A University in Zion: Max Weber and Gershom Scholem on Jewish Eschatology and Academic Labor

Yael Almog

doi:10.1017/s1479244321000329

Abstract

In his “Science as Vocation,” Weber equates rational academic conduct with Jewish ethics. For Weber, the Jewish tradition, which separates moral conduct from messianism, is emblematic of scientists’ strenuous distinction of empiricism from metaphysics. The emergence of a Zionist university in Jerusalem, an institute that was positioned as a part of a Jewish nation-building project, complicated this parallel. This article examines Gershom Scholem's activist approach to Jewish studies as a fundamental revision of the Weberian model of scholarship with the significant role that this model destines to the Jewish tradition. Scholem's vision of scholarship at the Zionist university constitutes Jewish eschatology as a pillar of a scholastic national tradition. Scholem's portrayal of Jewish messianism as an insular tradition overturns Weber's portrayal of Jewish ethics as a lesson for Western academia. Reading Scholem with Weber shows that the enterprise of founding a university in Jerusalem ran counter to European liberal conceptions of Judaism. Moreover, reading them together shows Scholem's notion of academic labor to reinstitute a separatist theological ethos as a formative model for scholarship.

Highlights

It remains fairly unknown that Max Weber, an eminent commentator on the echoes of religious traditions in modern politics, reflected on the Zionist appropriation of biblical narratives
Weber thought that Zionist colonization of Palestine was feasible, he doubted that Zionism could ever stand up to the theological vision fueling its nation-building project
The plan to establish a university in Jerusalem encapsulated this problem: Judaism and especially Zionism rests on the presupposition of a highly concrete “promise.” Will a prosperous colony, an autonomous petty state with hospitals and good schools ever appear as the “fulfillment” rather than as a Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core

Summary

Yael Almog*

In his “Science as Vocation,” Weber equates rational academic conduct with Jewish ethics. Weber describes the Zionists’ efforts to interpret Jewish law in a coherent way that would facilitate the settlement project: Even the Zionist colonization of Palestine has met with an absolute impediment in the form of the sabbatical year, a product of the theologians of later Judaism To overcome this difficulty, the Eastern European rabbis, in contrast to the more doctrinaire leaders of German Jewish orthodoxy, have had to construe a special dispensation based on the notion that such colonizing is especially pleasing to God.. Weber believed that, notwithstanding the eminence of messianic hope in Judaism, the Jews face a fissure between the divine plan and the temporality that governs everyday life The prophet stresses this fissure, calling to the mass to adhere to ethical behavior regardless of the end of days. Equipped with a unique focus on mysticism, Scholem’s is a vision of academic integrity that renders theology inseparable from scholarly activity

Scholem on university education

Jewish scholarship as academic labor