Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism

by Shaul Magid, Elliot R. Wolfson (Editor), Barbara Ellen Galli (Editor)

Hasidism on the Margin explores one of the most provocative and radical traditions of Hasidic thought, the school of Izbica and Radzin that Rabbi Gershon Henokh originated in nineteenth-century Poland. Shaul Magid traces the intellectual history of this strand of Judaism from medieval Jewish philosophy through centuries of Kabbalistic texts to the nineteenth century and into the present. He contextualizes the Hasidism of Izbica-Radzin in the larger philosophy and history of religions and provides a model for inquiry into other forms of Hasidism.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2003

About the author

The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies
Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program
My teaching focuses primarily on Kabbala, Hasidism, religious fundamentalism, Israel/Palestine, and modern and American Jewish thought and culture. Areas of interest and research include sixteenth century Kabbala, Hasidism, American Judaism, comparative religion, and contemporary conceptions of Jewish religiosity. I am the editor of God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Essays on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (SUNY Press, 2001), co-editor of Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutic of Jewish Texts (Seven Bridges Press, 2002) and author of Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008) which was awarded the 2008 American Academy of Religion Award for best book in religion in the textual studies category, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013) and Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). I am the series editor for “Post-Rabbinic Judaisms” for Academic Studies Press. I am also a regular contributor to Tikkun Magazine, Zeek Magazine, Open Zion, and Religion Dispatches.

Reviews

[Tamar Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasidism on the Margins is a brilliant study of the complex and interrelated conceptual underpinnings of the thought of Ishbitz-Radzin Hasidism, based on the major works of the school and especially on R. Gershon Hanokh Leiner’s ha-Hakdama ve-ha-Petiha (i.e., the grandson of the Mei ha-Shiloah). It emphasizes the antinomian radicalism of the movement - the marginality of the title - which, as the author acknowledges in one place, is theoretical rather than actual in any real way. I found this point to be less interesting than the exposition of the movement’s thoughts about free will and determinism, the messianic potential, and other theological topics, many of which follow counterintuitive but, in Magid’s hands, remarkably cogent, trajectories. As well as exploring a fascinating branch of modern Jewish thought, Hasidism on the Margins is an exemplar and model of what it means to closely read and seriously engage with traditional Jewish, non-systematic texts.

[Seekers of Unity · Rating 3 out of 5]

Magid does a good job at surveying Antinomianism and its relationship to Messianism in Izbica/Radzin. I liked his depiction on the individual who stands in the ambiguous borderland past personal redemption but far before global realization. I don’t know if the subject justified a full book length, I feel like he had to stretch it and could have, by cutting out unnecessary repetition, published this work as an extended essay.

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