Between Tradition & Innovation: Readings

The popular eighteenth-century mystical revivalist movement known as Hasidism transformed the religious and cultural life of Eastern European Jewry and remains a vibrant form of Judaism to this day. This seminar will introduce students to the history, ideology and major personalities of the Hasidic movement through a close reading of a broad selection of primary texts, including mystical tracts, collections of sermons, spiritual directives, hagiographical tales and polemical writings. We will explore the mystical ideas and practices taught by the founders of the movement, the new forms of leadership they developed and the fierce controversies they aroused. We will also consider the role played by Hasidic literature in the formation and spread of the movement and the tensions it embodied between tradition and innovation, elitism and populism, and oral and written modes of communication.   

This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates may register with permission from the instructor.