Modernity emancipated individual life from collective destiny. However, there were few, if any, straight roads in modern Jewish history, and no family or class traditions were strong enough to streamline the fate of the descendants. From the fortresses of ossified Chassidism, prophets of universalistic revolution could emerge, and the paragons of successful assimilation could beget luminaries of a Judaic renaissance. In trying to explain the oscillation of the Jewish emancipatory drive between the apparent extremes of assimilation and revolution, a few well-known facts about Gershom Scholem and Isaac Deutscher are worth remembering as cautionary tales. Scholem's father decided to hold the bar mitzvah for his son at his 14th birthday.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Z. Bauman (1988) studied this question.