Table of Contents

Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg
Preface
 
Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism
The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism
The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish Messianism
Redemption through Sin
The Crypto-Jewish Sect of the Dönmeh (Sabbatians) in Turkey
A Sabbatian Will from New York
The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism
Devekut, Or Communion with God
Martin Buber's Interpretation of Hasidism
The Tradition of the Thirty-Six Hidden Just Men
The Star of David: History of a Symbol
Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories in Judaism
The Science of Judaism—Then and Now
At the Completion of Buber's Translation of the Bible
On the 1930 Edition of Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption
The Politics of Mysticism: Isaac Breuer's New Kuzari
The Golem of Prague and the Golem of Rehovot

Notes
Sources and Acknowledgments
Index

About the Author

GERSHOM SCHOLEM was a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem until his death in 1982. Among his most important works are Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, and editor of Zohar, the Book of Splendor- Basic Readings from the Kabbalah.

Reviews

"These major essays of historical synthesis provide a probing and challenging overview of Jewish history still pertinent to contemporary concerns."
—Robert Alter

“Gershom Scholem earned international renown as a brilliant interpreter of esoteric religious texts as well as a trenchant contributor to many of the central intellectual debates of his day. At a time when apocalyptic impulses are intensifying with the approach of a millennial moment in the Christian calendar, we can only welcome Scholem’s soberly presented and scrupulously researched account of their Jewish counterparts.”
—Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley
 
“Having had the privilege of knowing Gershom Scholem and having learned much from him, I am delighted to see this collection made available once more. I am especially fond of the essay on “Revelation and Tradition,” which is vintage Scholem—learned, sharp, witty, and adorned with delightful anecdotes from the Talmud. In juxtaposition with the essay that follows, on Wissenschaft des Judentums, it documents the subtle relationship between rational and nonrational elements in the Jewish tradition, the very relationship that Scholem both described so incisively and embodied so vividly.”
—Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale University