Shagar’s Mystical Space: Moving between the Languages of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Rav Kook

Leore Sachs-Shmueli

doi:10.3390/rel13010010

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the conflictual relationship between Shagar’s [Shimon Gershon Rosenberg] use of kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions and his search for mysticism via psychoanalysis and Continental philosophy. The study will shed light upon the tension between how Shagar defined and understood mysticism and how he defined kabbalistic language and the gap between his explicit and his implicit attitudes towards Kabbalah. I propose that mysticism was the central religious space that Shagar sought to create from his conflicting stance. Nonetheless, despite Shagar’s attempt to present himself as a direct theological descendant of the kabbalistic tradition, by way of his use of terms such as “the shattering of the vessels”, “Nothingness”, and “silence”, I will attempt to expose the dissonance between his yearning for this language and his rejection of it. My main analysis, at the heart of the article, will be based on the not-yet-released recording of his introductory lecture on Da’at Tevunot. It will be accompanied by a variety of sources from his books (edited by his pupils) to complete the picture.

Highlights

Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg ( Shagar) (1949–2007) was not a kabbalist, but he wished to be a mystic
This paper presents an analysis of the conflictual relationship between Shagar’s [Shimon Gershon Rosenberg] use of kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions and his search for mysticism via psychoanalysis and Continental philosophy
I propose that mysticism was the central religious space that Shagar sought to create from his conflicting stance

Summary

Introduction

Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg ( Shagar) (1949–2007) was not a kabbalist, but he wished to be a mystic. I propose to identify mysticism as the central religious space that he sought to create from this dualism. The raw materials of the various languages of the Jewish tradition (Talmud, Halakha, Kabbalah, and Hasidism), academic literature dealing with this tradition, and philosophical works (that he read in Hebrew translation) are fused and deconstructed, so as to create a vacant space for the encounter with Nothingness, a major theme in mysticsm.. In the movement between internal and external, between Torah and religious belief on the one hand and secular philosophical, academic, and psychoanalytic theories on the other, a third space opens up and is crafted. That space is neither internal nor external but rather mystical. Shagar sought to overcome the dualism of his existential experience by moving back and forth between the two antipodes, without fully subjecting or restricting himself to any one perspective or approach

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