Domesticating Hasidism: Neo-Hasidism, Modernity, and the Postmodern Turn

Abstract

Abstract:This essay critically engages various contemporary readings of Hasidism. It examines what I call a “domesticating” orientation in Hasidic research, a quasi-apologetic move to read the academic study of Hasidism back into a normative Orthodox framework. I argue this is, in part, a resistance to what I call a “neo-Hasidic” orientation of a previous generation, scholars who sought to use Hasidism as the basis for their modern, existentialist, and renewal projects. This essay argues that while the domesticating critique has some merit, it overestimates its own objectivity and misses crucial aspects of the neo-Hasidic interpretation it seeks to undermine. I then use the work of Rav Shagar and what I am calling his “postmodern” reading of Hasidism as a critique of the domesticating trend that adopts, while also criticizing, the neo-Hasidic interpretation. In sum I argue that Rav Shagar presents a template that cuts through and moves beyond the modernizing and normative trajectories to open vistas for new understandings of Hasidism for our time.