Aharon Shmuel Tamares and the Dark Side of Religious Humanism

Abstract

Aharon Shmuel Tamares (1869–1931) is one of the most fascinating yet largely forgotten Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. Though he is known as a harsh critic of modern nationalism in general and of Zionism in particular, other aspects of his philosophy have been all but forgotten. This article presents the entire arc of his intellectual development and places his ideas in the historical context that shaped them, thereby painting a complex picture of a thinker who struggled to make sense of the conflicted and bloodied world of early twentieth century Europe. The article opens with Tamares’s early support of Zionism, examines his disillusionment with the movement, and concludes with his late pessimistic and skeptical period. While not neglecting the main features of Tamares’s critique of Zionism, it focuses on lesser-known aspects of his philosophy, including his critique of institutional religion and his adoption of cultural Zionism, both products of his unique understanding of the political theology of the modern state. Special attention is given to Tamares’s writings from the 1920s, most of which have yet to receive the scholarly attention they deserve. In contrast to the depiction prevalent in current scholarship, these writings present a very different image of Tamares: that of a man who saw his peaceful vision of Europe go down in the flames of World War I, horrifying pogroms, and resurgent militant nationalism. Facing the breakdown of his hopes, Tamares withdrew from any notion of political activism. He proclaimed that he had no obligation to a society that chose war over peace, whose very pacifism was rooted in the violent structure of the nation-state. The article concludes by exploring how Tamares’s religious humanism changed over the years. It shows how the conception of God empowering human responsibility and agency, which before and during World War I had led him to articulate a positive vision of peace and its achievement, led him to the brink of despair in the 1920s. In the new pessimistic vision that he articulated, the individual, if left to his own devices, cannot overcome this world’s malice and is thus left to puzzle over God’s true intentions. With this inclination toward pessimistic skepticism, Tamares’s late writings exemplify the potential and dangers of the double-edged sword that is religious humanism: empowering humanity’s agency while taking from it the hope of divinely guided redemption.