Gershom Scholem by Amir Engel

Author:Amir Engel [Engel, Amir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-226-42877-2
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

The conclusions that Klausner draws from his historical analysis for his contemporary political situation are not difficult to foresee. Essentially, if Zionism is to succeed it must fashion itself as the heir to the messianic idea in its entirety. It must therefore restore both Judaism’s long-lost sovereign power and its forgotten spiritual perfection. Or in Klausner’s own words, “In our own times and before our very eyes, the politico-national part which is in the hope for redemption has returned to life together with the spiritual-universalistic element which is in the Messianic expectation . . . Only when the two of them flow together to make one mighty stream can the most important Jewish movement, Zionism, consider itself to have come into possession of the inheritance of the Messianic idea.”64 That Zionism should indeed strive to “come into possession of the inheritance of the Messianic idea” was taken for granted by Klausner.

The notion of reaching a negotiated agreement between Arabs and Jews in Palestine that would satisfy both the material and the emotional needs of all sides to the conflict appeared to contradict the fulfillment of the messianic idea. Klausner made this point explicitly in his polemic against Brith Shalom. “Brith Shalom,” he wrote, “is nibbling away at the roots of the Zionist movement, at Hebrew Nationalism and the ideal of Israelite statehood, at the hope of full redemption [ge’ula shlema] and at the whole great national destiny.” He consequently called for the waging of an “ideological war against the new assimilationism.”65

Scholem, naturally, did not share Klausner’s political conviction, much less his sentiment concerning the role of messianism in Jewish politics. A settlement agreed upon by the peoples of the region must necessarily be reached at the expense of the messianic ideology propagated by Klausner. And in order to impress upon his readers the urgency of the issue, Scholem employed a powerful trope in his above-mentioned reply to Burla, in the form of Sabbateanism. “The Zionist ideal belongs on one side and the messianic ideal belongs on the other. One kingdom does not touch the other except in the hollow clichés of town hall meetings that sometimes instill in our youth a renewed spirit of Sabbateanism, which is destined to fail. Its inner roots preclude the Zionist movement from falling under the jurisdiction of the Sabbatean movement, and the attempts to infuse it with such a Sabbatean spirit have already caused much damage.”66

To some, Sabbatai Zevi was known as the false messiah who had stirred an entire nation into deluded action. In this context, therefore, the term Sabbateanism signified everything that was wrong and misinformed in Jewish messianic history.67 By mentioning Sabbateanism in the context of Zionism, Scholem here expresses his profound unease about the very concrete attempts to align the messianic aspirations of the Jewish religion with Zionism. The hope that Zionism would fulfill messianic aspirations was, to Scholem, a mistake of “Sabbatean” proportions.

Yet, no one would listen to Scholem’s insistent warnings. Brith Shalom was marginalized and eventually ceased to exist in the early 1930s.

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