The Hasidic Way of Ḥabad

Summary

It is open to doubt whether the application of such popular definitions as “the priority of the intellect over the heart” or vice versa can give any idea of the essence of Hasidism in general or of any of its movements in particular. These pseudo-concepts tend to confuse more than clarify. The difficulties of defining the Ḥabad movement within Hasidism are particularly abundant because the material under discussion does not consist in this case of parables, proverbs, and anecdotes; it constitutes a whole body of literature written by systematic thinkers who make use of conceptual and symbolical language. The language of these books can only be deciphered by reference to the Cabbalistic writings (especially those coming from the circle of Isaac Luria) that the chief Ḥabad writers set out to continue and to develop, finding themselves in the process originators of complicated new systems of their own. As most of the Ḥabad books are arranged according to subjects, in a systematic way, and not as commentaries on the scriptures (this applies at least to the Tanya by Shneur Zalman of Ladi, which is the central work of the Ḥabad movement), it was tempting to dub Ḥabad “the philosophical movement in Hasidism.” This label was used together with the one that attributed to Ḥabad the “priority of the intellect over the heart” as against other Hasidic movements that allegedly preferred the heart to the intellect.

It is perhaps not entirely superfluous to emphasize that even the use of the awe-inspiring word philosophy does not make this definition any better than those which use intellect, heart, and sentiments as terms of reference. If the Ḥabad movement has any specific character of its own, it has to be defined by the aid of concepts used for the analysis of religious phenomena and by statements that have a fairly definite and concrete meaning accepted by those who deal with the history of religions.

A concept of this kind with quite a substantial amount of definite meaning is “mysticism.” Insofar as its meaning is not sharply and unequivocally clear, one can make it more pointed by comparing it with its opposite, by putting the religious life of mysticism, with its central themes of meditation, ecstasy, self-annihilation, etc., in opposition to the religious life of faith, the prominent themes of which are faith and man's clinging to it, trust, hope, etc.