
of a man of genius is, amid all this terrifying turmoil, scarcely even noticed. Yet there are enough
people for whom this death will be unforgettable.
Letter from his mother (Semptember, 26 th 1941): My dear son and Fanya, [] Im still reading
Heines prose works. One of these days you really must put together a literary anthology of
everything Heine ever said about the Bible, Jews, and Judaism. This would be a most interesting
compilation, and of the greatest relevance! The philosophers, he said, do a lot of work of nothing.
The world is one large cattle pen, though one thats not as easy to clean as the Augean stables
because, during the shoveling, the oxen remain inside and the dung continues to pile up! What do
you say about that! Well put, dont you think? []
To Theodor Adorno (January, 28th 1943): I see from your wifes brief note (which after more than
two years gave me double pleasure!) that you at the institute are interested in anti-Semitism. I can

only offer you my condolences. I regret to say that as a long-time historian I no longer think that
social scientists can add anything relevant to the topic. Ive become more and more convinced that
only a metaphysician can contribute anything useful in this regard.
Letter to Adolph S. Oko (March, 26 th 1944): Do you happen Mrs. Hannah Blcher [Hannah
Arendt] in New York? I saw an article of hers some time ago in the Record, but I think that if you
dont know her personally you should take the trouble to know her. She is one of the best minds
who have come over from Europe. [] She has sent me one of the two intelligent criticism of my
book I have seen, and heaven knows why she did not print it. [].
1946: N.B. Lettere to and from Hannah Arendt.
N.B. Letter to Hugo and Escha Bergmann (December, 15 th 1947) (pp. 340-341). He speaks about an
essay written by his pupil Weiss: My pupil Weiss occupied himself with the same question that
Hugo raised namely, which form of camouflage do I practice when I do what is called
scholarship? Its a very nice and audacious essay. You can see that my pupils have learned
something from me, and in this respect I cant complain.
Bernd Witte, Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography, Wayne University Press 1991.
(p. 345): The last three decades of life brought many tributes and awards, including membership in
the order Pour le Mrite, the highest honor the German government can bestow.
After his death, Jonas wrote to Fanya that Scholems passing marked the end of an era.
Scholem portrayed Judaism as a living, dynamic tradition equal in power and profundity to any
other.
After the war, Scholem had more on his mind than fame. On behalf of the Hebrew University, he
spent much of 1946 and part of 1948 in war-ruined France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
He crisscrossed Europe, surveying the state of surviving Jewish institutions. His task was to
transport Jewish libraries to Palestine (p. 346).
(p. 349): Indeed, said Scholem, modern Jewish history began with the Sabbatian heresy.
(p. 349): In a period enamored of psychoanalysis, the idea of a secret, hidden tradition caught on,
though not in the way Scholem intended. Few could follow his subtle dialectical moves not even
one of the great Hegelian masters of the age, Theodor Adorno, who wished to see a radica and
hidden mystical tradition in the likes of Karl Kraus, Franz Kadka, Arthur Schoenberg, and
perhaps even Freud.
Elias Canetti, Daniel Bell, Friedrich Drrenmatt, Jrgen Habermas, George Steiner.
(p. 350): Scholems last detective work, completed shortly before his death, was an essay about an
obscure figure named Felix Noeggerath, who had been a close friend of Benjamins. He also did a
study of Benjamins family tree. One of the most exciting moments in his scholarly life came when
he succeeded in proving an old hunch: that Benjamin was a direct descendent of Heinrich Heine.
(p. 353): In 1981 he traveled to Bonn to attend the award ceremonies for the order Pour le Mrite,
an academy that is limited to a small number of distinguished scientists and artists. From there he

continued on to Berlin, the city of his birth, where he was a guest at a research center, the
Wissenschaftskolleg.
(p. 353): One of the most moving eulogies appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.
Walter Bhlich, an old friend of Scholems, tried to explain Scholem for a German mass
readership.
Thus Bhlich: It goes without saying that he was a typical German professor of the very best sort
living in Jerusalem, but ever a Berliner. [] Scholem could never fully leave the land of murderer.
He could not forget, nor did he want to forget.
Cynthia Ozick: Is the hidden cauldron not an enticement and a seduction to its investigator? Or, to
say it even more terribly: it may be that the quarry is all the time in the pursuer.
(p. 354) Scholem liked the metaphor of the quarry; he added only that the true answer to the
mystery lay somewhere between the lines of all he had written. Scholem mad a stringent demand
on his devoted readers: that they learn from him the art of philological detective work.
Letter so Agnon (Chicago, May, 6th 1949): We saw Schocken here. Hes a broken and miserable
man who has managed to make himself hated by everyone in America. Its really a tragedy to listen
to him and to hear people talk about him. I dont think hell be going back any time soon, though
his wife is putting a lot of pressure on him to do so. Hes simply afraid. Its impossible to come to
any agreement with him. He lives in his own fantasy world.
Letter to Jacob Taubes (October, 7th 1951): I learned from him that in late winter or early spring he
read a number of your letters to Josef Weiss, which were shown to him by Weiss. Herr Talmon
knew nothing about your relationship to Weiss or about mine to you, but was most schocked by the
letters contents. I was all the more dismayed to learn two things from his account.
Letter to Adorno (May, 1st 1955): Concerning significant dates, I perhaps should have noted that
W.B. once paid a visit to Franz Rosenzweig, in December 1922 (Rosenzweig was very ill at the
time)..
Letter to Baruch Kurzweil (December, 4th 1959): One could certainly argue about the connection
between the Frankists and the followers of the Enlightment; the same goes for the dialectical nature
of this connection. In the sequel of my book, I will go into this in detail. This is a subject open to
scholarly consideration and clarification.
To Ernst Schoen (November, 28th 1960): In Ascona I have presented the fruits of my kabbalistic
studies ten times now, in High Swiss German. This is what one should perhaps call the language
spoken by Jews who still speak the old German from before 1920 (after which the German language
disappeared) [to compare with Klemperers notes].
Speaking for myself, I have of course been sitting here in Jerusalem all these years and have lived
through all the local events and occurrences without taking any direct part in World History which
is scarcely surprising, given my life-long commitment to the exit of Jews from World History and a
return to their own history.
To Leo Strauss (December, 13th 1962): I have plenty of time to write my own autobiography, and
there should be a lot to say. The majority of German Jews now composing their memoirs and the
like write completely godforsaken humbug. The two of us have something like a mission, though all
of a sudden I have become skeptical about missions. In this I see eye to eye with you.

N.B. Letter to Manfred Schloesser (December, 18 th 1962). Concerning the question of a GermanJewish legacy. I a more than prepared to pay homage to a figure so worthy of honor as Margarete
Susman, with whom I am connected by more than merely our views, but I must categorically turn
down this invitation to foster what I see as the incomprehensible illusion of an essentially
indestructible German-Jewish dialogue.
Then he makes reference to Jacob Wassermanns My Life as German and Jew, no doubt one of the
most profound documents of this fiction, appeared shortly before I left for Palestine. A true cry into
the void, and he knew it.
Letter from Adorno (April, 17th 1963): It now strikes me that there are certain astounding, mostly
linguistic, similarities between Benjamin and Heidegger, whose favorite expression vis--vis
Hlderlin is the poetized. I intend to develop my critique of Heidegger precisely out of the
differences pertaining to things so similar. As will be immediately evident to you, this involves the
concept of the mythical. Heidegger holds that the mythical has the last word with Hlderlin its the
dialectical that counts. Not incidentally, I present certain of Benjamins categories as having
indisputable priority, though Id like to leave the question open whether Heidegger knew
Benjamins work (which seems unlikely to me). I would be grateful if you could send me a quick
comment.
Response from Scholem (Aprile, 22nd 1963): Benjamin composed his essay at the end of 1914 or at
the very latest by the end of March 1915. It was the only essay he wrote at the beginning of the war.
I received it as a birthday present in July 1915. [] The similarity in the use of the concept the
poeticized occurred to me as well. []
[] Three weeks ago, in the Neue Zrcher Zeitung, old Buber published a rejoinder the pathetic
response of a helpless blabberer to my criticism of his Hasidic interpretations. Im wondering
whether there is any sense at all in responding.
(to be continued from p. 405)