Jewish Messianism from Antiquity to Zionism

JEWISH MESSIANISM FROM ANTIQUITY TO ZIONISM

NEJS 191b

FALL 2016

Yehudah Mirsky

Office Hours, Wed 12-1, or by appointment, Mandel 318

Theeducationalpoint of the curriculum is understanding...the historical moment in which we live, in which others have lived, and in which our descendants will someday live. It is understanding that informs the ethical obligation to care for ourselves and our fellow human beings that enables us to think and act with intelligence, sensitivity, and courage...

William F. Pinar, “'Possibly Being So': Curriculum as Complicated Conversation,” in Idem, What is Curriculum Theory? (Mahwah/London: Erlbaum, 2004), pp. 185-21, 187

(Oliver Wendell) Holmes had no use for the gentle optimism of Karl Marx, who seems to have believed that after just one more revolution the world will be a better place

Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 49

Great civilizations have for millennia believed that one day the world will finally live out their highest ideals. In Western religion this has taken the form of a cluster of beliefs – in the coming of an eventual redeemer and redemption, of history reaching a dramatic conclusion in an end-time dramatically different from the present – that we call “Messianism.”

This set of beliefs has had a profound impact on Western history, and powerfully endures to the present. We will try to understand the broad outlines of Messianism, from Hebrew Scriptures, through Jewish history – and see how it has changed shape and form, interacted with other belief structures, become secularized, and un-secularized, if you will, disenchanted and re-enchanted again. We will try to gain some purchase on its role as an agent of historical ferment. We will try to understand its place in modern politics, in Zionism in particular, and its enduring hold elsewhere. We will try to understand what changed in modern Messianism, and what didn’t. Finally, we will try to understand what this story has to tell us about politics, history, theology, and, maybe, the human condition.

The course will be based on readings from the volumes below, as well as materials on Latte.

This syllabus will be fleshed out and modified over time and in response to our classroom discussions. In addition, some of the nature of written assignments may also be changed once we have met and gotten a sense of the class as a group and as individuals.

Please post a few lines of comment and at least one question about the readings on the class' Latte Forum at the latest by midnight of the day before class. If several readings have been assigned for that day, you may comment on one or all of them, but I want to see something meaningful. I won't be grading these brief comment papers, but your doing them will count as part of your classroom participation grade, and I will be checking them. I understand that you may not be able to do this for every one of our meetings, but expect that you will for at least fifteen of them.

In addition I would like each of you to come and meet me one-and-one in the course of the semester, and preferably in the early weeks of the semester. Thius will give me a better sense of your interests and concerns, and improve the quality of our shared study and discussion.

Your grade will be determined as follows

40% classroom participation

20% midterm reflection essay (800-1000 words);

40% take-home final exam (2000 words). The exam will be distributed in class at our last meeting.

Papers in lieu of a final will be welcomed.

We will make use of several online sources:

The Encyclopedia Judaica http://www.bjeindy.org/resources/library/encyclopediajudaica/

John C. Reeves’ English translations of apocalyptic and messianic texts

http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/john-reeves/research-projects/trajectories-in-near-eastern-apocalyptic

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe www.yivoencyclopedia.org

Required Texts: Marc Saperstein, ed. Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History (New York: New York University Press, 1992)

Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008) available as an ebook at LTS,

Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism [Swirsky & Chipman, trs], (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)

Recommended: Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea (New York: Athenuem, 1974) [1959]

Yehudah Mirsky, Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014)

Raymond Scheindlin, A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood (New York: Oxford, 2000)

Norman Solomon, Judaism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

The subjects of the course and reading materials:

First meeting – Kafka, Benjamin

Introduction – Axial Age religions, Time and Utopia

Saperstein, “Introduction,” and Werblowsky, “Messianism in Jewish History,” in Essential Papers

Alan Mittelman, “Ethics in the Axial Age” – read only pages 1-5 of the PDF (16-23 of the printed text).

The Bible

Anchor Bible Dictionary (Marinus de Jonge), “Messiah” – read, for now, only pages 1-6 of the PDF (777-781 of the printed text)

Michael Walzer, “Messianism” (From In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible)

Kingship

2 Samuel 7

Psalms 2, 89, 132

Genesis 49:8-12

Universal Order

Isaiah

The Day of the Lord

Isa. 13:6–13; Joel 1:15; chapters 2-4; Amos 5:18–20; Obad. 15; Zeph. 1:17–18; Mal. 3:23

Apocalypse

Daniel, 8-12

Themes taken together

Isaiah 2-4, 10-12

Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), available as an ebook at LTS, chapters 1, 10-13

Second Temple and the prehistory of Chistianity

Anchor Bible Dictionary (Marinus de Jonge), “Messiah” – pp. 6-11 of the PDF (781-786 of the printed text)

John Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism,” in McGinn, et al eds. The Continuum History of Apocalypticism, pp. 64-88

Smith and Horsley in Essential Papers

Dead Sea Scrolls, selections

Rabbinic Judaism

Anchor Bible Dictionary (Marinus de Jonge), “Messiah” – pp. 11-12 of the PDF (786-787 of the printed text)

Joseph Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel [W.F. Stinespring, translator], (New York: MacMillan, 1955), Part 3

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 96a – 98b.

Early Middle Ages

Sefer Zerubavel, in John C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, Chapters 11-12

Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen

Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 1-21, 98-121, 131-155

David Berger, “Three Typological Themes in Early Jewish Messianism: Messiah Son of Joseph, Rabbinic Calculations, and the Figure of Armilus,” AJS Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 141-164

Later Middle Ages and the Impact of 1492

Gerson D. Cohen, “Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim,” Salo Baron, Reappearnce of Pseudo-Messiahs, and Isaiah Tishby, “Acute Apocalyptic Messianism,” in Essential Papers

Elisheva Carlebach, Between History and Hope: Jewish Messianism in Ashkenaz and Sepharad, Selmanowitz Lecture 3 (NY: Touro College, 1998)

Joseph Della Reina, in Dan, The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)

Haim Vital, in Dan, The Heart and the Fountain

Maharal of Prague, Netzach Yisrael, Selections

Ravitzky, Appendix on “The Three Oaths and their Impact on Jewish History”

Sabbatianism and after

Scholem,”Sabbbati Sevi: The Mystical Messiah,” in and W.D. Davies ”From Schweitzer to Scholem,” in Essential Papers

Nathan of Gaza, Facing the Monsters of Evil, in Dan The Heart and the Fountain

Early Modernity and Hasidism

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, selections, in Dan, The Heart and the Fountain & Peter Cole, The Poetry of the Kabbalah (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012)

Epistle of the Besht

Scholem, “Hasidism and the Neutralization of Messianism”

Zvi Mark, The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of Nahman of Breslov (selections)

Arie Morgenstern, in Essential Papers

Messianism and Modern Politics

Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, chapter 4, “The Utopian Mentality”

Talmon,

James Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 1-23

Isaiah Berlin (“Historical Inevitability,” “The Crooked Timber of Humanity”)

Messianism and Zionism 1

Ravitzky, chapters 1-2

Herzl, Altneuland, Selections

Moses Hess, Alakalay, Berl Katznelson in Hertzberg

Buber, Paths in Utopia (selectrions)

Messianism and Zionism 2

David Ohana, Political Theologies in the Holy Land: Israeli Messianism and its Critics (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 1-76

Yaacov Shavit, "Realism and Messianism in Zionism and the Yishuv”, Studies in Contemporary Jewry 7 (1991), p. 100-127

Uri Zvi Greenberg, poetry in translation

Messianism and Zionism 3

(Rav Kook)

Ravitzky, Messianism, chapter 3

Avraham Isaac Kook, Eulogy for Theodor Herzl, selections from Bokser Anthology, (NY: Paulist Press) 243-302.

Naor edition of Orot, Orot Ha-Tehiya, 145-215

Yoni Garb, “Rabbi Kook and his Sources: From Kabbalistic Historiosophy to National Mysticism,” in Moshe Sharon, ed. Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the Babi-Bahai Faiths (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), pp. 77-96

Gush Emunim and Peace Now

Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire : Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (New York: Times Books, 2006) (Selection)

Newman and Herrmann, “A Comparative Study of Peace Now and Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies, 28:3(July 1992), pp. 509-530

Simons, “Peace Now as a Graphic Movement, 1987-1993,” Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History no.5, July 2013, pp. 124-159

Motti Inbari, Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), chapters 2-6 available as an ebook on LTS

Chabad

Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Basi leGani (1951)

Tomer Persico, “Chabad’s Lost Messiah,” Azure Autumn 2009, pp. 82-127

Ravitzky, chapter 5

David Singer, “The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Heresy Hunter”, First Things, May 2003

Tikkun Olam, Anyone?

Lawrence Fine, "Tikkun: A Lurianic Motif in Contemporary Jewish Thought," in _From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding--Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, Vol. 4, ed. Jacob Neusner et al. (Scholars Press, 1989).

Avi Sagi, 'TikkunOlam: Between Utopian Idea and Socio-Historical Process" in Jewish Religion After Theology

Yehudah Mirsky, Tikkun Olam: Basic Questions and Policy Directions (2008)

Week Thirteen – Discussion and Conclusion

Biale, in Essential Papers

Irving Greenberg, “The Dialectics of Power: Reflections in Light of the Holocaust” in Daniel Landes, ed. Confronting Omnicide (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1991), pp. 12-35

Ehud Luz, “Messianism and Realism” in Idem. Wrestling with an Angel: Power, Identity and Jewish Morality [Swirsky, tr.] (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 103-114

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “Toward a History of Jewish Hope” in David Myers and Alexander Kaye, eds, The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2014), pp. 299-317

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