Fragments and Demons: A Strong Reading

Abstract

Fragments and Demons: A Strong Reading MOSHE IDEL. Old Worlds, New Mirrow On Jewish Mysticism and TwentiethCentury Thought. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Pp. 336.MY REMARKS on Idel's book are written as a gesture of admiration. I have learned much from his book, which is filled with wisdom. Idel's book not only tells a fascinating history of reception- reception of Jewish mysticism and its sources in twentieth-century thought- but it also reveals genealogies of misinterpretations and hints at anxieties of influence in world of modernist Judaism. The book shows again how ambiguous and fruitful modernist perspectives on Judaism were. Modernist interpretations of Jewish tradition, far from being merely secular, opened critical viewpoints into depth of tradition and transformed theological figures and motifs into new textures of poetical and philosophical writing. To this modernist world German Jewish project of tradition also belonged. This cultural project, whose contributors include authors such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Else Lasker-Schiiler, Walter Benjamin, Gustav Landauer, Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig, offered new and radical interpretations of Jewish tradition that were associated with political urgency -a critique of violence and Utopist views. These authors often dealt with possibility of transforming theological tropes- revelation and redemption, messianism, and eschatological concepts of justice- into new frames of poetical and political thinking. For many of them, Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, and Gnosis served as an additional source for new thinking on human condition and possibilities of tikun (repair). In his book, Idel returns to examine this project of tradition and its legacies from a critical vantage point. His study reveals wisdom and failures, creativity and damages, beauty and cost that were and still are part of this cultural heritage.My remarks on Idel's book are echoes of learning. But writing of such remarks has its own logic. Remarks are inverted forms of dialogue; there is something unfaithful in writing remarks. Remarks are short, selective, and fragmented. They tear subject matter out of its context and bring it back, upturned and distorted. Remarks are fragile and weak, and yet they often offer a There is a notion of freedom, albeit a demonic one, in writing remarks. Here, nevertheless, a paradox is revealed. For Idel's book calls for such a reading. His book demands a strong reading of fragments and demons.THE FRAGMENT (A METHO-THEOLOGICAL REMARK)In introduction to his book, Idei reminds his readers of distortions involved in writing of Jewish history. All scholarship, he argues, is a product of a certain rearview or perspective of past, and thus, as every mirror does, it creates a distorted, limited, and fragmented picture of its subject. Idei wishes to present a different, more complex set of several (p. 1). He calls for reading Jewish history in plural, with multiple, perspectives. This will bring us, he asserts, to a more comprehensive treatment of Jewish past. A study of Judaism that is based on different methodologies and multiple perspectives could lead us to a less limited and less distorted scholarship than one influenced by traditional theologically oriented approach (p. 2) of Christian scholars. Idel's methodological decision is significant. He is, however, well aware that using a new set of mirrors instead of old set does not yet solve problem, namely, paradox of image. Rather, it reproduces it. The past remains in reflection, a mirror effect. All views of past are distorted, inverted images, fragmented representations of our own time.This paradox is reflected also in Idel's second, significant decision to devote his writing to what he calls the fragmenting trend (p. …