Gershom Scholem Quotes
Gerhard, later Gershom, Scholem was a German-Israeli philosopher, historian, and the founder of the academic study of Jewish mysticism. Born in Berlin and committed from his teens to a rigorous Zionist and Jewish intellectual life, he emigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1923 and founded the chair of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The quotes below are attributed to Gershom Scholem, organized by topic.
Browse Gershom Scholem by topic
Gershom Scholem on God
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Attributed to Gershom Scholem:
“Mysticism stands at the heart of every living religion.”
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Attributed to Gershom Scholem:
“Kabbalah is the secret history of Judaism.”
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Attributed to Gershom Scholem:
“Messianism is the most dangerous and the most fruitful element in Judaism.”
Gershom Scholem on Justice
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“No one has a right to speak who, in the midst of thinking , hasn't been overcome with the experience of glimpsing the essence of history .”
Diary Entry (2 March 1916), published in Lamentations of Youth : The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919 , p. 109
Gershom Scholem on Knowledge
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“Ch. 1 : Religious Authority and Mysticism”
We shall start from the assumption that a mystic , insofar as he participates actively in the religious life of a community, does not act in the void. It is sometimes said, to be sure, that mystics, with their personal striving for transcendence, live outside of and above the historical level, that their experience is unrelated to historical experience. Some admire this ahistorical orientation, ot -
“Ch. 2 : The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism”
Here I need not go into the paradoxes and mysteries of Kabbalistic theology concerned with the seflroth and their nature . But one important point must be made. The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language . This gives rise to a deep-seated parallelism between the two most important ki
Gershom Scholem on Time
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Attributed to Gershom Scholem:
“Tradition is not the dead repetition of the past, but its living interpretation.”
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Attributed to Gershom Scholem:
“To recover a tradition is also to remake it.”