Experiential Spirituality in 20th Century Habad

• In Event: Spiritual Experience and Literary Form: Creativity, Practice, and Awareness in Ḥasidic Thought and Society

Abstract

20th Century Habad, whether before or after WW2, is generally seen as an activist movement with a messianist ethos. Round 1900 the battles were against Zionism, the Haskalah and the secularizing effect of the Bolshevik Revolution; in the middle of the century, the thrust of Habad was to promote revivalist Jewish observance in the USA, gradually spreading further afield; and towards the end of the century, together with the far-flung Chabad Houses and Mitzvah Tanks, the movement became known for its campaigns regarding Israeli politics, and the messianic focus achieved ever greater prominence.
Does this mean that the traditions of spiritual experience seen at the beginning of Habad, with a variety of systems of contemplative prayer and disputes about the relevance of emotion in contemplation were all forgotten?
This paper argues that experiential spirituality continued to be promoted by the Habad leadership throughout the 20th century. In its first decades, Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn (d.1920) compiled tracts on contemplation for young men and embedded teachings about it in his lengthy strings of mystical discourses. His son Rabbi Joseph Isaac (d.1950), during his years in Otwock (in the 1930s) apart from encouraging young men in the spiritual praxis taught by his father, broke new ground by writing a meditative tract for a young woman who was looking for meaning in the practicalities of Jewish observance.
His successor Rabbi Menachem Mendel (d.1994) presented a number of meditative themes in his discourses and talks, while at the same time preserving and intensifying his activist stance. Even in his presentation of the messianic ideal, a mystical experiential aspect was included, as has been explored by Elliot Wolfson.
This leads to the suggestion that Habad activism and experiential spirituality are not, as one might expect, mutually exclusive directions of endeavor, but complement each other. As conceived by the leadership in the last three generations, personal spiritual experience fuels activism, and activism is the natural practical expression of spirituality.
The question remains to what extent this double ethos is embraced by the wide and varied following of contemporary Habad.

Author

• Naftali Loewenthal, University College London