Gershom Sholem on Buber and his Chassidim

I am reading the delightful Lamentations of Youth: The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919.

There numerous entries that are simply fascinating. I feel uncanny closeness with Geshom’s intensity. I will through out some quotes. This one is about Buber. To be sure there are many entries about Buber in the dairy, including notes after their meetings. Some of the notes are full of admiration but this one is to the point critical. September 10, 1916:

"…One reads Buber, gobbles him up, imitates his use of German, and delivers a lecture on Hasidism. People treat Hasidism in a way they wouldn't dare do with anything else by speaking before an assembly without having studied its sources. And those gathered, caught up in an aesthetic ecstasy, were nearly whispering the words, "Oh yes, oh religiosity, religiosity."

This is unspeakably shameless. To be sure, Buber knows something about Hasidism, but he pulls out only one aspect—its subterranean side—and speaks about it. He has faith in Hasidism; in the depths of his heart he ascribes to the truth of the mystery of Kavanah; he believes in magic; and he writes a book whose only flaw is its beauty (and given the massive consequences of the book, this is a flaw). Hasidism is thereby made socially acceptable, and the aesthetes pounce on it like wolves. |. . .] They confuse beauty with truth, and do something forbidden by establishing a cult of the Baal Shem. For them, it's nonsense to study the sources or even to delve into other writings of Hasidism or mysticism. They speak without having any understanding of the totality of their subject.

None of these people has heard a thing about the total Hasidism. And this is because Buber (for a very specific reason that can only be touched upon here: his hatred of "visible" Judaism) leaves out everything connected to the deeply Jewish conception of Torah. He has completely hollowed out the notion of man becoming Torah, which does not refer to man becoming God but means that man lays hold of the deepest sense of Teaching in word and deed, that he comprehends the conception of the Torah. Buber robs Hasidism of its totality, the consequence of which is that none of these people has an inkling of the deepest conceptions within Hasidism. [. . .] Where Buber gets it wrong, they are ridiculous; and even where Buber (seen in his context) gets it right, their secondhand interpretation (exponentially, as it were) turns it into nonsense. The people in Charlottenburg worship Fichte, and here they worship Buber. And the Jew shivers in abhorrence at this blasphemy. I was in full agreement when Lubmann cursed these people horribly. I don't recognize the Zionism of people who haven't the foggiest understanding of Judaism and who waste their time with "religiosity," which is an aesthetic game they play in front of girls and the goyim. [. . .]"

Now substitute Buber with Sholmo Carlebach, it really works…