Mythopoesis, Mysticism, Messianism, and Modernity in Aaron Zeitlin’s Metatron

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of Aaron Zeitlin’s Metatron: Apokaliptishe poeme, published in Warsaw in 1922. Written at the height of the Yiddish avant-garde, the book-length poem represents the highpoint of Zeitlin’s “neo-kabbalistic” phase. Focusing on the mythopoesis and mystical messianism in the composition, I situate Zeitlin’s thought in the context of Uri Tsvi Greenberg’s Mefisto as well as Hillel Zeitlin’s messianism and ruminations on duality and evil. Paul Tillich’s writings about the divine-demonic provide another lens. Uncovering Zeitlin’s kabbalistic sources reveals the depth of his mythopoetic imagination, which I locate amidst divergent attitudes to myth in Yiddish literature in the early 1920s.