Jewish Mysticism and National Theology

Abstract

Chapter 2 examines the formation of the concept of Jewish mysticism, the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish forms of mysticism, and the construction of an academic research field dedicated to what was defined as “Jewish mysticism.” It describes the application of the adjective mystical to Kabbalah by Christian scholars since the seventeenth century, the appearance of the term “Jewish mysticism” in the writings of German Romantic theologians in the early nineteenth century, and the adoption of the term by Jewish scholars in Europe and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. It further examines the “revelation” of Jewish mysticism by Martin Buber and the establishment of the research field dedicated to Jewish mysticism by Gershom Scholem and his pupils. The chapter discusses the ideological and theological contexts in which the category of mysticism was shaped in the nineteenth century and the processes that led to the establishment of Jewish mysticism—as a category and as an academic research field—in the framework of modern theological-national discourse and as part of the Zionist nation-building endeavor.