[Avodah] Is Panentheism Heresy?
Prof. Levine
llevine at stevens.edu
Wed Jan 2 07:56:26 PST 2013
From http://tinyurl.com/bah5lbo
After an impostor posing as the Vilna Gaon's son claimed that his
"father" had reversed his negative evaluation of Chassidus, the
elderly sage issued a letter in 1796 denying a change of heart. After
the authenticity of this letter was questioned, the Vilna Gaon in
1797 issued another letter detailing his problems with the movement.
The letter was circulated and published the next year in the Slutzker
Maggid's book and many times since. I take it from Mordechai
Willensky's Chassidim U-Misnagdim (Mossad Bialik, 2nd ed. vol. 1 p.
187ff.). In the middle of his list of accusations against Chassidim,
written in flowery rabbinic Hebrew, the Vilna Gaon states (p. 188, in
loose translation):
Oh how the generation lifted its eyes and spoke words directed above:
"This is your god, Israel" (Ex. 32:8), every tree and rock. They
reveal the Torah contrary to law in the verse: "Blessed is the glory
of God from His place" (Ez. 3:12) and in the verse: "And you preserve
them all" (Ne. 9:6).
As Willensky points out in his footnotes, these are accusations of
heresy. The Vilna Gaon charges Chassidim with believing in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism>panentheism, that God is
present in everything, even inanimate objects. The Tanya (2:Yichud
Ve-Emunah:1) states that God is present in inanimate objects and in
this next chapter explains Ne. (9:6) similarly. It also explains
(1:42) Ez. (3:12) in this manner.
It is not clear how the Vilna Gaon knew the contents of the as-yet
unpublished Tanya. Historians suggest he saw an unpublished draft or
an early printing. It is irrelevant because his understanding of
Chabad philosophy was confirmed by the Ba'al Ha-Tanya. In an undated
letter, first published in 1857 and then many times since, the Ba'al
Ha-Tanya explains his philosophical disagreement with the Vilna Gaon.
<Snip>
We see that the Ba'al Ha-Tanya accepts the Vilna Gaon's description
of his views as panentheism. However, he defends this theological
view as authentically Jewish while the Vilna Gaon rejects them as heresy.
In particular, the Ba'al Ha-Tanya portrays himself as the defender of
tradition and the Vilna Gaon as the radical philosopher, the
innovative theologian trying to determine on his own the nature of God
See the above URL for the entire post.
Yitzchok Levine
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