Baal Shem Tov, Charismatic founder of the Hasidic movement.
Background
He was born to poor and elderly parents in Okop, Podolia (now in the western Ukrainian), and was orphaned when a child. Most information concerning his youth is legendary, but he clearly sought solitude in the fields and woods of his surroundings.
Career
He earned his living as a teacher in elementary Hebrew schools and as a ritual slaughterer, and married at age eighteen.
In his twenties, he withdrew with his wife into the Carpathian Mountains for a long period of seclusion while earning his living as a lime digger. During this time, he began to achieve a reputation as a wonder worker and healer and he was especially known as the Baal Shem Tov (Good Master of the Name of God), who not only healed by amulets and incantations but also was an outstanding spiritual figure.
About 1736 he settled in Medzibozh, Podolia, and for the rest of his life concentrated on his religious teachings. Admirers flocked from near and far and it is estimated that at his death he had over 10,000 followers. At this time, there were a number of similar figures, but he became the dominant personality and the others disappeared from the scene.
He was not a profound Talmudic scholar in rabbinics, his expertise laying in his knowledge of the Bible, rabbinic legend and folklore (aggada), and Jewish mysticism. He did not construct a systematic theology and code of practice but presented his teachings primarily in aphorisms, probably in Yiddish.
From the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings grew the populist, renewal movement of Hasidism, which changed many of the traditional values and practices of Judaism. Instead of praying in synagogues, his followers worshiped in small, unassuming prayer rooms and their prayer was marked by ecstatic devotion. The Mitnaggcdim were horrified by this unconventionaiity, by the downgrading of the values of learning, and by the doctrine of the tzaddik as the intermediary between man and God and did all they could to crush the new movement, but it swept like wildfire through much of eastern Europe and still is a force within Judaism today.
Religion
He was very much influenced by the mystical thought of Isaac Luria and his school, but introduced many of his own innova tions. To him, the great goal of religious life was spiritual communion with God, a cleaving to the Divine, to be achieved not only in prayer but also in every aspect of daily life. Prayer must be uttered with complete devotion (kavvana); the study of Torah also brings man to the divine but this too must be undertaken with utter devotion, and not undertaken merely as an intellectual exercise. All man’s deeds must be an expression of his worship of God — even in his eating and in conducting business. This teaching was attacked by his critics, the Mitnaggcdim (literally, opponents) who saw it as threatening their own exclusive stress on Torah study.
The Baal Shem Tov also angered the Mitnaggedim by giving the emotional precedence over the rational, simple faith over study, joy over asceticism, and devotion over discipline. He believed that his own prayers opened the gates of heaven and that there were other righteous people in every generation with similar powers (giving rise to the Hasidic doctrine of the tzaddik, the righteous leader of the community with superhuman powers).
Views
Quotations:
• In the struggle with evil, only faith matters.
• The important thing is not how many separate commandments we obey, but the spirit in which we obey them.
• Woe unto us! The world is full of radiant, wonderful and elevating secrets and it is only the small hand held up before our eyes which prevents us from seeing the light.
• There is no room for God in a person who is full of himself.
• If the vision of a beautiful woman, or of any lovely thing, comes suddenly to mind, let a man say to himself: The source of such beauty must be from the divine force which permeates the universe. So why be attracted by a part? Better be drawn after the All. Perception of beauty is an experience of the Eternal.
• If you seek to lead your neighbor in the right path, you must do so out of love.
• God hides himself behind many partitions and iron walls but all farseeing persons know that these belong to the inner being of God, for no place is without Him.
• All things above and below are a Unity.
• Pray for the suppression of evil but never for one’s own material well-being, for a separating veil arises if one admits the material into the spiritual.
• If you wish to live long, don’t become famous.
• As a man prays for himself, so must he pray for his enemy.
• A man must make the observance of three rules his aim in life: love of God, love of Israel, and love of Torah. With these, penance is unnecessary.
• If I love God, what need have I of the world to come?
Personality
He spoke to his followers through stories, anecdotes, and parables and did not commit his teaching to writings (this was done by his disciples). He appealed especially to the unlearned who found a special appeal in his teachings that the way to God did not require great learning. His own folksy way of life attracted the masses — telling stories in the marketplace or smoking his pipe and dressing like the peasants with whom he chatted as they came for evening service. His criticism of ascetic practices and emphasis on joyful observance of the commandments also helped to win him his popular following. The rabbinical leaders attacked his behavior as “licentious”, but this did not deter him from his way.
Innumerable legends spread about the Baal Shem Tov. It was said that he understood the language of birds and trees; that his body was entirely spiritual and that whenever food passed his lips, a fire came down from heaven and caused it to ascend; that he walked over the river Dniester on his girdle; that he brought the dead to life; that he knew every secret; that every Saturday afternoon he taught new meanings of the Torah to a heavenly academy; that he regularly communicated with the Messiah, who revealed to him that redemption would come when the whole world accepted the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov.