The Żaddiq as Axis Mundi in Later Judaism

Abstract

The Symbol of axis mundi, as delineated in the writings of Mircea Eliade, is said to be religious man's central principle for the organization of sacred space. The present paper, originally offered as a contribution to an AAR session devoted to “Mircea Eliade and the Study of Judaism,” seeks to expand the use of that symbol by pointing to a link between the imagery of axis mundi and the tradition of the zaddiq or holy man in the mystical sources of Judaism. In the writings of the Kabbalistic and Hasidic masters, the holy man is often described in various terms highly reminiscent of the notion of sacred space. The zaddiq may be Zion, Temple, Jacob's ladder, or Holy of Holies. While the transference of sacred space imagery to another realm might seem especially apt for the Jews, given their long history of exile, it is pointed out that such transference never meant the replacement of the geographical Jerusalem or Holy Land by the zaddiq, but rather an additional locus of divine presence: the cosmos of homo religiosus may know more than one center (e.g., Jerusalem and Rome for the Catholic). It is also briefly noted that the transference of sacred space imagery to that of sacred person takes place in Christianity and Islam as well, a point which is meant to invite further discussion. Notions of singular leadership and the place of the zaddiq in Jewish cosmology are traced from first century rabbinic sources down to rival Hasidic claims in the mid-nineteenth century. Finally, one particular Hasidic reading of the zaddiq as sacred center is offered as an example of the power of religious language to transcend its own formal categories in order to emerge as a profound and painful description of one man's own situation in life.