Because the ḥasidic movement is rooted in its own particular understanding of Jewish mysticism, it is sometimes assumed that its opponents, the Mitnaggedim, were uninterested or even dismissive of kabbalah. But nothing could be further from the truth. The greatest of the Mitnaggedim, the Gaon of Vilna (Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, 1720-1797), diligently studied kabbalistic texts and wrote commentaries on them. Likewise his most famous disciple, Ḥayyim of Volozhin—perhaps the most influential East European rabbinic thinker of his day—focused much of his attention on mystical subjects.

Raphael Shuchat has recently edited and published a critical Hebrew edition of Rabbi Ḥayyim’s passing statements and answers to students’ questions, which were compiled by his disciples under the name Sh’iltot, and first published after his death. In an interview by Alan Brill, Shuchat comments:

Maybe the most interesting quote [in this work is that] Rabbi Ḥayyim says: “The Vilna Gaon said that the main effort of man [in striving for spiritual perfection] must be concerning transgressions between man and man in all their details.”

There are also interesting sources concerning the Ḥasidim. In [his major mystical-theological work], Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim, Rabbi Hayyim never mentioned the Ḥasidim by name, but . . . Sh’iltot points out ideological disagreements with Ḥasidism. It also makes clear that he was tolerant towards Ḥasidim in day-to-day life, permitting students with a ḥasidic inclination to study at the yeshiva. We discover that he had a grandson who became a Ḥasid.

Hayyim also frequently warned against ecstatic experiences and revelations, referring to them as coming from the “other side,” [a kabbalistic term for demonic or satanic forces].

The text also makes clear that, despite the stereotype of Mitnagged who studies only the Talmud to the exclusion of other religious works, that Rabbi Ḥayyim advocated for a well-rounded Jewish education, and considered it “imperative to study all of the Bible, Hebrew grammar, . . . midrash, aggadah, . . . and Zohar.”

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”