Eli Rubin | University College London (original) (raw)

Books by Eli Rubin

Stanford University Press, Stanford Studies in Jewish Mysticism, 2025

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional his... more Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional history of Chabad Hasidism through the Kabbalistic concept of ṣimṣum. The onset of modernity, Eli Rubin argues, was heralded by this startling idea: existence itself is predicated on a self-inflicted "rupture" in the infinite assertion of divinity. Centuries of theoretical disputations concerning ṣimṣum ultimately morphed into religious and social schism. These debates confronted the meaning of being and forged the animating ethos of Chabad, the most dynamic movement in modern Judaism.

Chabad's distinctive character and self-image, Rubin shows, emerged from its spirited defense of Hasidism's interpretation of ṣimṣum as an act of love leading to rapturous reunion. This interpretation ignited a literal conflagration, complete with book burnings, denunciations, investigations, and arrests. Chabad's subsequent preoccupation with ṣimṣum was equally significant for questions of legitimacy, authority, and succession, as for existential questions of being and meaning.

Unfolding the story of Chabad from the early modern period to the twentieth century, this book provides fresh portraits of the successive leaders of the movement. Innovatively integrating history, philosophy, and literature, Rubin shows how Kabbalistic ideas are crucially entangled in the experience of modernity and in the response to its ruptures.

RABBI MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON (1902–1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was one of the most... more RABBI MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON (1902–1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was one of the most influential personalities of the 20th century and the only rabbi ever awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite wide recognition of Schneerson’s impact, this is the first volume to seriously explore his social ideas and activism. Schneerson not only engineered a global Jewish renaissance but also became an advocate for the revitalization of education, criminal justice reform, women’s empowerment, and alternative energy. From the personal to the global, his teachings chart a practical path for the replacement of materialism, alienation, anxiety and divisiveness with a dignified and joyous reciprocity.

Social Vision delves into the deep structures of social reality and the ways it is shaped and reshaped by powerful ideologies. Juxtaposed with sociologist Max Weber’s diagnosis of “inner worldly asceticism” as “the spirit of capitalism,” Schneerson’s socio-mystical worldview is compellingly framed as a transformative paradigm for the universal repair of society. The library of Schneerson’s talks and writings is voluminous, but critics have described this distillation as artful, engaging, ambitious, bracing, relevant and imperative. Social Vision boldly upends conventional polarizations between tradition and progress, religion and science, mysticism and society, providing a wealth of intellectual and practical resources for all who seek a better future for humanity.

Peer Reviewed Papers by Eli Rubin

In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, 2024

Avro­hom Eliy­ohu Plotkin was born in Raha­chow (in present-day Belarus) in the Russ­ian Empire, ... more Avro­hom Eliy­ohu Plotkin was born in Raha­chow (in present-day Belarus) in the Russ­ian Empire, in 1888. After the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, he served as the rab­bi of Ostashkov, a provin­cial town mid­way between Moscow and Leningrad, at a time when the Jew­ish Sec­tions (Evsek­t­si­ia) of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty — sup­port­ed by oth­er agents of the Sovi­et state — were forcibly clos­ing all the insti­tu­tions that made Jew­ish reli­gious life pos­si­ble. In 1946 he escaped to the West, and in his last years he head­ed the Tomkhei-Temim­im Yeshi­va estab­lished at the DP Camp in Pock­ing, Ger­many. Unusu­al­ly for a rab­binic schol­ar of his stature and of this era, Plotkin also wrote sev­er­al short sto­ries, essays, and poems that poignant­ly cap­ture the tragedy and the spir­it of Jew­ish reli­gious life dur­ing the ear­ly decades of the Sovi­et experiment.

AJS Review, 2021

The maskilic characterization of the nineteenth century as a period of decline and ossification f... more The maskilic characterization of the nineteenth century as a period of decline and ossification for Hasidism is increasingly eschewed by scholars, yet continues to mark current research in significant ways. As a case study, this article takes up Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch ("Maharash," 1834-1882), rescrutinizing (1) the controversy surrounding the onset of his leadership, (2) his personality and charisma, (3) his methodological approach to the teachings and texts that he inherited from his predecessors, and (4) his theological contributions and their place in the broader trajectory of Chabad's intellectual history. His tenure emerges as a false twilight, in which a new foundation was laid for the perpetuation and expansion of Chabad-Lubavitch, as both an intellectual and activist movement, in the century that followed.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2020

From 1777 and onward, the Hasidic communities in the Diaspora and the Holy Land were bound togeth... more From 1777 and onward, the Hasidic communities in the Diaspora and the Holy Land were bound together in an economic and spiritual circle of mutual reliance. A survey of the epistolary literature exchanged between these communities reveals that the terms of this circular relationship were respectively understood by R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, R. Avraham of Kalisk, and R. Shneur Zalman of Liady in some ways very similarly, and in other ways very differently. They all shared a socio-mystical conception of the constitution of Hasidic spirituality. Nevertheless, the latter figures each developed the doctrines of the former in very different directions. It emerges that they disagreed not only about the practical techniques that would achieve the socio-mystical ideal, but also about if and how personal integrity could correspond to the divine measure of truth. Building on a theoretical critique of the standard bifurcation of the mystical and the social, and through close readings of relevant texts, this paper revises the conclusions drawn by Joseph Weiss regarding R. Avraham's "concept of communion with God and Men" (Part I), parses the doctrinal similarities and differences between these three Hasidic leaders (Part II), and finally uncovers an implicit polemic that can be discerned when R. Shneur Zalman's Tanya is reread in its historical and ideological context (Part III).

Kabbalah in America, 2020

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), the seventh leader of the Habad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty... more Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), the seventh leader of the Habad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty, came to the United States as a refugee, having fled Paris as the Nazis took control of France. Yet the American future of Hasidism had already been con- sidered in a letter addressed to him in 1933 by his father-in-law and predecessor as “Lubavitcher Rebbe,” Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson. Therein we find the beginnings of a kabbalistic theorization of the pivotal role that America was to play in the realiza- tion of the very telos of creation. Transposed from the realm of kabbalistic theory into the realm of socio-historical analysis, this became the basis for the seventh rebbe’s development and enactment of a counter-cultural strategy for a post-holocaust Jewish renaissance, centered not in Israel, but in America.

JEWISH SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION, 2019

Hasidism—which took root in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century and is to... more Hasidism—which took root in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century and is today especially vibrant in Israel and the United States—is enchanting to some and disturbing to others, precisely because it is simultaneously characterized by mystical spirituality and this-worldly exuberance; by elitist esoterism and exoteric populism; by the individualistic figure of the tzadik and the ideal of communal egalitarianism in collective life. Building on the theoretical paths charted by Philip and Elliot Wolfson this paper argues for a non-reductive "socio-mystical" approach to the study of Hasidic texts, history, practices, and phenomena. Taking up the example of Habad at the two poles of its two hundred year history it is argued that just as Habad’s contemplative practice cannot be reduced to individual mystical activity, so Habad’s communal work cannot be reduced to social activity. Contemporary Habad activism is, in fact, the culmination and realization of an intellectual tradition of great depth and breadth, at the heart of which stands the fundamental axiom that the mystical and the social are one and the same.

In Geveb, 2018

The imprint of Hasidism and Hasidic tales in modern Jewish literature has already received some a... more The imprint of Hasidism and Hasidic tales in modern Jewish literature has already received some attention from scholars, and the literary significance of Hasidic mamarim and other mystical texts has also been noted. This paper seeks to take the interdisciplinary study of Hasidism and modern Jewish literature one step further, tracing some of the ways that Chabad Hasidism’s internal tradition of “literary mysticism” has intervened in the broader trajectory of modern Jewish literature. My first task in this paper is to trace internal developments in the Chabad literary tradition over the course of the nineteenthth century, and to demonstrate how this internal trajectory was given broader expression in Khayim gravitser, a Yiddish novel by Dr. Fishl Schneersohn of Rechytsa, Berlin, and Tel Aviv (1888-1958). The second part of this paper takes a closer look at the Hebrew poet Avraham Shlonsky (1900-1973), who translated Schneersohn’s novel from the original Yiddish, and at the ways that the novel’s title character might be seen as an avatar for Shlonsky’s own self-identification as a Hasidic rebel, traveling between opposing shores. Taken as a whole, this paper aims to complicate the neat chronology that bifurcates modern Jewish literature from its Hasidic roots, and show that both Schneersohn and Shlonsky actually continued the Hasidic literary tradition of Chabad even as they embraced alternative literary forms in the cause of new agendas.

In Geveb, 2019

​ Yiddish has always been the oracular mainstay of Chabad's intellectual and spiritual trajectory... more ​ Yiddish has always been the oracular mainstay of Chabad's intellectual and spiritual trajectory. Initially it was simply the vernacular of the Jews in Eastern Europe, and its use, even in Hasidic publications, merely reflected its utility as a linguistic medium for the dissemination of Hasidic teachings. From the mid-nineteenth century, however, Yiddish became a contested language, an ideological and cultural battleground. In response to the linguistic interventions proposed by proponents of Haskalah and Zionism, Yiddish became subject to broader ideological considerations for Chabad's leaders. By the 1920s, processes of urbanization and migration had dramatically changed the linguistic environment in which Chabad sought to perpetuate its teachings, and the use of Yiddish began to be seen as a link to the past, but also as a gateway for the translation of Hasidic teachings into other languages, an initiative in which women played important roles. In this period, Yiddish also began to be framed as a linguistic bridge between alienation and intimacy, reflecting the classical Chabad concern with the sacralization of the self and the world. In the post-Holocaust era, the movement's seventh Rebbe enfolded earlier Chabad conceptions of Yiddish within a fuller theorization, drawing on the classical Hasidic doctrine of divine immanence to recast Yiddish as the language of redemption, a language whose true significance must ultimately transcend the particularity of any Jewish language, and resonate in every language.

Book Reviews by Eli Rubin

Jewish Review of Books, 2024

Review of Zimzum: God and the Origin of the World, by Christoph Schulte, translated by Corey Twit... more Review of Zimzum: God and the Origin of the World, by Christoph Schulte, translated by Corey Twitchell (University of Pennsylvania Press)

In Geveb, 2024

Against the fraught intersections of emancipation, acculturation, assimilation, and colonization,... more Against the fraught intersections of emancipation, acculturation, assimilation, and colonization, institutionalized Torah education emerged as a form of Hasidic cultural resistance powerful enough to survive the Holocaust.

Chabad.org, 2024

Artscroll’s edition of Kedushas Levi invites a reassessment of its author’s intellectual legacy

The Lehrhaus, 2019

Review essay on Alan Rosen. The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Ho... more Review essay on Alan Rosen. The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019. pp. 251. Hardback 80/Paperback80 / Paperback 80/Paperback35 / Ebook $34.99.

Argues that Rosen provides an important corrective to the tendency of academic Jewish scholarship to engage in explicit and implicit processes of secularization, and of materialistic, or non-Jewish, reductionism. Through a new focus on what might be called "calendrical resistance," and through a fresh integration of historiography and hermeneutics, he forges a path that leads beyond Holocaust time by delving into its devestating details

Articles by Eli Rubin

Jewish Currents, 2022

A century separates us from the first decrees targeting religion in the aftermath of the Bolshevi... more A century separates us from the first decrees targeting religion in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, and decades have passed since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Yet the false dichotomy between commitment to progress and commitment to faith remains implicit in much ideological discourse and debate. “Kaddish Denied,” a semi-autobiographical story by Avrohom Eliyohu Plotkin (), provides an intimate dramatization of the Chabad experience of repressive persecution in the early decades of the Soviet era. Yet, it centers a character whose very identity is a rejection of the false bifurcation between working people and religious Jews. Plotkin's tale shows us how countercultural ideology and camaraderie becomes the stuff of memory, of identity, of intergenerational continuity and community. It also protests the assumed “shidduch” between socialism and secularism.

Chabad.org, 2021

The achievements of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (“Steinsaltz,” 1937-2020) are well known. A towering s... more The achievements of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (“Steinsaltz,” 1937-2020) are well known. A towering scholar, author, philosopher and social critic, Steinsaltz was honored with many prestigious awards and academic appointments in recognition of his life’s work, including his revolutionary modern commentary on the entire Babylonian Talmud. But how did young Adin, a rebellious teenager adrift in Jerusalem, morph into an internationally acclaimed rabbi, scholar and educator?

Chabad.org, 2020

The longtime Yeshiva University leader, who died recently at the age of 92, placed Chassidic thou... more The longtime Yeshiva University leader, who died recently at the age of 92, placed Chassidic thought at the center of his "centrist" project

Chabad.org, 2020

A chassidic meditation on the ambiguity of Achashveirosh in the Megillah and of G-d in the world ... more A chassidic meditation on the ambiguity of Achashveirosh in the Megillah and of G-d in the world
Part 1: Kingship and Theology in the Purim Story
Part 2: The Cosmic Masquerade of Divine Kingship
Part 3: Turning Theology Inside-Out
Part 4: The Mystical Significance of Achashveirosh’s Cloak
Part 5: Real-Nothingness, Real-Transcendence
Part 6: Real-Action, Real-Delight

Too often, small differences play an outsized role in the formation of individual and group ident... more Too often, small differences play an outsized role in the formation of individual and group identity. Honest differences might emerge from the diversity of society. But divisiveness has its roots in the ego’s quest for authority. As a stand-in for the hard work of finding ourselves and making something of ourselves, we often take the lazier route of identifying who we are by differentiating ourselves from others. We are left with toxic bubbles of judgmental self-righteousness. This is one of the crucial insights developed by Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn of Lubavitch (1860-1920) in a short manifesto on social disharmony and its antidote. This manifesto is well known in Chabad by its opening word, Hiḥoltsu, but it has only been briefly noted in academic literature. The present study represents the first comprehensive discussion of a text that seems especially relevant in the present political and cultural climate.

On the dialectic of revelation and concealment in Chabad's conception of tzimtzum, with particula... more On the dialectic of revelation and concealment in Chabad's conception of tzimtzum, with particular focus on the treatment of this topic by Rabbi Joseph B. Solovietchik in Halakhic Man, and on the Tzemach Tzedek's discussion of the distinction between the kav and the reshimu. A central point is that concealment and revelation are not simply understood as epistomological categories but as the ontic foundation of created reality.

The discussion of the Tzemach Tzedek also provides a good example of how he more generally approached the teachings of R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, surveying the latter's different treatments of the same or related topics, and comparing, contrasting and combining them through innovative explanation, differentiation and harmonization.

A new anthology mines the oral teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi for new insight into th... more A new anthology mines the oral teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi for new insight into the historical development of his leadership and the crystallization of his ideology, and also charts the impact of Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk on the emergence of Chabad as a distinct Chassidic movement. “HaRav: On the Tanya, Chabad thought, the path, leadership and disciples of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi” ed. Rabbi Nochum Grunwald, Hebrew, 798 pp. (Mechon HaRav, 2015).

Stanford University Press, Stanford Studies in Jewish Mysticism, 2025

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional his... more Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional history of Chabad Hasidism through the Kabbalistic concept of ṣimṣum. The onset of modernity, Eli Rubin argues, was heralded by this startling idea: existence itself is predicated on a self-inflicted "rupture" in the infinite assertion of divinity. Centuries of theoretical disputations concerning ṣimṣum ultimately morphed into religious and social schism. These debates confronted the meaning of being and forged the animating ethos of Chabad, the most dynamic movement in modern Judaism.

Chabad's distinctive character and self-image, Rubin shows, emerged from its spirited defense of Hasidism's interpretation of ṣimṣum as an act of love leading to rapturous reunion. This interpretation ignited a literal conflagration, complete with book burnings, denunciations, investigations, and arrests. Chabad's subsequent preoccupation with ṣimṣum was equally significant for questions of legitimacy, authority, and succession, as for existential questions of being and meaning.

Unfolding the story of Chabad from the early modern period to the twentieth century, this book provides fresh portraits of the successive leaders of the movement. Innovatively integrating history, philosophy, and literature, Rubin shows how Kabbalistic ideas are crucially entangled in the experience of modernity and in the response to its ruptures.

RABBI MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON (1902–1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was one of the most... more RABBI MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON (1902–1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was one of the most influential personalities of the 20th century and the only rabbi ever awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite wide recognition of Schneerson’s impact, this is the first volume to seriously explore his social ideas and activism. Schneerson not only engineered a global Jewish renaissance but also became an advocate for the revitalization of education, criminal justice reform, women’s empowerment, and alternative energy. From the personal to the global, his teachings chart a practical path for the replacement of materialism, alienation, anxiety and divisiveness with a dignified and joyous reciprocity.

Social Vision delves into the deep structures of social reality and the ways it is shaped and reshaped by powerful ideologies. Juxtaposed with sociologist Max Weber’s diagnosis of “inner worldly asceticism” as “the spirit of capitalism,” Schneerson’s socio-mystical worldview is compellingly framed as a transformative paradigm for the universal repair of society. The library of Schneerson’s talks and writings is voluminous, but critics have described this distillation as artful, engaging, ambitious, bracing, relevant and imperative. Social Vision boldly upends conventional polarizations between tradition and progress, religion and science, mysticism and society, providing a wealth of intellectual and practical resources for all who seek a better future for humanity.

In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, 2024

Avro­hom Eliy­ohu Plotkin was born in Raha­chow (in present-day Belarus) in the Russ­ian Empire, ... more Avro­hom Eliy­ohu Plotkin was born in Raha­chow (in present-day Belarus) in the Russ­ian Empire, in 1888. After the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, he served as the rab­bi of Ostashkov, a provin­cial town mid­way between Moscow and Leningrad, at a time when the Jew­ish Sec­tions (Evsek­t­si­ia) of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty — sup­port­ed by oth­er agents of the Sovi­et state — were forcibly clos­ing all the insti­tu­tions that made Jew­ish reli­gious life pos­si­ble. In 1946 he escaped to the West, and in his last years he head­ed the Tomkhei-Temim­im Yeshi­va estab­lished at the DP Camp in Pock­ing, Ger­many. Unusu­al­ly for a rab­binic schol­ar of his stature and of this era, Plotkin also wrote sev­er­al short sto­ries, essays, and poems that poignant­ly cap­ture the tragedy and the spir­it of Jew­ish reli­gious life dur­ing the ear­ly decades of the Sovi­et experiment.

AJS Review, 2021

The maskilic characterization of the nineteenth century as a period of decline and ossification f... more The maskilic characterization of the nineteenth century as a period of decline and ossification for Hasidism is increasingly eschewed by scholars, yet continues to mark current research in significant ways. As a case study, this article takes up Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch ("Maharash," 1834-1882), rescrutinizing (1) the controversy surrounding the onset of his leadership, (2) his personality and charisma, (3) his methodological approach to the teachings and texts that he inherited from his predecessors, and (4) his theological contributions and their place in the broader trajectory of Chabad's intellectual history. His tenure emerges as a false twilight, in which a new foundation was laid for the perpetuation and expansion of Chabad-Lubavitch, as both an intellectual and activist movement, in the century that followed.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2020

From 1777 and onward, the Hasidic communities in the Diaspora and the Holy Land were bound togeth... more From 1777 and onward, the Hasidic communities in the Diaspora and the Holy Land were bound together in an economic and spiritual circle of mutual reliance. A survey of the epistolary literature exchanged between these communities reveals that the terms of this circular relationship were respectively understood by R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, R. Avraham of Kalisk, and R. Shneur Zalman of Liady in some ways very similarly, and in other ways very differently. They all shared a socio-mystical conception of the constitution of Hasidic spirituality. Nevertheless, the latter figures each developed the doctrines of the former in very different directions. It emerges that they disagreed not only about the practical techniques that would achieve the socio-mystical ideal, but also about if and how personal integrity could correspond to the divine measure of truth. Building on a theoretical critique of the standard bifurcation of the mystical and the social, and through close readings of relevant texts, this paper revises the conclusions drawn by Joseph Weiss regarding R. Avraham's "concept of communion with God and Men" (Part I), parses the doctrinal similarities and differences between these three Hasidic leaders (Part II), and finally uncovers an implicit polemic that can be discerned when R. Shneur Zalman's Tanya is reread in its historical and ideological context (Part III).

Kabbalah in America, 2020

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), the seventh leader of the Habad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty... more Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), the seventh leader of the Habad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty, came to the United States as a refugee, having fled Paris as the Nazis took control of France. Yet the American future of Hasidism had already been con- sidered in a letter addressed to him in 1933 by his father-in-law and predecessor as “Lubavitcher Rebbe,” Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson. Therein we find the beginnings of a kabbalistic theorization of the pivotal role that America was to play in the realiza- tion of the very telos of creation. Transposed from the realm of kabbalistic theory into the realm of socio-historical analysis, this became the basis for the seventh rebbe’s development and enactment of a counter-cultural strategy for a post-holocaust Jewish renaissance, centered not in Israel, but in America.

JEWISH SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION, 2019

Hasidism—which took root in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century and is to... more Hasidism—which took root in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century and is today especially vibrant in Israel and the United States—is enchanting to some and disturbing to others, precisely because it is simultaneously characterized by mystical spirituality and this-worldly exuberance; by elitist esoterism and exoteric populism; by the individualistic figure of the tzadik and the ideal of communal egalitarianism in collective life. Building on the theoretical paths charted by Philip and Elliot Wolfson this paper argues for a non-reductive "socio-mystical" approach to the study of Hasidic texts, history, practices, and phenomena. Taking up the example of Habad at the two poles of its two hundred year history it is argued that just as Habad’s contemplative practice cannot be reduced to individual mystical activity, so Habad’s communal work cannot be reduced to social activity. Contemporary Habad activism is, in fact, the culmination and realization of an intellectual tradition of great depth and breadth, at the heart of which stands the fundamental axiom that the mystical and the social are one and the same.

In Geveb, 2018

The imprint of Hasidism and Hasidic tales in modern Jewish literature has already received some a... more The imprint of Hasidism and Hasidic tales in modern Jewish literature has already received some attention from scholars, and the literary significance of Hasidic mamarim and other mystical texts has also been noted. This paper seeks to take the interdisciplinary study of Hasidism and modern Jewish literature one step further, tracing some of the ways that Chabad Hasidism’s internal tradition of “literary mysticism” has intervened in the broader trajectory of modern Jewish literature. My first task in this paper is to trace internal developments in the Chabad literary tradition over the course of the nineteenthth century, and to demonstrate how this internal trajectory was given broader expression in Khayim gravitser, a Yiddish novel by Dr. Fishl Schneersohn of Rechytsa, Berlin, and Tel Aviv (1888-1958). The second part of this paper takes a closer look at the Hebrew poet Avraham Shlonsky (1900-1973), who translated Schneersohn’s novel from the original Yiddish, and at the ways that the novel’s title character might be seen as an avatar for Shlonsky’s own self-identification as a Hasidic rebel, traveling between opposing shores. Taken as a whole, this paper aims to complicate the neat chronology that bifurcates modern Jewish literature from its Hasidic roots, and show that both Schneersohn and Shlonsky actually continued the Hasidic literary tradition of Chabad even as they embraced alternative literary forms in the cause of new agendas.

In Geveb, 2019

​ Yiddish has always been the oracular mainstay of Chabad's intellectual and spiritual trajectory... more ​ Yiddish has always been the oracular mainstay of Chabad's intellectual and spiritual trajectory. Initially it was simply the vernacular of the Jews in Eastern Europe, and its use, even in Hasidic publications, merely reflected its utility as a linguistic medium for the dissemination of Hasidic teachings. From the mid-nineteenth century, however, Yiddish became a contested language, an ideological and cultural battleground. In response to the linguistic interventions proposed by proponents of Haskalah and Zionism, Yiddish became subject to broader ideological considerations for Chabad's leaders. By the 1920s, processes of urbanization and migration had dramatically changed the linguistic environment in which Chabad sought to perpetuate its teachings, and the use of Yiddish began to be seen as a link to the past, but also as a gateway for the translation of Hasidic teachings into other languages, an initiative in which women played important roles. In this period, Yiddish also began to be framed as a linguistic bridge between alienation and intimacy, reflecting the classical Chabad concern with the sacralization of the self and the world. In the post-Holocaust era, the movement's seventh Rebbe enfolded earlier Chabad conceptions of Yiddish within a fuller theorization, drawing on the classical Hasidic doctrine of divine immanence to recast Yiddish as the language of redemption, a language whose true significance must ultimately transcend the particularity of any Jewish language, and resonate in every language.

Jewish Review of Books, 2024

Review of Zimzum: God and the Origin of the World, by Christoph Schulte, translated by Corey Twit... more Review of Zimzum: God and the Origin of the World, by Christoph Schulte, translated by Corey Twitchell (University of Pennsylvania Press)

In Geveb, 2024

Against the fraught intersections of emancipation, acculturation, assimilation, and colonization,... more Against the fraught intersections of emancipation, acculturation, assimilation, and colonization, institutionalized Torah education emerged as a form of Hasidic cultural resistance powerful enough to survive the Holocaust.

Chabad.org, 2024

Artscroll’s edition of Kedushas Levi invites a reassessment of its author’s intellectual legacy

The Lehrhaus, 2019

Review essay on Alan Rosen. The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Ho... more Review essay on Alan Rosen. The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019. pp. 251. Hardback 80/Paperback80 / Paperback 80/Paperback35 / Ebook $34.99.

Argues that Rosen provides an important corrective to the tendency of academic Jewish scholarship to engage in explicit and implicit processes of secularization, and of materialistic, or non-Jewish, reductionism. Through a new focus on what might be called "calendrical resistance," and through a fresh integration of historiography and hermeneutics, he forges a path that leads beyond Holocaust time by delving into its devestating details

Jewish Currents, 2022

A century separates us from the first decrees targeting religion in the aftermath of the Bolshevi... more A century separates us from the first decrees targeting religion in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, and decades have passed since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Yet the false dichotomy between commitment to progress and commitment to faith remains implicit in much ideological discourse and debate. “Kaddish Denied,” a semi-autobiographical story by Avrohom Eliyohu Plotkin (), provides an intimate dramatization of the Chabad experience of repressive persecution in the early decades of the Soviet era. Yet, it centers a character whose very identity is a rejection of the false bifurcation between working people and religious Jews. Plotkin's tale shows us how countercultural ideology and camaraderie becomes the stuff of memory, of identity, of intergenerational continuity and community. It also protests the assumed “shidduch” between socialism and secularism.

Chabad.org, 2021

The achievements of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (“Steinsaltz,” 1937-2020) are well known. A towering s... more The achievements of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (“Steinsaltz,” 1937-2020) are well known. A towering scholar, author, philosopher and social critic, Steinsaltz was honored with many prestigious awards and academic appointments in recognition of his life’s work, including his revolutionary modern commentary on the entire Babylonian Talmud. But how did young Adin, a rebellious teenager adrift in Jerusalem, morph into an internationally acclaimed rabbi, scholar and educator?

Chabad.org, 2020

The longtime Yeshiva University leader, who died recently at the age of 92, placed Chassidic thou... more The longtime Yeshiva University leader, who died recently at the age of 92, placed Chassidic thought at the center of his "centrist" project

Chabad.org, 2020

A chassidic meditation on the ambiguity of Achashveirosh in the Megillah and of G-d in the world ... more A chassidic meditation on the ambiguity of Achashveirosh in the Megillah and of G-d in the world
Part 1: Kingship and Theology in the Purim Story
Part 2: The Cosmic Masquerade of Divine Kingship
Part 3: Turning Theology Inside-Out
Part 4: The Mystical Significance of Achashveirosh’s Cloak
Part 5: Real-Nothingness, Real-Transcendence
Part 6: Real-Action, Real-Delight

Too often, small differences play an outsized role in the formation of individual and group ident... more Too often, small differences play an outsized role in the formation of individual and group identity. Honest differences might emerge from the diversity of society. But divisiveness has its roots in the ego’s quest for authority. As a stand-in for the hard work of finding ourselves and making something of ourselves, we often take the lazier route of identifying who we are by differentiating ourselves from others. We are left with toxic bubbles of judgmental self-righteousness. This is one of the crucial insights developed by Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn of Lubavitch (1860-1920) in a short manifesto on social disharmony and its antidote. This manifesto is well known in Chabad by its opening word, Hiḥoltsu, but it has only been briefly noted in academic literature. The present study represents the first comprehensive discussion of a text that seems especially relevant in the present political and cultural climate.

On the dialectic of revelation and concealment in Chabad's conception of tzimtzum, with particula... more On the dialectic of revelation and concealment in Chabad's conception of tzimtzum, with particular focus on the treatment of this topic by Rabbi Joseph B. Solovietchik in Halakhic Man, and on the Tzemach Tzedek's discussion of the distinction between the kav and the reshimu. A central point is that concealment and revelation are not simply understood as epistomological categories but as the ontic foundation of created reality.

The discussion of the Tzemach Tzedek also provides a good example of how he more generally approached the teachings of R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, surveying the latter's different treatments of the same or related topics, and comparing, contrasting and combining them through innovative explanation, differentiation and harmonization.

A new anthology mines the oral teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi for new insight into th... more A new anthology mines the oral teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi for new insight into the historical development of his leadership and the crystallization of his ideology, and also charts the impact of Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk on the emergence of Chabad as a distinct Chassidic movement. “HaRav: On the Tanya, Chabad thought, the path, leadership and disciples of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi” ed. Rabbi Nochum Grunwald, Hebrew, 798 pp. (Mechon HaRav, 2015).

The role of the tzadik as articulated in the written and oral teachings of R. Schneur Zalman of L... more The role of the tzadik as articulated in the written and oral teachings of R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi has been addressed in the past. But the central focus in this article is a teaching that I believe can be traced back to the very beginning of his path as a Chassidic devotee and master, and which has previously been overlooked despite its significance. Invoking the Kabbalistic narrative of the shattered vessels and their repair, this teaching is framed as an interpretation of the first dream of Joseph and uses gender to recast the role of the tzadik, not only within the community, but within the universal hierarchy of the entire cosmos. An examination of this teaching, as well as other sources, forces us to expand the educational model emphasized by scholars in the past, and suggests that the similarities and distinctions between Chabad’s understanding of the tzaddik’s role and that of other Chassidic groups is more complex than has generally been understood.

A contextualization of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi's discussion of the Kabblistic motif of the ... more A contextualization of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi's discussion of the Kabblistic motif of the trace (reshimu) within the broader context of his reinterpretation of Arizal's tzimtzum narrative. This motif was introduced as a peripheral amendment to the tzimtzum narrative by Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, and further developed by Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Bachrach, in the 17th century. But R. Schneur Zalman transformed it from a peripheral amendment to the central linchpin and in doing so endowed the entire narrative with new coherence and meaning. Pushing the ontological and epistemological significance of tzimtzum to new horizons, R. Schneur Zalman identifies the trace simultaneously as the divine capacity of limitation and as the disclosure of G-d's transcendent omnipotence, "the capacity to limit the revealed assertion that cannot be limited at all." R. Schneur Zalman's treatment of Reshimu is made all the more significant by the central role it played in an internal social and intellectual schism that took shape in the fourth and fifth generations of Chabad.

If to be modern is simply to reject the past and capitulate to contemporary consensus, the Rebbe ... more If to be modern is simply to reject the past and capitulate to contemporary consensus, the Rebbe took no part in it. But if to be modern is to entirely emancipate yourself from history, to transcend the flux of fashion and actualize the full potential of the present moment, the Rebbe was way ahead of the curve. One example of the Rebbe’s approach is his emphasis of the Torah’s universal vision, and of the seminal distinctions separating the secular universalism of modernity from the religious universalism of Judaism.

A little known alternative to the approach to prayer described in Tanya and elsewhere in Rabbi Sc... more A little known alternative to the approach to prayer described in Tanya and elsewhere in Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi's teachings. As in Chapter 28 of Tanya, this approach too is predicated in the doctrine of the two souls, but in a discourse found in Likkutei Torah (and an earlier version in Et'halech Lioznah) prayer is described as a song rather than as a struggle. Rather than confronting inadequacies and agonizing over them, we are simply enjoined to disown them, and embrace the transcendent song of our truer selves, of our G‑dly souls. The divine soul of each individual, he further explains, is a refraction of the collective soul of the Jewish people, which is in turn synonymous with the divine presence of G‑d on earth.

This article seeks to recontextualize the teachings of Chabad Hasidism within the broader history... more This article seeks to recontextualize the teachings of Chabad Hasidism within the broader history of Jewish thought. Although I deal with some of the central teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the foundation of this article is a 1978 discourse by the seventh rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. His reading of the wise son's question, and of the answer given by the Haggadah, epitomizes Chabad's synthesis of rationalist and mystical approaches with an essentially Midrashic orientation. It is specifically through this kind of synthesis, he argues, that divine intimacy can be communicated in the place of otherness, bringing the divine desire for a dwelling in the lower realms to ultimate fruition.

Identity and meaning hang upon the balance that must be struck between the two poles of unity and... more Identity and meaning hang upon the balance that must be struck between the
two poles of unity and multiplicity. According to Isaiah Berlin, this existential
dilemma lies at the heart of Tolstoy’s great epic, “War and Peace.” All people
that are not superficial believe in some kind of cohesive vision. But when the
threads of life start to unravel, even the wisest of men may be rendered mute.
In “The Gate of Unity and Faith,” Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi expands
the quintessence of faith into the circle of reason, and fits the square of
dissonance into the circle of life.

The conceptual, social and practical significance of Rabbi Schneur Zalman's distinction between t... more The conceptual, social and practical significance of Rabbi Schneur Zalman's distinction between the infinite revelation of divinity (ohr ain sof) and the infinite essence of divinity (etsem ha-ma'or), and his related assertion that the "the luminary is revealed" (ha-ma'or hu be-hitgalut).

An examination of Judaism's history of apocalyptic calculations, with particular attention to the... more An examination of Judaism's history of apocalyptic calculations, with particular attention to the calculations made by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Laidi and the general conception of time in Chabad messianism.

In the Beilis trial of 1913 false accusations of ritual murder were leveled against the entire co... more In the Beilis trial of 1913 false accusations of ritual murder were leveled against the entire corpus of Torah teaching, the Jewish people generally, and the Chassidic movement specifically. A show of unity, humanity and truth frustrated a conspiracy of power and hate. But ultimately, Beilis's acquittal was a bittersweet victory; the central problem was not laid to rest.

Following the passing of Arizal the import of the tzimtzum narrative became a matter of disagreem... more Following the passing of Arizal the import of the tzimtzum narrative became a matter of disagreement among the Mediterranean kabbalists, and later became a seminal bone of contention in the explosive confrontation between Chassidim and Mitnagdim in the latter half of the 18th century.

In June 1941 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, arrived in Lisbon to... more In June 1941 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, arrived in Lisbon together with his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka (Moussia). Poised to leave Nazi occupied Europe for the free world, an entry in the Rebbe’s private journal reveals how he drew on his past to chart a dual vision for the future.

During the Russo-Japanese War, tens of thousands of Jewish conscripts found themselves in China. ... more During the Russo-Japanese War, tens of thousands of Jewish conscripts found themselves in China. Collaborating with the imperial Russian government, the fifth rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch instigated a campaign to provide them with Passover matzah.

AJS Conference , 2021

This article begins by examining the themes of “hypernomianism,” “popularization,” and “subjectiv... more This article begins by examining the themes of “hypernomianism,” “popularization,” and “subjectivity” in relation to early Hasidic minhag in order to better examine their reoccurrence—albeit in different forms and in the context of a different historical era—as salient elements in the new theorizations developed by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. These themes, I argue, are manifest in his use of minhag as a hypernomian catalyst to enhance, expand and fortify nomian engagement and participation.

Part 1 - The Hypernomian Character of Minhag in Hasidism / Part 2 - Minhag and the Reshaping of Jewish Practice in the Post-War Era / Part 3 - Minhag and the Expansion of Women’s Participation in Nomian Practice / Part 4 - Nomos and Subjectivity in Ramash’s Harmonization of Halakhah and Minhag

On the second night of Rosh Hashanah in the year 5666 (1905), Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn of ... more On the second night of Rosh Hashanah in the year 5666 (1905), Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn of Lubavitch (“Rashab,” 1860-1920) delivered the first instalment in a series (hemshekh) of sixty-one discourses that would become known simply as Samekh vav. One hundred years after its author’s passing this text stands as the clearest, most elegant, and most comprehensive articulation of Habad thought since the appearance of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liady’s Tanya in the last decade of the 18th century. While it has long been the mainstay of the advanced ḥasidut curriculum in Habad yeshivot it has received almost no attention in academic literature on Habad.

As a dialogical counterpoint to the exploration of so-called “heart-based” Hasidism amongst the s... more As a dialogical counterpoint to the exploration of so-called “heart-based” Hasidism amongst the spiritual successors of Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk, this paper explores the significance of affect—and the autonomy of affect—as reflected among the spiritual successors of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. I will argue that a shift can be detected from what might be termed the cognitive behavioural concerns of Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s Tanya, to a more phenomenological concern with the ways in which the living tradition of Torah study and mitzvah observance makes the infinite light (or ayn sof)—or even the essence of the infinite light (atsmut or ayn sof)—manifest in the world. While relating to widder questions of hasidic “service of the heart,” I will focus especially on the discourses of Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneerson of Lubavitch (“the Rebbe Rashab,” 1860-1920).

Part 1 - Traversing the Habad / Hagat Dialectic
Part 2 - Mind and Heart Within and Beyond the Tanya‘s Leaves
Part 3 - Foregrounding Affect in Rashab’s Samakh vav
Part 4 - Re’uta deliba and the Fusion of Sonship with Servitude

Reflections by Eli Rubin, delivered on September 9th 2020 / Elul 21st, 5780 Philip Wexler, with ... more Reflections by Eli Rubin, delivered on September 9th 2020 / Elul 21st, 5780

Philip Wexler, with Eli Rubin and Michael Wexler, Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 2019)

The term “oracular hermeneutics” exposes the tension between the authoritativeness of the Hasidic... more The term “oracular hermeneutics” exposes the tension between the authoritativeness of the Hasidic sermon, inclining towards dogmatism, and its polyvocality, which encourages each hasidic disciple to hear the sermon as it speaks to them individually. Chabad’s Seventh Rebbe, I argue, was not only aware of this problem, but also developed a metaphysical theory designed to free hermeneutics from the trap of dogma. This is exemplified by his defense of the literal interpretation of ṣimṣum, even though its rejection has always been an axial dogma of Chabad thought. Associating the polyvocality of Hasidism’s oracular hermeneutics with atika kadisha’s singular and polyontological capaciousness, he returned differentiation to the fold of oneness through a synthesis that was totalizing, but not homogenizing.