BOOK REVIEW

The Chosen will become Herds:

Studies in Twentieth-Century Kabbalah
Jonathan Garb
Translated by Yaffah Berkovits-Murciano
Yale University Press, New Haven and London
218 pages, no price listed

Zvi Leshem*

Allow me to begin my review of this remarkable volume by quoting from

its end; "Gershom Scholem anticipated that Jewish mysticism would
resurface, and he therefore wrote at the end of his monumental work
Major Trends [in Jewish Mysticism, 1941], 'The story has not yet ended,
it has not become history, and the secret life it enfolds may surface
tomorrow in you or me'. Today we are witnessing the realization of this
prophecy". Jonathon Garb, Senior Lecturer in Jewish Thought at Hebrew
University first told the story of this multi-faceted resurgence in Jewish
mysticism in the Hebrew version of this book in 2005, and the English
edition was published in 2009.

Garb is considered by many to be the leading student of world-class

Kabbalah scholar Moshe Idel, and his breadth and depth in Jewish
mystical literature were a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for
composing this work. For Garb emerges, not only as a great Kabbalah
scholar, but also as an expert in the wide variety of mystical disciplines
that have interfaced with the resurgence of Kabbalah in the late twentieth
century, including Buddhism, Sufism, meditation and "New Age"
practices. However, even with this a major portion of this work could not
have been composed. For Garb is not only an expert in both Jewish and
general mysticism, he is also a keen observer of social trends, and he
deftly brings the techniques of Post-modern sociology and cultural
studies to his work.

Since Garb deals with both "high" and "popular" culture, the range of
topics addressed in the book is wide. He admits to an Israel-centered
bias, in which Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook and his circle play the
central role. Garb devotes much of the book to analyzing the mystical
and personal side of R. Kook's writings, a side that was suppressed by
some of his followers, but burst into the public eye with the publication of
his uncensored notebooks in 1999. He discusses Rav Kook's prophetic
consciousness and mystical aspirations, as well as those of his closest
students, R. David Cohen ("the Nazir") and R. Yaacov Moshe Charlap.
Garb continues his survey with R. Kook's continuing influence in the
Dati-Leumi world, which to a large extent has divided into two camps.
The mainstream nationalist narrative was continued by his son, R. Tzvi
Yehuda and his successor, Rav Tzvi Tau. The mystical trend was taken
and combined with neo-Hasidic trends by a whole range of Dati-Leumi
thinkers, such as the late Rav Shagar and applied in their yeshivot. As a
devotee of sociologist Michel Foucault, Garb is also acutely aware of the
issue of power (his first book dealt with power in earlier Kabbalistic
literature), and here he analyzes the question of the influence of R.
Kook's mysticism, as well as that of other Kabbalistic streams, on some
of the members of the "Jewish Underground" of the 1980s, as well as the
condemnation of their actions and interpretation of Rav Kook's ideas by
the mainstream of Rav Kook's followers.

Garb also focuses on Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, who authored the
famous Sulam commentary to the Zohar. R. Ashlag and R. Kook
believed that the return to Eretz Yisrael constituted a radical departure
from Jewish history and they urged the wide dissemination of esoteric
Kabbalistic texts that in earlier generations had been considered to be
appropriate only for a scholarly elite. In R. Ashlag's case there is a
certain irony, as his work is today disseminated via the highly
commercial "Kabbalah Center", a mix of pop-mysticism and capitalism
that the socialist-leaning Rabbi would have considered a perversion of his
ideals.

The other major trend surveyed is that of Hasidic teachings, that have
become popular in recent years, most noticeably in the mystical group
within the Dati-Leumi world. Garb discusses trends within Habad,
including the controversy surrounding the messianism of the last Rebbe,
as well as current teachers with tremendous influence, such as rabbis
Yitzchak Ginsburgh and Adin Steinsaltz. He also looks at the
tremendous popularity of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, as evidenced by
the wide study of his works, as well as the annual pilgrimages to his
grave in Uman. Garb is well-aware of the influence of other Hasidic
works, such as the Mai HaShiloach, famous for its seemingly antinomian
passages, and the writings of the martyred Piaseczner Rebbe, whose
Warsaw Ghetto sermons, Esh Kodesh, and mystical meditative writings
enjoy wide popularity.

It isn't easy to find much to criticize in this book in which actual errors
are almost non-existent, and if Garb can be criticized for anything, it
might for be matters of emphasis. At times he attributes importance to
marginal figures, (Breslov maverick Avraham Zagdon); yet more
mainstream thinkers could have received more treatment. The great
American Orthodox leader, Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, is mentioned
in passing as a thinker regarding Halacha and modernism. Yet he is also
an example of one, who in a complete departure from his teachers,
infused Kabbalistic and Hasidic thought into his theological writings, a
topic deserves a fuller treatment. Garb also laments the lack of research
on the writings of some great Kabbalists, yet in the case of R. Kook and
the Piaseczner Rebbe, important doctoral work has been completed since
the Hebrew edition was published, and this should have merited at least a
footnote.

There are interesting trends that Garb has overlooked. He puts great
emphasis on antinomian trends in contemporary mystical circles,
particularly in the neo-Hasidism popularized by Rabbis Shlomo
Carlebach and Zalman Shalomi-Schachter. Yet the antinomian trends
that sometimes accompany spiritual revivals do not tell the entire story.
One who enters certain leading neo-Hasidic synagogues, such as my
congregation, Shirat Shlomo in Efrat, or Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, may
be surprised to find higher mechitzot, stricter gender separation and other
signs of a more "right-wing" Orthodoxy than in some of their neighboring
congregations. The Rabbis of these synagogues, whose teaching is based
largely upon Kabbalistic-Hasidic discourse, also stress the importance of
meticulous Halachic observance in the mystical path, and this
conservative trend within neo-Hasidism is significant in providing a more
nuanced picture. Another development is the entrance of neo-Hasidic
Jews into academic Kabbalah study. It is no longer unusual to find
Jewish men with beards and side locks in courses in Jewish mysticism.
At the recent World Congress of Jewish Studies, I lectured at a packed
session on "Hasidic Meditation". Attendees had the unusual experience
of listening to four bearded "rabbi-doctors" deliver academic papers on
the meditative techniques of the Baal Shem Tov and the Piaseczner
Rebbe. Chairperson Haviva Pedaya, herself a poet and spiritual figure as
well as a top Kabbalah scholar, hailed the session as a major turning point
in the "spiritualization of academia". The desire to simultaneously study
and live a Hasidic lifestyle from "within and from without" is also a new
trend worth exploring. Garb does allude to this in his introduction, but
this is a rich area that needs to be mined much more.

Garb, writes, "It is somewhat frustrating, although also exciting, to write

a book that is already out-of-date even as it is being written". While the
reader does share the feeling, this volume is still an indispensible
prerequisite to understanding what is happening around us in Jewish
religiosity. We look forward to more of Garb's insightful studies in the
future.

*Rabbi Zvi Leshem is the Spiritual Leader of Congregation Shirat Shlomo in Efrat.
He holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy and is the author of Redemptions:
Contemporary Chassidic Essays on the Parsha and the Festivals.