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Hasidic Judaism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc., from the Hebrew: חסידות , Hasidut, meaning "piety", from the Hebrew root word חסד chesed meaning "loving kindness") is a type of Orthodox or Haredi Jewish religious movement. Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective chasidic / hasidic (or in Yiddish חסידיש khasidish) applies. The movement originated in Eastern Europe (what is now Belarus and Ukraine) in the 18th century. As compared with other Jewish movements, Hasidic Judaism tends to focus on the role of the rebbe as a spiritual conduit of God. Hasidic followers join worship groups associated with dynasties of Hasidic spiritual leaders. Each dynasty follows its own principles; thus Hasidic Judaism is not one movement, but a collection of separate individual groups with some commonality. There are some 9 major Hasidic groups, approximately 30 smaller Hasidic groups, and several hundred minor or extinct Hasidic groups. Though there is no one version of Hasidism, individual Hasidic groups often share with each other fundamental philosophy, worship styles, dress, songs, etc.
Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov [1], is seen as the founding figure of Hasidic Judaism. It originated in an age of persecution of the Jewish people, when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too "academic" and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. The Ba'al Shem Tov set out to improve the situation. Hasidism met with opposition from the misnagdim—literally meaning "the opponents." In its initial stages, the most notable opponent was the Vilna Gaon, leader of the Lithuanian Jews, who generally adopted this hostile approach.
History
Prelude
In Poland, where the bulk of Jewry had established itself since the 13th century, two branches of Rabbinic Judaism had emerged: those who opposed the study of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and those who supported it. This schism became particularly acute after the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi in the 17th century. Leanings to mystical doctrines and sectarianism showed themselves prominently among the Jews of the south-eastern provinces of Poland, while in the Lithuanian provinces, anti-kabbalist orthodox leaders held sway. In part, this division in modes of thought reflected social differences between the northern (Lithuanian) Jews and the southern Jews of Ukraine. In Lithuania the Jewish masses mainly lived in densely-populated towns where anti-kabbalistic rabbinical academic culture (in the yeshivos) flourished, while in Ukraine the Jews tended to live scattered in villages far removed from intellectual centers where the influence of the kabbalists prevailed.
Pessimism in the south became more intense after the Cossacks' Uprising (1648–1654) under Chmielnicki and the turbulent times in Poland (1648–1660), which ruined the Jewry of Ukraine, but did not much affect that of Lithuania. The general population of Ukraine itself declined and economic chaos reigned, especially due to these events and the subsequent Turkish Invasion which left this region depopulated and barren. After the Polish magnates regained control of southern Ukraine in the last decade of the 17th century, an economic renaissance ensued. The magnates began a massive rebuilding and repopulation effort while being generally welcoming and benevolent towards the Jews. A type of frontier environment pursued where new people and new ideas were encouraged. The state of the Jews of what would later become southern Russia created a favorable field for mystical movements and religious sectarianism, which spread in the area from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century.
Besides these influences, deeply-seated causes produced among many Jews a discontent with Rabbinism and a gravitation toward mysticism. Rabbinism, which in Poland had become transformed into a system of religious formalism, no longer provided a satisfactory religious experience to many Jews. Although traditional Judaism had adopted some features of Kabbalah, it adapted them to fit its own system: it added to its own ritualism the asceticism of the "practical cabalists" just across the border in the Ottoman Empire, who saw the essence of earthly existence only in fasting, in penance, and in spiritual sadness. Such a combination of religious practices, suitable for individuals and hermits, did not suit the bulk of the Jews.
Hasidism gave a ready response to the burning desire of the common people in its simple, stimulating, and comforting faith. In contradistinction to other sectarian teaching, early Hasidism aimed not at dogmatic or ritual reform, but at a deeper psychological one. It aimed to change not the belief, but the believer. By means of psychological suggestion, it created a new type of religious man, a type that placed emotion above reason and rites, and religious exaltation above knowledge.
Israel ben Eliezer
The founder of Hasidism, Israel ben Eliezer, also became known under the title of the "Master of the Good Name" (the Ba'al Shem Tov, abbreviated as the Besht). His fame as a healer spread not only among the Jews, but also among the non-Jewish peasants and the Polish nobles. He allegedly could predict the future.
To the common people, the Besht appeared wholly admirable. Characterized by an extraordinary sincerity and simplicity, he sought to meet the spiritual needs of the masses. He taught them that true divine service consisted not only of religious scholarship, but also of a sincere love of God combined with warm faith and belief in the efficacy of prayer; that the ordinary person filled with a sincere belief in God, and whose prayers come from the heart, is more acceptable to God than someone versed in and fully observant of Jewish law who lacks inspiration in his divine service. This democratization of Judaism attracted to the teachings of the Besht not only the common people, but also the scholars whom the rabbinical scholasticism and ascetic Kabbalah failed to satisfy.
About 1740 the Besht established himself in the Ukrainian town of Mezhebuzh. He gathered about him numerous disciples and followers, whom he initiated into the secrets of his teachings not by systematic exposition, but by means of sayings and parables that contained both easily graspable insights, for the laymen, and profound Kabbalistic depth, for the great scholars. These sayings spread by oral transmission; later the founder's disciples set them in writing, developing the thoughts of their master into a system. The Besht himself wrote nothing.
The spread of Hasidism
Israel ben Eliezer's disciples attracted many followers, who themselves established numerous Hasidic courts across Europe. After the Besht's death, followers continued his cause, under the leadership of the Maggid, Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch. From his court students went forth; they in turn attracted many Jews to Hasidism, and many of them came to study in Mezritch with Dov Ber personally. Hasidic Judaism eventually became the way of life of the majority of Jews in Ukraine, Galicia, and central Poland; the movement also had sizable groups of followers in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Hasidic Judaism began coming to Western Europe and then to the United States during the large waves of Jewish emigration in the 1880s.
After the passing of Rabbi Dov Ber, his inner circle of followers, known as the "Chevraya Kadisha," the Holy Fellowship, agreed to divide up the whole of Europe into different territories, and have each one charged with disseminating hasidic teachings in his designated area.
Hasidism gradually branched out into two main divisions: (1) in Ukraine and in Galicia and (2) in Litta (Greater Lithuania). Three disciples, Dov Ber of Mezritch (Elimelech of Lizhensk, Levi Yitzchak of Berdychev, and Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl), besides the grandson of the Besht, Boruch of Tulchin, later R' Boruch of Mezhbizh, directed the first of these divisions. Elimelech of Lizhensk affirmed belief in Tzaddikism as a fundamental doctrine of Hasidism. In his book No'am Elimelekh he conveys the idea of the Tzadik ("righteous one") as the mediator between God and the common people, and suggests that through him God sends to the faithful three earthly blessings: life, a livelihood, and children, on the condition, however, that the Hasidim support the Tzaddik by pecuniary contributions ("pidyonos"), in order to enable the holy man to become completely absorbed in the contemplation of God. Lithuanian Hasidim followed Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who founded Chabad Hasidism, and Rabbi Aharon of Karlin.
Opposition
Early on, a serious schism evolved between the hasidic and non-hasidic Jews. Those European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement dubbed themselves misnagdim (literally, "opponents"). Critics of Hasidic Judaism:
- decried the apparently novel hasidic emphasis on different aspects of Jewish law;
- found problematic the overwhelming exuberance of hasidic worship;
- distrusted as non-traditional hasidic ascriptions of infallibility and miracle-working to their leaders;
- expressed concern that hasidism might become a deviant messianic sect (which in fact had occurred among the followers of both Shabbatai Zvi and Jacob Frank). Followers of the Lubovitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, have also been accused of this in contemporary times.
