A New Hasidism: Roots

A New Hasidism: Roots, edited by Rabbi Arthur Green and Ariel Evan Mayse, is a book that has come along just at the right time.  Since the late-60s, the Jewish Renewal Movement (also called Neo-Hasidism, and here called a New Hasidism) has been digging deep roots into most areas of progressive Jewish life and practice.  It is high time for a book that explores the roots of this movement itself, and there is no better person to guide us than Rabbi Green and his student, Ariel Evan Mayse.

This first volume explores the writings of Buber, Heschel, Carlebach, Reb Zalman, and Arthur Green’s early work.  These are great picks, as they show the contours of the various incarnations of what would become Neo-Hasidism and Jewish Renewal. 

The issues, broadly, are what to take from the spirit of Hasidic worship, and what to leave behind.  Following closely behind this is the question of how much of halakah, the nuts and bolts of Jewish religious practice, should accompany this new movement.  There is a spectrum of answers, and they suit the complexity of the questions.  Finding a perch in this “new” Hasidism is actually an old question for American Jews, just in a new guise.

Overall it is a thrill to watch great thinkers go over these questions over the span of many decades (although I still understand very little of Buber's works).  One of the true gifts of Judaism is its fluidity and adaptability.  This volume clearly displays these qualities.