Third Solitudes Without Separation, Oneness Torn from the Other: On Tearing Through the Shroud of the Solitude of Montreal Jewish Mystics

The author asks: How does the Third Solitude of Montreal Mystics engender a tearing of self, at once, away from the other and inscribing within the Canadian landscape? He explains that the motif of tearing is used as a comparative lens for investigating the shroud of Third Solitude of two Montreal Jewish Mystics: Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) and the current Tosher rebbe, Rabbi Elimelech Halevi Segal-Loewy, as well as the rebbe's late father, Rabbi Meshulam Feish Segal-Loewy (1924–2015). The author analyzes the process of Leonard Cohen tearing away from cultural boundaries of a Westmount cosmopolitan Jewish upbringing, blossoming into a bohemian bard-kohen who returns as a contemplative mystical Jew from Mount Baldy to Israel via Tel Aviv and back to Montreal. By contrast, the author notes that tthe Tosher rebbe’s tearing away that began in Nyirtass, Hungary is then transplanted in post-Shoah context into the accommodement raisonable of the Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal eventually exiling to Kiryas Tosh in the Montreal suburb of Boisbriand. The author explores how the Tosher rebbe radicalizes Third Solitude without separation by tearing away from surrounding Québécois culture through ascetic strategies, while Cohen tears away from rampant assimilation and spiritual apathy of his Montreal Jewish upbringing. The author concludes that both mystics wander through the archetypal Northern landscape of Montreal that has become mythologized in these unique moments of tearing through the metaphysical shroud of Third Solitude.

Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes

Vol. 32

115-134

Spring 2021

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