Language:
English
Year of publication:
2015
Titel der Quelle:
Melilah - New Series; Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
12 (2015) 145-157
Keywords:
Singer, Isaac Bashevis,
;
Singer, Isaac Bashevis, Family
;
Authors, Yiddish
;
Jews Intellectual life 20th century
;
Uncertainty (Jewish law)
;
Mysticism Judaism
;
Hasidim
;
Mitnaggedim
Abstract:
In a chapter of his memoirs, the acclaimed Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer grants his readers some insight into the life of his father’s rabbinic household in Warsaw – a household full of contrasts and tensions between his parents’ conflicting personalities, between Hasidic and Mitnagdic tendencies and between mysticism and scepticism. Both his father’s mysticism and his mother’s scepticism were formative influences on Bashevis, and his writing constantly vacillates between these two world-views. Bashevis is well-known for his short stories about demons, dybbuks and other supernatural phenomena, but it is interesting to note that at times his demons clearly seem to be external manifestations of internal, psychological states of being, whereas at other times no rational explanation for an apparent supernatural phenomenon can be found. Bashevis’s narrators and protagonists constantly question God and express their scepticism about traditional Jewish beliefs, while, on the other hand, they are deeply influenced by Jewish mystical ideas. The conflict between rationalism and mysticism, between modern philosophy and Jewish religious beliefs, especially Kabbalistic ideas, never gets resolved in Bashevis’s works, but this continuous tension is exactly what makes Bashevis such a great writer!
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