Neo-Hasidic Revival: Expressivist Uses of Traditional Lore

Abstract

More than 250 years after its birth under the light-blue sky of Podolia, Hasidism is still the single greatest resource for any Jewish attempt at spiritual renewal. As the first Jewish “revival” movement displaying significant modern characteristics, Hasidism offers, to the modern and postmodern spiritual seeker, a range of theological structures, religious practices, and ethical frameworks suited for interpretation and adoption. It is no accident then that since the early twentieth century we find important elements of Hasidism used and elaborated upon in the works of almost any Jewish thinker, observant or non-observant, set out to enliven her or his tradition. As such, a significant part of the modern appropriation of Hasidism is what is called, both by the participants themselves (emically) and by those who research the field (etically), Neo-Hasidism. Defining Neo-Hasidism as the deliberate and conscious attempt to draw inspiration, tools, and cultural capital from early Hasidic texts and practices in order to bring about a contemporary spiritual revival, it is crucial to notice the exact way in which these elements are arranged anew in the contemporary arena. As I will attempt to show, these will usually coalesce around patterns in line with the modern expressivist, self-conscious utilitarian self, a phenomenon that is predominant in parallel Contemporary Spirituality circles, such as the New Age cultic milieu.1

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 42 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.