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Although not usually viewed as a manifestation of modern spirituality, hasidism strikingly resembles a product of the spiritual and ideological reorientation of Western religion in the post-Copernican world. Largely unaware of the philosophical and theological changes in European intellectual culture, many of the hasidic masters exhibited a sensitivity to the existential plight of humankind in the modern world.

This chapter argues that the mid- to late nineteenth-century hasidic dynasty of Izbica–Radzyń constitutes an intellectual renaissance in hasidic creativity. The canonical tradition of medieval philosophic, kabbalistic, and pietistic literature emerged in mid-nineteenth-century hasidic discourse, specifically in Congress Poland, with surprising regularity. Rabbi Gershon Henoch of Radzyń revisited medieval Jewish philosophy and kabbalah and attempted to represent this rich tradition within the ideological framework of hasidic spirituality. His project seemed to have numerous goals, none of which was explicitly developed in his writings. First, he apparently sought to root hasidism in medieval philosophical and kabbalistic tradition in an attempt finally to put to rest the criticism that hasidism departed from normative Jewish practice and ideology. Second, Rabbi Gershon Henoch's entire programme was founded on an overt messianic impulse. This programme, including his attempt to reinstitute the lost tradition of tekhelet, should be seen as representing a mid-nineteenth-century hasidic response to modernity.

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