On the 100th Anniversary of His Death: The “Hasidism” of Sholem Abramovitch and its Intersections with Dostoevsky’s “Old Belief”

• In Event: Yiddish Literary Legacies

Abstract

It seems timely to examine an oft-overlooked quality of the work of the founding father of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature, Sholem Abramovitch - whose vehemently “anti-religious” stance, did not preclude an affinity with the schismatics in general and the Hasidim in particular.

Despite their vastly different religions, political realities and literary styles, Sholem Abramovitch and his Russian contemporary, Fyodor Dostoevsky, intersect in their construction of a romanticized “religion” which uniquely converges the ideas of the schismatic movements of their time. In this conglomerate, one witnesses the remarkable meeting between the Russian and Jewish schismatics: The Old Believers and the Hasidim. While parallels between the beliefs and practices of these groups have been briefly mentioned by historians, their intersections have not yet been explored in historical or literary studies.

As different as were the Jewish and Russian schismatics – and though the authors generally rejected their ideas – both writers shifted the emphases of mainstream Orthodoxy in parallel with these groups – and their main spokesmen for religious sentiment endorse the shifts characteristic of both schismatics: (1) the relationship to God as joyful rather than fearful, and hence prayer also as joy, (2) the belief in divine immanence which allows for interaction (and communion) with God through his Creation, and (3) the conviction that the primary locus of faith is religious experience and emotion, rather than the study of religious texts and the intellect.

While these shifts also correlate with those found in romanticism, unlike in the work of most romantics, in the oeuvres of the authors the shifts are inextricable from explicit religious contexts and take distinctly religious forms. This and several positive references to the schismatics in their works, indicate that alongside their many other sources – both also consciously drew from these groups. Both the schismatics’ motivation for greater religious freedom and the forms they used to express it – such as pantheism and emotion – appealed to the authors, resulting in a new conglomerate at the intersection of Orthodoxy and Romanticism. This paper will not only analyze the literary manifestations of these intersections but also seeks to understand how and why they developed.

Author

• Meital Orr, Georgetown University