Taming the Lion: Isaac Yizhak Ḥaver’s Mithnagdic defense of the authenticity of Kabbalah

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Abstract

The mithnagdim get their name (“opponents”) from their purported opposition to the kabbalisticly-engaged Hasidic movement, and scholars have generally assumed their antipathy toward or disinterest in Kabbalah. Yet, as this paper shows, mithnagdim creatively and thoughtfully engaged kabbalistic texts and ideas. This paper concentrates on one study in particular: Magen ve-Tzinah, the robust defense of the authenticity of the kabbalistic tradition, by the mithnagdic thinker Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Ḥaver Wildmann (1789-1853). In it, Haver systematically refutes Leon of Modena’s (1571-1658) anti-kabbalistic polemic Ari Nohem. In his refutation, Ḥaver also addressed contemporary issues in philosophy, religious reform, and scholarship. This paper argues that Ḥaver’s view of the kabbalistic tradition as the sole purveyor of truth, against empiricist and idealist conceptions of truth, and his quasi-scholarly defense of the authenticity and antiquity of the Zohar are generally representative of mithnagdic views of Kabbalah—and they are not “opponents” of it at all.

Author

• Brian G Hillman, Indiana University