Sanctifying the Everyday: Halakha, Kabbalah, and the Making of Haredi Judaism

Catalog description

This course examines the development of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism as a response to modernity through the evolving relationship between halakha (Jewish law), kabbalah (mysticism), and rabbinic authority. We explore how halakhic observance, rather than fading under the pressures of secularism, became intensified, mystically infused, and socially restructured to forge a new model of religious life in the modern world. Moving from early modern rabbinic codification through the rise of Hasidism and Mithnagdism to the crystallization of contemporary Haredi communities, the course emphasizes halakha not only as a system of norms but as a lived world: a set of embodied, emotional, communal, and intellectual practices. We interrogate the emergence of halakhic maximalism, rabbinic charisma, gender roles, the negotiation of secular authority, and the politics of stringency as a strategy of insulation and sanctification.