Crisis, Criticism and Religious Renewal: Inspirational Hasidism in Interwar Poland

• In Event: Modernization and the Hasidic renaissance in interwar Poland

Abstract

The first decades of the twentieth century were a period of severe crisis for Hasidism. It was deteriorating as many of its youngsters were abandoning it in favor of secularism, nationalism and socialism. WWI was a crushing blow for Hasidic courts throughout Eastern Europe, while many of them disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet Russia. This sense of crisis pervaded Hasidic culture and thought, which evidently took the turn for conservatism and at times anti-modernist fundamentalism. But there were also voices of self-criticism and appeals for spiritual renewal from within Hasidic circles. Some of these pre-holocaust original Hasidic thinkers have recently gained attention by scholars, but some remain untreated despite their literary creativity or their perceptible impact on Hasidic culture.
In my paper, I would like to examine the teachings of R. Moshe Yehiel Elimelekh Rabinowitz of Lubartów (1895-1941), an exceptional figure in Orthodox Judaism in his day. This Hasidic leader published many popular pamphlets, alongside some classic homiletic works, in which he categorically expressed harsh criticism of contemporary Hasidism. But unlike some other critics, he offered some very surprising resolutions for dealing with the great challenges of his time. He particularly dealt with issues of Jewish education, which were basically ignored by most of Hasidic leadership until this period. He called for a revision in the attitude of the religious leadership to Jewish youth in Poland, and proposed means of moral reform of his own society as the foundation of cultural and religious renewal which would reconnect the younger generation to Jewish tradition. I will describe Rabinowitz's campaign from a comparative perspective, alongside some other pedagogical trends of his time, and describe the impact of this type of Hasidic renewal in the interwar period.

Author

• Uriel Gellman, Bar Ilan University