Walking together, walking apart: conservative Judaism and neo-Hasidism

ABSTRACT

The essay examines the relationship between Conservative Judaism and the neo-Hasidic movement that has come about in the 1960 s-1970 s in American Judaism. It analyzes moments of interaction and mutual influences, pointing to the social and cultural changes that triggered them. It identifies the ways in which neo-Hasidism and Conservative Judaism affected each other’s character, and the manner Neo-Hasidism offered Conservative Judaism new resources to replace older paradigms. Such innovations included a shift towards increased lay participation, and greater emphasize on spiritual experiences. Although such transformations have taken place unevenly among Conservative communities, they have made a considerable impact on the movement.

KEYWORDS:

• Neo-Hasidism
• conservative Judaism
• Jewish Renewal
• Havurah
• Havurat Shalom
• Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Menahem Mendel Schneerson

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This picture appears in a number of publications, including Neil Gillman, Conservative Judaism: The New Century (New York: Behrman House, 1993), 163.

2. On the history of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Jack Wertheimer, ed., Tradition Renewed: a History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997).

3. For a biographical portrait of Abraham Joshua Heschel, see Susannah Heschel’s introduction to Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays Edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Shocken, 1999).

4. Cf. Ellie Wiesel’s lively description of the relationship between Lieberman and Heschel: Elie Wiesel, And the Sea is Never Full (New York: Knopf, 1999).I am also thankful to my late colleague Prof. Kalman Bland, a JTS graduate, for providing oral testimony of Heschel’s status at JTS.

5. For a biographical portrait of Abraham Joshua Heschel, see Susannah Heschel’s introduction to Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays Edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Shocken, 1999).

6. On Zeitlin and Buber, see Hasidic Spirituality for a New Era: The Religious Writings of Hillel Zeitlin (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1912); Paul Mendes-Flohr, Martin Buber, Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). On neo-Hasidism in Europe, see Nicham Ross, A Beloved-Despised Tradition: Modern Jewish Identity and Neo Hasidic Writing at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2009).

7. The earliest was Moshe Davis, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: the Historical School in Nineteenth-Century America (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1964). More recent studies include: Jack Wertheimer, ed., Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and their Members (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000); and Michael R. Cohen, The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter’s Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

8. Time Magazine, cover, 15 October 1951.

9. Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1957); Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960); and Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, III (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000).

10. On the effect of the war experience on American Jewry, see Deborah Dash-Moore, G.I. Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).

11. On Neo-Hasidism see Shaul Magid, “Rainbow Hasidism in America – The Maturation of Jewish Renewal – A Review Essay,” The Reconstructionist (Spring, 2004):34–60; Dana Kaplan, Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Yaakov Ariel, “From neo-Hasidism to Outreach Yeshivot: the Origin of the Movement of Renewal and Return to Tradition,” in Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival, ed. Boaz Huss (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University Press, 2011), 1–21; and Shaul Magid, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in Postethnic Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013).

12. Janet S. Belcove-Shalin, New World Hasidism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).

13. Ibid. On Hasidic Judaism in New York and its unexpected resurgence, see also JeromeR. Mintz, Hasidic People: A Place in the New World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).

14. Herbert Danziger, Returning to Tradition: The Contemporary Revival of Orthodox Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); and Lynn Davidman, Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism (Berkeley University of California Press, 1991).

15. Aviezer Ravitsky, “The Contemporary Lubavitch Hasidic Movement: Between Conservatism and Messianism,” Accounting for Fundamentalism, edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 303–24; Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 9–132; Rachel Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God: the Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism (Albany: SUNY, 1993); M. Avrum Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn: Habad Hassidism from Schneerson to his Successors (New York: Ktav, 2004), 166–214; Yitzchak Kraus, The Seventh-Messianism in the Last Generation of Habad (Tel-Aviv: Miskal Yedioth Aharonoth, 2009); Elliot R. Wolfson, Post Messianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); and Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: the Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Princeton University Press, 2010), 163–196.

16. On Schachter’s and Carlebach’s lives and careers see: Eli Chaim Carlebach, “My Brother Shlomo as a Young Man,” message on the Reb Shlomo email list, 17 January 1998; Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum, Holy Brother: Inspiring Stories and Enchanted Tales About Rabbi Shlomo Calrebach (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1997); Dan Shacham, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – The Enfant Terrible of Religious Judaism in America,” Our Israel, 8 March 1985, 29; M.H. Brand, Rabbi Shlomole (Efrat: privately published, 1998) [in Hebrew]; see also Shlomo Carlebach Nearprint File, Jacob Radar Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio; Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Wrapped in a Holy Flame: Teaching and Tales of the Hasidic Masters (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2003), 287–96. On Zalman Schachter: Zalman Schachter Nearprint File, Jacob Radar Marcus Center of the Amercan Jewish Archives. See also the website www.rzlp.org as well as his books: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Donald Grapman, The First Step: A Guide for the New Jewish Spirit (New York: Bantam, 1983); Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal Teaching of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, ed. Ellen Singer (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aaronson, 1993); and Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi with Edward Hoffman, My Life in Jewish Renewal: a Memoir (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012);.

17. Decades later, women accused Carlebach of improper behavior. Sarah Blustein, “Shlomo Carlebach’s Shadow Side,” Lilith 23, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 10–17; and Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism (New Haven: Yale, 2004), 187–188.

18. Shaul Magid, “Jewish Renewal After the Holocaust: A Theological Response,” Tikkun 21, 2 (March-April 2006): 59–62, 68.

19. Cf. Shlomo Carlebach and Suan Yael Mesinai, Shlomo Stories (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aaronson, 1994); The Holy Beggar’s Banquet: Traditional Jewish Tales and Teachings of the Late, Great Reb Shlomo Carlebach and Others in the Spirit of the 1960 s, the 1970 s and the New Age, ed. Kalman Serkez (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1998); Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “Challahs in the Ark,” in The Jewish Year: Celebrating the Holidays, ed. Barbara Rush (New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, n.d.), 32–35.

20. Cf. Jody Myers, Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: the Kabbalah Centre in America (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2007); Boaz Huss, “The New Age of Kabbalah: Contemporary Kabbalah, the New Age and Postmodern Spirituality,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 6 (2007), 107–125.

21. Danziger, Returning to Tradition.

22. Schacham, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.”

23. On such meetings and mutual projects, see The New Consciousness Sourcebook: Spiritual Community Guide (Pomona: Arcline, 1978): Schachter-Shalomi, My Life in Jewish Renewal, 83–96, 197–198.

24. On Carlebach’s use of Rabbi Nahman of Braslav as a source of inspiration, see “Shlomo Carlebach Live in Concert in Festival Arad, 1992,” audio cassette; Shacham, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach,” 29.

25. n BRI and its activities, see https://breslov.org/our-mission/. On Israel Odasser, his ideas and activities, see Yiśraʼel Ber Odeser, The Book of Saba Israel: na naḥ naḥma Naḥman me-Uman (Jerusalem; Israel Odeser Foundation for Spreading the Writings of Rabbi Nahman of Breslav, 2006).

26. Zalman Schachter, in an interview with the author, Philadelphia, November 1996.

27. On the parting of ways, see audiocassette recording of the Farbrengen, a conference in Berkeley, August 1974, in which Carlebach, Schachter and their disciples presented their opinions and aired their differences.

28. On the 1960s in America, see Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1987).

29. Michael Staub, Torn at the Roots: the Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

30. On the counterculture and the ideologies it promoted, see ibid; also, Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press, 1987); Timothy Miller, The 60 s Communes: Hippies and Beyond (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999). On the religious dimension, see Mark Oppenheimer, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

31. Ben Zeller, Prophets and Protons: New Religious Movements and Science in Late Twentieth-Century America (New York: New York University Press, 2010).

32. Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journey of the Baby Boom Generation (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).

33. Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: a Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America (New York: Oxford, 1989); Harold Bloom, The American Religion: the Emergence of the Post Christian Nation (New York: Touchstone Book, 1992); Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950 s (Berkley: University of California Press, 1998).

34. On the House of Love and Prayer, see Yaakov Ariel, “Hasidism in the Age of Aquarius: The House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco, 1967–1977,” Religion and American Culture 13, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 139–166.

35. Cf. Shlomo Carlebach at the Village Gate (New York:Vanguard, 1963).

36. A popular cookbook at the House of Love and Prayer was written by a North African Jewish vegetarian chef: Michel Abehsera, Zen Macrobiotic Cooking: Oriental and Traditional Recipes (New York: Aron, 1970).

37. Yaakov Ariel, “Can Adam and Eve Reconcile: Gender and Sexuality in a New Jewish Religious Movement,” Nova Religio 9, no. 4 (May 2006): 53–78.

38. Stephen C. Lerner, “Ramah and Its Critics,” Conservative Judaism (summer 1971), 3–4. On Green and Fishbane’s contributions to the study and spread of interest in Jewish spirituality see: Arthur Green, Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Braslav (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1971); Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Mystical and Spiritual Death in Judaism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994).

39. https://www.campramahne.org/blog/innovative-leadership-ray-arzt-ramah-new-englands-director-1960s/.

40. Daniel J. Elazar and Rela Mintz Geffen, The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).

41. Zalman Schachter, “A First Step: A Devotional Guide,” The Jewish Catalog: JPS (Philadelphia, 1973), 296–317.

42. Riv-Ellen Prell, Prayer and Community: The Havura in American Judaism (Detroit: Wayne State, 1989), 69–111. Prell does not mention Schachter. See also Bernard Reisman, The Chavura: Contemporary Jewish Experience (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1977).

43. Elazar and Geffen, The Conservative Movement in Judaism, 48.

44. On the Reconstructionist movement, see Richard Lebowitz, Mordecai M. Kaplan and the Development of Reconstructionism (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983).

45. Marie Josee-Posen, “Beyond New Age: Jewish Renewal’s Reconstruction of Theological Meaning in the Teaching of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,” in New Age Jews, eds. Celia Rosenberg and Anne Valley (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2008), 73–94.

46. Eric Caplan, From Ideology to Liturgy: Reconstructionist Worship and American Liberal Judaism (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2002).

47. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “Neo-Hasidism and Reconstructionism: A Not Only Imaginary Dialogue,” Raayonot, 4, no. 3 (Summer 1984): 20–24. See also other articles on Reconstructionism and Neo-Hasidism in the same volume by Rebecca Alpert, Arthur Green, Ira Silverman, David Tentsch and Arthur Waskow.

48. On the spiritual atmosphere of B’nai Jeshurun, see Ayala Fader and Mark Kligman, ‘The New Jewish Spirituality and Prayer: Take BJ, For Instance’, and Rolando Matalon, Marcelo Bronstein and Felicia L. Sol, ‘ Take BJ from its Rabbis’ Point of View’, in www.synagogue3000.org , 5 November 2009.

49. I would like to thank my colleague, Prof. Eric Meyers, for introducing me to the legacy of Marshall Meyer, and to Naomi Meyer for talking to me about Meyer’s experience in Argentina and New York.

50. Eli N. Evans, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South (New York: Atheneum, 1973).

51. On Durham’s Beth-El community, see Leonard Rogoff, Homelands: Southern Jewish Identity in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004).

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Yaakov Ariel

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Yaakov Ariel is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ariel’s research has focused on interfaith relations, Jewish and Christian New Religious Movements and the effect of modernity and post-modernity on Jewish and Christian groups and individuals. Ariel has published dozens of articles and a number of books on these topics. His book, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews, won the Outler Prize of the American Society of Church History.