'גנזי שלום': [מאמר ביקורת]

The greatness of Gershom Scholem as a scholar of the literature of Jewish mysticism and as the founder of new avenues of research is beyond question. Scholem, however, devoted relatively more scholarly attention to certain corpora and historical periods, and less to others. Hasidism, it has been thought, was not one of his main interests, even though he had published a number of seminal studies. With the collection of all his papers on the period and a perusal of his archival notes, we can now assess the encompassing scope of his scholarly contribution. His collected papers indicate plans for ambitious projects that were not completed in areas that he appears to have neglected. His papers on Hasidism have been collected and published as The Latest Phase, eds. D. Assaf, E. Liebes, Jerusalem 2008, with additions from his handwritten notes and notes from the editors, including bibliographical supplements at the end of each article. With the publication of this volume, certain bibliographical issues connected to the Scholem archives still require scholarly attention which is the focus of this review. Amongst the many bibliographic and historical comments offered in the review, the most important gap in the presentation of Scholem's writings on Hasidism is the existence of an unpublished book on the Besht and the beginnings of Hasidism, a work which until now has been known to only a handful of scholars.