Correspondence, 1939 - 1969. Gershom Scholem

On the contrary, understanding the process of disintegration is a most valuable method for a philosophy of history that seeks to detect historical truth by examining its demise. Although not explicitly stated in the letter, Benjamin’s theories of truth and allegory – as presented in Origin of the German Trauerspiel are most decisive here: both Adorno and Scholem were familiar with it (Adorno, in fact, held seminars on the book in the early 1930s in Frankfurt), and it arguably shaped their views on the concept of historical truth. For Adorno, such disintegration of experience and truth is the process that generates myth. When truth and experience can no longer be recognized or communicated in their immediacy, they tend to be translated into myth. These are the historical origins of myth and of mythical thinking. These are, at the same time, the very mystical truths and experiences that the Enlightenment sought to annihilate, but failed to do so, since it could revert back to myth only by creating ever newer mythologies. Adorno describes this process here as “the transformation of spiritualism into myth.” This, in a nutshell, is the argument that will be unfolded in the Dialectic of Enlightenment’s diagnosis, namely that “Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.”³³

Secondly, Adorno asks about the nature of symbolic representation in Jewish mysticism – namely, whether the symbols conceal a hidden reality which can become tangible through a process of deciphering that would allow us to see reality as it is, or whether we can only face an endless chain of symbols: as he puts it, “whether there is any ground in this hierarchy of symbols or whether it represents a bottomless fall.”³⁴ The latter case raises the question of what Adorno calls “the context of delusion” [Verblendungszusammenhang]. This concept, which will become ever more central and decisive in Adorno’s work, in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and in subsequent writings, is introduced here for the first time. It concerns the epistemological question as to the possibility of seeing beyond social and ideological delusion. If we are continuously being deceived by the mechanisms of power and domination, and if these mechanisms affect, first and foremost, our consciousness and our ability to see clearly and critically, then how is it possible to “see through the delusion”? This epistemological but, at the same time, social and political question is one of the most essential questions both in Adorno’s work and in the Frankfurt School’s critical theory overall. It is noteworthy that it is developed here, probably for the first time, by means of an interpretation of the Zohar.

      It is fair to suggest that, while Adorno has never truly delved into the depths of Kabbalistic mysticism – or, for that matter, of any theological doctrine as such – he was indeed interested in its content and familiar with its ideas to the extent that he could reappropriate them for his own philosophical purposes. As noted above, having read Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Adorno acknowledged the significance and productive potential of Lurianic Kabbalah. Initially developed by Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572) in the community of Safed, located in the Galilee region of Palestine, and further articulated by his disciples (Luria himself produced no written texts; his teachings were transcribed by his disciples), Lurianic Kabbalah is a mystical theory of redemption. It provides a cosmogonic theory of the world’s creation, as formed by an omnipotent God and shattered by His very omnipotence. Such shattering is deemed a crisis of destruction, which places the potential of mending and restitution in the hands of human beings. Metaphysical redemption depends, accordingly, on human agency. Luria calls it “Tikkun,” mending. Although it is impossible to assert with absolute evidence, there is good reason to consider Adorno’s final aphorism of Minima Moralia to be a response to such Lurianic metaphysics of shattering and restitution:

      The only philosophy which can be responsibly practiced in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption. Knowledge has no light but that shed on the world by redemption: all else is reconstruction, mere technique. Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal it to be, with its rifts and crevices, as indigent and distorted as it will appear one day in the messianic light.³⁵

      Beyond the use of theological, soteriological, and arguably Kabbalistic terminology, it seems that Adorno’s very argument on the scope of redemption provides a response – which requires human agency and action – to what he perceives as “damaged life”: the destruction of natural, individual life by late capitalism and its ideology. Viewed from this perspective, the subject of Adorno’s book of aphorisms largely resonates with the destruction of divine powers in the mystical story of the world’s creation in Luria’s Kabbalistic metaphysics. In both cases – and this point is crucial to Adorno as much as it is crucial for Luria – metaphysical, theological redemption depends on ethics: on human, moral action.

To what extent, however, and in what sense can one speak of messianism in Adorno’s philosophy? And how much of it is indeed indebted to Scholem’s scholarship? This is one of the central and most intriguing questions that emerge from their correspondence. There are numerous hints and indications in Adorno’s writings and throughout the correspondence, which call for various interpretations. But one version of messianism is decidedly pertinent in this context, namely that of heretical messianism. Before reading any of Scholem’s published texts, Adorno learned at first hand of Scholem’s research on the topic during their first conversations. Adorno had most likely not received a copy of Scholem’s German text on the topic from 1937 (a copy of which Scholem sent to Benjamin), but he had read the relevant chapters in Major Trends. He also kept track of Scholem’s papers for the Eranos conference, an annual meeting of scholars of religion, which took place in Ascona, Switzerland. Scholem participated regularly in these meetings and published his papers in the Eranos Yearbook. From the mid-1950s onward, Scholem’s main research papers were first presented at these conferences, and published in the Eranos Yearbook, before finding their way into his own published collections of articles. Adorno attested to collecting and reading these works, some of which – especially on the topic of messianism, as he wrote – meant a great deal to him personally.³⁶

An opportunity for Adorno to learn more about these matters presented itself in 1963. Scholem, who was probably inclined to make Adorno aware of the proximity between heretical messianism and the latter’s own project of critical theory, suggested that he could contribute an article to the Festschrift celebrating Adorno’s sixtieth birthday. The title of his initial suggestion was “Heretical Messianism and Jewish Society,” implying a connection between his research on Sabbatianism and Adorno’s social philosophy. The paper, included in the volume Zeugnisse: Theodor W. Adorno zum 60. Geburtstag [Testimonials: for Theodor W. Adorno’s 60th birthday], edited by Max Horkheimer, was eventually entitled “Die Metamorphose des häretischen Messianismus der Sabbatianer in religiösen Nihilismus im 18. Jahrhundert” [The metamorphosis of the Sabbatians’ heretical messianism into religious nihilism in the 18th century].³⁷ This is a remarkable but underexplored text. In it, Scholem seems to be conducting historical research into the formation of Frankism and its radical doctrine of unlawfulness and transgression as a means to redemption; however, under the guise of historical scholarship, he brings to light some remarkable affinities between this heretical doctrine and Adorno’s own philosophy. For example, Scholem emphasizes the Frankists’ understanding of the existing social order as governed by unjustified, oppressive laws. Therefore, Frank and his followers believed it to be the task of the individual to question, challenge, and transgress these laws. In this text, Scholem conjoins heretical theology with the critique of unjust laws and oppressive social normativity. The Frankist anti-authoritarian movement, Scholem surmises, resonates with some aspects of Adorno’s philosophy – those aspects, one may assume, to which Scholem could relate positively, namely the anarchist dimensions of critical theory, which, by contesting the existing social order, aspired to a certain vision of utopian life.

      In most cases, Adorno and Scholem maintained an amicable, gentle tone in their replies to each other, often suppressing and concealing dissensions and disagreements. But such dissensions and disagreements belong to the overall conversation, both on personal and on scholarly matters. Scholem, in particular, did not spare his critique of Adorno’s writings, especially when they touched upon two matters about which he had profound views: Marxism and Zionism. The latter was particularly important to Scholem.