Hasidism, Cultism, and the Secular Imperative: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

I wrote the following essay in 1989 as a student at Harvard Divinity School, while cross-registered for a course on Hasidism taught by author and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel at Boston University School of Theology. I took the opportunity, in this paper, to point out that much of the anti-cult rhetoric of the time (which has subsided somewhat since the 70s and 80s), though couched in the terms of a criticism of psycho-social coercion (“brainwashing”) seemed, in actuality, to be a de facto criticism and rejection of high-intensity,
world-renouncing forms of spirituality. As a Jew who had spent a number of years in the Hare Krishna movement, my readings into Hassidism revealed many commonalities between the two traditions, especially with regard to the kinds of social-control issues that so antagonize opponents of “cults”—many Jewish individuals and organizations among them. As one who, in years past, had actively defended the Krishna movement against its anti-cult detractors, I found the parallels compelling, and thought it worthwhile to
raise the question whether there is a certain covert anti-religious bias in much anti-cult thinking, and perhaps a certain hypocrisy, in the present case, within a (then) robust and vociferous Jewish anticultism.