Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity

An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism

Eli Rubin

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English

Stanford University Press
25 March 2025

Social & cultural history; History of religion; Judaism; Kabbalah: popular works

Series: Stanford Studies in Jewish Mysticism

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.

By: Eli Rubin
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781503642072
ISBN 10: 1503642070
Series: Stanford Studies in Jewish Mysticism
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 25 March 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eli Rubin is a contributing editor at Chabad.org. He received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.

Reviews for Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism

""Rubin's book offers an exciting new way of thinking about Jewish modernity, making this one of the most original and interesting books in Jewish Studies of our time."" —Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College ""Chabad's rich intellectual history and its place in the broad existential currents of modernity finally get their due with Rubin's stupendous book, which like its author, is a wonder of erudition, insight, and humility."" —Yehudah Mirsky, Brandeis University ""Eli Rubin's book is the first full-length statement of Chabad's philosophical program for an American audience. It makes the remarkable—and defensible—assertion that Jewish thought, and specifically the sixteenth-century Kabbalah of Isaac Luria, opens possibilities for modern science that are closed to the old determinism of pre-quantum science.""—David P. Goldman, Law & Liberty