JEWISH MESSIANISM FROM ANTIQUITY TO ZIONISM
NEJS 191b
SPRING 2014
Yehudah Mirsky
Office Hours, Wed 12-1, or by appointment, Mandel 318
mirsky@brandeis.edu
The educational point 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
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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.
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 before the midterm. This will give me a
better sense of your interests and concerns, and improve the quality of our
shared study and discussion.
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Your grade will be determined as follows
40% classroom participation
20% midterm reflection essay (800-1000 words); the reading on which this
essay is to be based will be distributed on March 10 and due back by midnight
on March 24.
40% take-home final exam (2000 words). The exam will be distributed in class
at our last meeting, and will be due in by midnight on May 8.
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-neareastern-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, 992)
Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism [Swirsky &
Chipman, trs], (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
Recommended: Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea (New Yoark 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
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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; 2:1; 3:4; 4:14; 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
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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
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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, Reappearnace of Pseudo-Messiahs, and
Isaiah Tishby, “Acute Apocalyptic Messianism,” in Essential Papers
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
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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
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(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
Week Eleven – 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
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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, 'Tikkun Olam: 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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