Hasidism
The impoverished peasants who had little time for study suffered under this dictatorship of the intellect which did not consider the unlearned Jew to be an equal partner in acts of worship or in the life of the community.
They could not read the Talmud; they could not read the Zohar. They even had trouble with the Siddur (the Prayer Book); yet they needed the warmth and hope of Judaism more than any of the others. And so a teacher came, a simple man from Podolia, Israel ben Eliezer (1700-60). The stream of piety and hope, of laughter and visions for the future, emerged from underground and encouraged a great new movement: Hasidism. Its leader became known as the Baal Shem Too (the good ‘Master of the Name’—a term applied to wonder workers who used the name of God). Many became disciples of this gentle yet charismatic teacher who stressed piety over scholarship. All could approach God on their own terms, through song and dance and joy far more than through mortification of the flesh. True, there were Zaddikim (Righteous Ones), who were close to God and whose intercessions helped; but teachers needed disciples. And the Baal Shem Tov, in his wanderings and his story-telling, sowed the seeds for Hasidic communities formed around the students and disciples who became the heart of a large movement.Set against the gloomy asceticism of Lurianic Kabbalah and against the excesses of Sabbataism, the new pietism also challenged the rigorous intellectualism ofpilpul Talmudism which responded by persecuting the Hasidim. The Mitnagdim (Opponents) became the party of traditionalism, led by the great Elijah ben Solomon, the Vilna Gaon (1720-97). They tried to excommunicate the new movement and much internal conflict ensued, which changed both groups. The Hasidic doctrines of humility, and hitlahavut (enthusiasm), of the Zaddik who becomes a channel of divine communication and the reliable spiritual guide to his flock, whose simplest action—tying his shoelaces, for example—becomes a word of Torah, the pattern of song, dance and celebration as worship: these were anathema to the religious scholars of the Mitnagdim party.
The Vilna Gaon would not talk to Rabbi Schneur Zalman, head of the Lithuanian Hast dim, and the Hasid wound up in a St Petersburg jail, denounced by the Mitnagdim. Yet in Russia, the Hasidic movement came to include scholarship, particularly under the leadership of Dov Baer of Mezerich (1710-72). The simpler Polish Hasidism (which spread into Hungary and Rumania) responded more to the marvellous tales and charismatic leadership of men like Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, whose songs and prayers could even challenge God on behalf of the oppressed Jews.Sadly, the early enthusiasm and joy of simple pietism came to deteriorate as it developed into a formal movement. The Zaddikim became hereditary rulers over their flock, and held court for their simple followers. The joyous sabbath meals became magical sacraments, with disciples scrambling for the bits of food (Sh’rayim) left on the rebbe’s plate. They demanded amulets and expected miracles. Competing sects developed, followers of rival dynasties: Lubavitch, Satmar, Bobover and Hasidim had little use for one another. And yet the mystic vision endured, sometimes in strange ways. The ‘Dead Hasidim' of Bratzlav kept an empty chair at their table for their great teacher Rabbi Nachman, whose parables and teachings reached out to an ever-growing public after his death. And Hasidism, once viewed as the great enemy of traditionalism, is now the bulwark of Orthodoxy, of traditional observances. Its teachings and insights are at the centre of modern Jewish thought, mainly through its reinterpretation and popularisation by Martin Buber. Outer pressures often determine the inner forms.
The medieval period, despite its persecution of the Jews, was a long era of law and order of a corporate society in which the Jews found themselves a separate corporate body with a clearly defined identity. In the home, it was centred upon family life, values and tradition. In the synagogue, rabbinism had created a leadership where the central figure was a scholar, a judge, a preserver of the Talmud and its commentaries.
As the Jews began to move into a new structure of uncertain identities, of former corporate groups striving to find new patterns, the Hasidic rebbe, a mystic, charismatic figure, replaced the scholar—only to become a scholar himself in due course, with Hasidic commentaries now written for the old texts. But this was only one solution of many developments as the Jews entered the modern age. Traditionalism also surged forward. And Progressive Judaism, previously a component part of a stable, isolated Jewish life, came to express itself in new institutions and formulations of Judaism which responded to the new environment. All of Jewish life and thought continued to build upon the Bible and the traditions established through the centuries: the family, the synagogue and the knowledge of the Jews’ special fate links all the ages and periods of Jewish life and thought into the continuous ‘chain of tradition’ which is the heart of Judaism.