Q&A: Hasidism
Hasidism
Question
Does the Rabbi have a well-organized article in which you explain your main objection to Hasidism? I looked and couldn’t find one.
Answer
I don’t recall. Practically speaking, I’m not opposed to it; I simply don’t see any value or content in it. Most of it is just nonsensical verbiage, and whatever is not like that simply isn’t Hasidism. I am indeed opposed to the conception of contraction not in its plain sense, which is commonly attributed to Hasidism, and this was explained here and in my book No Man Rules the Spirit.
Discussion on Answer
I’m not sufficiently familiar with it to make a determination. I have definitely found interesting things in Chabad. But even there, in my opinion, there are quite a few vague ideas with undefined concepts.
If I’m not mistaken, columns 104–106 deal with this, and also column 113.
Hello Rabbi,
I’d be glad to understand what the problem is with vague ideas and undefined concepts.
That is exactly why we need to delve deeply into study and define things,
even if the external expression is somewhat vague.
Deep within our understanding, we often sense things that we are unable to explain,
even though that does indeed indicate that we do not really understand them,
but that does not undermine their very existence!
In general, it sounds like you have an aversion to Hasidic homiletic interpretations,
meaning endless explanations in words that are not necessarily connected to the plain meaning of the texts.
Do you think the letters of the Torah are empty of any other meaning,
besides the matter that would be understood even by a 7-year-old child?
Is there no value to the letters in terms of their formal weight?
Is identifying roots as similar just nonsense?
Are similar words only similar by chance?
And do you call this wordplay instead of calling it by its real name—“the delights of Torah,”
as in, “Were not Your Torah my delight, I would have perished in my affliction…”?
How can one belittle an insight that rises up from the verses, out of the feeling of a God-fearing Jew and Torah scholar,
in a way that the Sages also used in many cases?
Even if one can invoke the decline of the generations or the absence of an explicit tradition,
from where do you know that a homily that is not a practical implementation of the Torah is ruled out because of a lack of tradition?
The problem is that in many cases they say nothing. Mere wordplay. I have written more than once that things cannot always be well defined, and undefined things can also have meaning. But that is when there really is meaning. With regard to Hasidism, in my opinion, in most cases that is not the situation.
The problem is not the detachment from the plain meaning of the texts, but the lack of content.
I have no problem with insights that emerge from feeling or from meditation, even from a Jew who is not God-fearing. As long as I understand those insights and they have substance.
Hasidic homiletic interpretations usually make me sick, but not only because of their detachment from the texts. Hanging them on the texts is just somewhat ridiculous. The main problem is that the content does not impress me. Usually it is either trivial or lacking content.
Is that also your view, for example, of the Tanya and all Chabad books throughout the generations?
People generally regard them as books with a systematic and deep approach (even if, in your view, it is not correct), touching on many issues and not only on contraction not in its plain sense.