Overview

Piety and Rebellion examines the span of the Hasidic textual tradition from its earliest phases to the 20th century. The essays collected in this volume focus on the tension between Hasidic fidelity to tradition and its rebellious attempt to push the devotional life beyond the borders of conventional religious practice. Many of the essays exhibit a comparative perspective deployed to better articulate the innovative spirit, and traditional challenges, Hasidism presents to the traditional Jewish world. Piety and Rebellion is an attempt to present Hasidism as one case whereby maximalist religion can yield a rebellious challenge to conventional conceptions of religious thought and practice.

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One distinguishing element of the essays contained in this volume, and of Magid's work more generally, is a willingness to engage in interpretive play at the intersections where Kabbalah and Hasidism converge. In addition to its eclectic quality, another feature that distinguishes Piety and Rebellion is the book's bold autobiographical introduction. Here, Magid recounts his own captivating journey. It is the story of a restless intellectual, who, fashioning himself both an insider and an outsider, has sustained his soul on everything from macrobiotics and LSD to the yeshivas of Jerusalem, from the rabbinate to the Ivy League. ... I find Piety and Rebellion to be a stimulating addition to the scholarship on Hasidism by one of its most energetic, creative, and politically engaged interpreters. There is much to praise in these studies, which are as varied as the variegated corpus of Hasidism itself. -Jeremy Phillip Brown, McGill University, H-Judaic

In pieces that span two decades of research, Magid's refined thinking interrogates Hasidism(s), as it appeared in moments ranging from the early generation of pioneering piety surrounding the Ba'al Shem Tov to contemporary anti-Zionist Satmar. He navigates the Hasidic underground and yeshivah life as a participant observer while offering critical analyses that move toward a more global religious criticism asking bigger questions from Jewish sources. ... Here are essays from a scholar who fuses the rebellious piety of Oleksa Dovbush, Ukrainian Robin Hood and driver of the Ba'al Shem Tov's horse and buggy, with the pious rebellion of Ken Kesey, the all-American author who drove his Merry Pranksters on their Furthur bus across America through and beyond the psychedelic-a true rough guide for the future study of religion still busy being born. - Aubrey L. Glazer, Shaare Zion Congregation, Religious Studies Review (September 2020: Vol. 46, no. 3) One distinguishing element of the essays contained in this volume, and of Magid's work more generally, is a willingness to engage in interpretive play at the intersections where Kabbalah and Hasidism converge. In addition to its eclectic quality, another feature that distinguishes Piety and Rebellion is the book's bold autobiographical introduction. Here, Magid recounts his own captivating journey. It is the story of a restless intellectual, who, fashioning himself both an insider and an outsider, has sustained his soul on everything from macrobiotics and LSD to the yeshivas of Jerusalem, from the rabbinate to the Ivy League. ... I find Piety and Rebellion to be a stimulating addition to the scholarship on Hasidism by one of its most energetic, creative, and politically engaged interpreters. There is much to praise in these studies, which are as varied as the variegated corpus of Hasidism itself. - Jeremy Phillip Brown, McGill University, H-Judaic

One distinguishing element of the essays contained in this volume, and of Magid's work more generally, is a willingness to engage in interpretive play at the intersections where Kabbalah and Hasidism converge. In addition to its eclectic quality, another feature that distinguishes Piety and Rebellion is the book's bold autobiographical introduction. Here, Magid recounts his own captivating journey. It is the story of a restless intellectual, who, fashioning himself both an insider and an outsider, has sustained his soul on everything from macrobiotics and LSD to the yeshivas of Jerusalem, from the rabbinate to the Ivy League. ... I find Piety and Rebellion to be a stimulating addition to the scholarship on Hasidism by one of its most energetic, creative, and politically engaged interpreters. There is much to praise in these studies, which are as varied as the variegated corpus of Hasidism itself. --Jeremy Phillip Brown, McGill University, H-Judaic

Author Information

Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeanie Schottensten Professor in the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University and Kogod Senior Research Fellow at The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is a member of the American Academy of Jewish Research. His work spans the areas of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Modern Jewish Thought and Culture.

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