Admiration and Disgust: The Ambivalent Re-Canonization of the ...

The Ambivalent Re-Canonization of the Zohar in the Modern Period
in Kabbalah and Zohar among Jewish intellectuals in both Western
and Eastern Europe at the end of the 19 th and beginning of the 20 th
century took place within the framework of the neo-Romantic
perspective of that period; the concern with mysticism, the occult and
the Orient (including Kabbalah), 21 which characterized the fin de siècle,
and the framework of Jewish nationalist, specifically Zionist, discourse
developed in close tandem with this neo-romantic spirit. Continuing
the tendency of Western European thinkers of the mid 19 th century,
these turn-of-the-century intellectuals emphasized the historical, literary
and metaphysical value of the Zohar as well as its historical importance.
Some of the intellectuals during this period, who tended towards neo-
Romantic occult and mystical approaches, stressed the metaphysical
and religious value of the Kabbalah and the Zohar, while others
emphasized their historical significance as a national heritage.
Intellectuals of this period often combined a nascent Zionist-nationalist
ideology with their attraction towards mysticism and the occult. Paul
Mendes-Flohr's study, 'Fin-de-siècle Orientalism and the Aesthetics of
Jewish Self-Affirmation', cites examples of this combination,
particularly in the activity of Martin Buber. 22 Alongside Buber one
might also mention Ernst Müller, who translated Zohar passages into
German at the beginning of the 20 th century (and later published a
21 The Kabbalah played an important role in spiritualistic, theosophic and occult
movements at the end of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th centuries. On the
interest in Kabbalah among French occultists, see Fenton, 'La cabbale et
l'academie', p. 26. On the great interest shown in Kabbalah by leaders of the
Order of the Golden Dawn, Arthur Waite and S. L. MacGregor Mathers, see
below n. 54. On the interest in Kabbalah by the Russian religious philosopher
and poet, Vladimir Soloviev, see J. Deutsch Kornablat, 'Solov'ëv's Androgynous
Sophia and the Jewish Kabbalah', Slavic Review 50 (1991), pp. 487-496. On
Soloviev's familiarity with the writings of the French occult Kabbalist Eliphas
Levi, see ibid., p. 488 n. 4. On the attitude of the Jews towards Soloviev and his
influence on Jewish intellectuals and writers at the turn of the century, see H.
Bar Yosef, 'The Jewish Reception of Vladimir Solov'ëv', in: W. van den Bercken,
M. de Courton and E. van der Zweerde eds., Vladimir Solov'ëv: Reconciler and
Polemicist, Leuven 2000, pp. 363-392; idem, Jewish Christian Relations in Modern
Hebrew and Yiddish Literature: A Preliminary Sketch, Cambridge 2000, pp.
17-19.
22 P. Mendes-Flohr, 'Fin-de-siècle Orientalism and the Aesthetics of Jewish Self-
Affirmation' [Hebrew], Me˙qerei Yerushalayim be-Ma˙shevet Yisrael 3 (1984),
pp. 623-681.
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