In Poland, where since the sixteenth century the bulk of the Jewry had established itself, the struggle between traditional rabbinic Judaism and radical Kabbalah influenced mysticism became particularly acute after the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi. Leanings toward mystical doctrines and sectarianism showed themselves prominently among the Jews of the southeastern provinces of Poland, while in the north-eastern provinces, in Lithuania, and in White Russia, rabbinical Orthodoxy held sway. This was due in part to the social difference between the northern Lithuanian Jews and the southern Jews of the Ukraine. In Lithuania the Jewish masses were mainly gathered in densely populated towns where rabbinical academic culture (in the yeshibot) was in a flourishing state; while in the Ukraine the Jews were more scattered in villages far removed from intellectual centers.
Pessimism in the south became more intense after the Cossacks' Uprising under Bohdan Chmielnicki and the turbulent times in Poland (1648-60), which completely ruined the Jewry of the Ukraine, but left comparatively untouched that of Lithuania. The economic and spiritual decline of the South-Russian Jews created a favorable field for mystical movements and religious sectarianism, which spread there from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century.
Besides these influences there were deeply seated causes that 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 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" of the East, who saw the essence of earthly existence only in fasting, in penance, and in spiritual sadness. Such a combination of religious practises, suitable for individuals and hermits, was not suitable to 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. Its aim was 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.
srael ben Eliezer
The founder of Hasidism was Israel ben Eliezer, the Ba'al Shem Tov, also known 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 was said to at times successfully predict the future.
To the common people, Besht was admirable. Characterized by an extraordinary sincerity and simplicity, he knew how to gain an insight into the spiritual needs of the masses. He taught them that true religion was not religious scholarship, but a sincere love of God combined with warm faith and belief in the efficacy of prayer; that the ordinary man filled with a sincere belief in God, and whose prayers come from the heart, is more acceptable to God than a person versed in and fully observant of Jewish law. This democratization of Judaism attracted to the teachings of Besht not only the common people, but also the scholars whom the rabbinical scholasticism and ascetic Kabbalah failed to satisfy.
About 1740 Besht established himself in the Podolian town of Miedzyboz. 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. These sayings were transmitted orally, and were later written down by his disciples, who developed the disjointed thoughts of their master into a system. Besht himself did not write anything. Being a mystic by nature, he regarded his teachings as a prophetic revelation.
1 -[Hassidism]
2 -[Hassidism : Prelude to the Hasidic movement]
3 -[Hassidism : Fundamental conceptions]
4 -[Hassidism : The spread of Hasidism]
5 -[Hassidism : Hasidim versus non-Hasidim]
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