Who and why founded the Hasidic movement?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the II century BC, a movement arose in Judaism that directed its efforts to oppose Hellenic influence. Representatives of this movement were called "Hasidim" (pious). In the first half of the 18th century, a new Hasidism arose on the territory of Poland. We will talk about him.

The founder of the Hasidic movement was Israel ben Eliezer, Rabbi Baal Shem Tov (Besht), who lived in Podolia (modern Ukraine) in 1698-1760. Baal Shem (Hebrew holder of the Name) is a Kabbalist who, thanks to the knowledge of the secret divine name, can work miracles (for example, create from clay and revive golems, drive out demons, prevent fires and pogroms); tov heb. good.

Hasidic legend says that the prophet Eliyahu appeared to the father of Israel and predicted the birth of a great son. In his youth, Israel receives some letters from the famous Jewish magician from Vienna, Adam Baal Shem. After 1734, the Baal Shem Tov became widely known as a sage and healer who knows how to make effective talismans and exorcise spirits. Legends say that the Baal Shem Tov summoned Satan and was able to receive the secret name of God from the prince of darkness.

Since 1740, Baal Shem Tov settled in Medzhibozh (now a village in the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine). This is where the teachings of Besht take shape. The basis of Hasidism is becoming Kabbalah, understood not as a method of intellectual development or a collection of instructions on operational magic (although some magical elements remain), but as a guide for moral improvement. The great goal of the Hasidim becomes union with God (dvekut), based on religious passion.

The attainment of the state of "dvekut" meant the constant presence of God in the life of an adept. Thanks to Besht, the union with God, which for many centuries remained the property of the most advanced rabbis, became available even to illiterate Jews; to achieve unity with God, the Baal Shem Tov taught, it is enough to completely surrender to the service of the Creator through the fulfillment of his mitzvot commandments.

Baal Shem Tov dies in 1760, having managed to pass on his theory to his students. After the death of Besht, the Hasidic movement was led by Dov-Ber (Magid, that is, a preacher from Mezherich, lived in 1704 1772). He moved the center of Hasidism to Mezherich (now Rivne region of Ukraine) and invented the institution of Hasidic emissaries, sending theoretically savvy and energetic people to the surrounding towns and villages with the aim of recruiting new adherents. Dov-Be, being a man of science, significantly enriched the teaching of Hasidism, although he did not create any theoretical works with his own hand, like Besht. In 1781, a book of Dov-Ber's sayings, written by his student and relative Solomon from Lutsk, was published.

After Dov-Ber's death, the Hasidic movement split into several branches: the Polish (Rabbi Elimelech bar Eliezer-Lipa Weisblum from Lezhaisk), Volyn (Rabbi Levi Yitzhak bar Meir Derbaremdiker from Berdichev), Belarusian (the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman bar) and Baru other.

Rabbi Elimelech develops the doctrine of the tzaddik (righteous man) as a mediator between ordinary people and the Creator. The tzaddik sanctifies the place where he lives, he can heal diseases and infertility. People must support the tzaddik financially so that the tzaddik can devote his life to communication with the Creator. The place of the tzaddik is inherited through the male line.

In 1772-1793, Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria, as a result of which the Hasidic centers were included in the Russian Empire. When in 1772 the lands of Belarus annexed to Russia, Shneur Zalman urged the Hasidim not to be afraid of change. Rabbi Shneur Zalman himself lived in the city of Liozno (Vitebsk region of modern Belarus), but his son Dov Ber moved to Lubavichi in the Smolensk region, here the center of the Hasidic movement Chabad (Lubavich Hasidism) emerged.

A prominent representative of the Hasidim was Besht's disciple, tzadik Menachem Nakhum Tversky (1730 1798). Menachem created the Chernobyl school of Hasidism. Besht's great-grandson, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810) became the founder of the Bratslav branch, which was widespread in the region of the city of Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Shortly before his death, Rabbi Nachman moved to Uman (now a city in the Cherkasy region). Nowadays, more than 20 thousand Hasidim visit the grave of the Bratslav rabbi every year on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

For a long time, the Hasidim were in conflict with the Orthodox Jews-mitnagdim (Litvaks), who put the study of the Talmud at the forefront. Gradually, the Hasidim also began to study the Talmud and became one of the movements of Orthodox Judaism. In fact, today there are three directions of Orthodox Judaism, the already named Litvaks and Hasidim, as well as "knitted kippah" followers of Abraham Yitzchak Cohen Cook (1865 1935).

The First World War and the October Revolution in Russia had a strong impact on the Hasidim. Many of them left the borders of Russia, while those who remained were largely assimilated with the urban population. The leader of the Lubavitch Hasidim, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, left the USSR in 1927 (settled in New York in 1941), and he did so in time soon (1935) the Hasidic movement was declared counter-revolutionary.

In 1938, the rabbi of Moscow, Hasid Shmaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalie, was arrested as a member of a terrorist organization and shot. The Hasidim of the USSR went underground. There are currently two chief rabbis in Russia, one of whom, Berl Lazar, is a Lubavitch Hasid.

In the modern world, Hasidim, including the followers of the Chabad movement, live in closed communities. In Israel, the Hasidim live compactly in the Jerusalem district of Mea Shearim and the city of Bnei Brak. In the period from 1881 to 1915, about two million Jews left the territory of the Russian Empire for the United States, among whom there were many Hasidim. A large community of North American Hasidim exists in New York. The Hasidim of Israel are involved in the political life of the country.

Some of the Israeli Hasidim are part of the right wing of religious and political movements and advocate the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. However, there is also the Hasidic movement Neturei Karto (aram. Guardians of the city), whose adherents oppose Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel, taking the pro-Palestinian side in the conflict between Israel and the Arab world.