Hasidic Halakhah: Reappraising the Interface of Spirit and Law

Abstract

This paper offers a novel perspective regarding the interface between law, mysticism, and social reality. The inner turn that characterizes Hasidism is often understood through a binary model defined by the Christian Hebraists, and followed by many academic scholars, in which law and spirit exist in intractable tension. We suggest, however, that in the specific contexts of Hasidism, nomos, eros, and mystical piety often merged in distinctive ways, and that these are visible in novel forms of Jewish legal method and discourse. Our appreciation of the multifaceted Jewish religious and pietistic expressions of modernity should not be made to conform to the generally accepted definition of an era of strict “Orthodox” formulation and monolithic, conservative legal stagnation. Instead, we argue that the spiritual and legal ethos of Hasidism took on new forms in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as local identities became increasingly complex and new cultural fusions led to creative re-expressions of law and theology.

The Voices of Moses: Theologies of Revelation in an Early Hasidic Circle

“…88 Such sermons frequently use this curious bit of rabbinic lore to explore the spiritual power of the commandments and to probe questions of religious authority. 89 Their divergent answers as to why revelation was necessary in light of this tradition are quite instructive. For example, Dov Ber argues that the verbal garment of Torah was shaped by the deeds of the patriarchs, dovetailing with the account of Moses's actively creative role in the formation of Torah found in the sermons examined above.…”