Hasidim And Mitnagdim
Although contemporary Jews often use
the word "Hasid" as a synonym for ultra-Orthodox,
Hasidism, a religious movement that arose in eighteenth
century Eastern Europe, was originally regarded as revolutionary
and religiously liberal. Its opponents, known as Mitnagdim,
were themselves Orthodox Jews. More than any thing else, the stories that each
group told about its rabbinic leaders exemplify the
differences among them. The Mitnagdim were proud of
the fact that their leader, the Vilna
Gaon, had delivered an advanced discourse on the Talmud when he was only seven years old, and that he studied
Jewish texts eighteen hours a day.
The founder of Hasidism, Israel Ba'al Shem Tov,
was the hero of very different sorts of tales. The Hasidim
told of how he spent his teenage years working in a
job with low status, as assistant in a Jewish elementary
school, a cheder. He would round up the students
from their homes each morning and lead them to school
singing songs. Later, after he married, he and his wife
went to live in the faroff Carpathian Mountains. There,
the Ba'al Shem Tov worked as a laborer, digging clay
and lime, which his wife then sold in town. The couple
later kept an inn.
During these years, the Ba'al Shem Tov spent much time in the
nearby forest in meditation and solitude. His Hasidic followers
subsequently likened this period to the years of isolation and
meditation that Moses spent in Midian, tending the flocks of his
fatherinlaw.
Around 1736, the Ba'al Shem Tov revealed
himself as a healer and a leader. His last name, which
literally means "Master of the Good Name,"
was one that was frequently applied in Jewish life to
miracle workers and healers. In 1740, he moved to Meziboz,
a town near the borders of both Poland and the Ukraine,
and not far from Lithuania.
Disciples started coming to him from the surrounding
countries, but the talks delivered by the Ba'al Shem
Tov differed dramatically from lectures offered at a
yeshiva; they focused far more on an individual's personal
relationship with God and with his fellowman than on
the intricacies of Jewish law. The stories Hasidim later
told about the Ba'al Shem Tov — usually referred
to by his acronym, the Besht — invariably
depict him with a pipe in hand, telling seemingly secular
tales with deep religious meanings. He died in 1760,
leaving behind Dov Baer of Mezrich as his successor.
Shortly before his death, the Besht told the
people standing near his bed: "I grieve not at
my death, for I can see a door opening while the other
is closing."
Many of the dominant themes in the Besht's teachings became the central emphases in the Hasidic
movement that his followers developed. There were statements
of the Besht, not entirely innovative, which
placed great stress on aspects of Judaism that the Mitnagdim
generally ignored: the heart, for example. The Besht was particularly fond of a talmudic statement, "God
desires the heart" (Sanhedrin 106b), which
he interpreted as meaning that for God, a pure religious
spirit mattered more than knowledge of the Talmud. It
is told of the Besht that one Yom
Kippur a poor Jewish boy, an illiterate shepherd,
entered the synagogue where he was praying. The boy
was deeply moved by the service, but frustrated that
he could not read the prayers. He started to whistle,
the one thing he knew he could do beautifully; he wanted
to offer his whistling as a gift to God. The congregation
was horrified at the desecration of their service. Some
people yelled at the boy, and others wanted to throw
him out. The Ba'al Shem Tov immediately stopped them.
"Until now," he said, "I could feel our
prayers being blocked as they tried to reach the heavenly
court. This young shepherd's whistling was so pure,
however, that it broke through the blockage and brought
all of our prayers straight up to God."
Another ancient Jewish doctrine that was given particular emphasis
by the Ba'al Shem Tov was based on a verse in Isaiah:
"The whole world is full of His glory" (6:13). If the whole
world is full of God's glory, the Besht reasoned, then the
Mitnagdim and the ascetics were wrong in thinking that one had to
turn one's back on the pleasures of the world. "Don't deny that
a girl is beautiful," the Besht would say. "Just be
sure that your recognition of her beauty brings you back to its
source-God." If one could do that, then even physical pleasures
could bring about spiritual growth.
Because the world was full of God, the Besht believed that
a person always should be joyful. Indeed, the greatest act of
creativity comes about in an atmosphere of joy: "No child is
born except through pleasure and joy," the Besht declared. "By the same token, if one wishes his prayers to bear
fruit, he must offer them with pleasure and joy." This doctrine
was a strong challenge to many ideas current among Jews in the Besht's time. Many religious Jews, particularly among the kabbalists,
preached asceticism, and advocated that Jews fast every Monday and
Thursday. The Ba'al Shem Tov warned people against such practices,
fearing that they would lead to melancholy, not joy.
To outsiders, unaccustomed to the Besht's teachings, Hasidic prayer services sometimes seemed
undignified, even chaotic. In fulfillment of the Psalmist's
ecstatic declaration, "All my bones shall say,
Lord, who is like You?" (Psalms
35:10), worshipers were capable of performing handstands.
Characteristically, the Besht defended such practices
at Hasidic services with a story. A deaf man passed
by a hall where a wedding reception was being celebrated.
When he looked through the window, he saw people engaged
in exultant and tumultuous dancing. But because he could
not hear the music, he assumed they were mad.
The Besht also taught that the Tzaddik (the
religious leader of the Hasidim) should serve as a model of how to
lead a religious life. However, he did not emphasize the doctrine of
the Tzaddik nearly as much as some of his successors,
particularly Dov Baer of Mezrich, who made it central to Hasidism.
Dov Baer, the leader of the Hasidim after the Baal Shem Tov's death,
taught that God revealed Himself through the Tzaddik's most
trivial actions; one of Dov Baer's followers said, "I didn't go
to him to learn Torah, but to see him unbuckle his shoes." Dov
Baer taught that the ideal Tzaddik had a closer relationship
to God than the average Jew, and could bestow blessings on people. In
return, it was understood that the Hasidim must bring their Tzaddik gifts.
The belief in the power and greatness of the Tzaddik became
one of Hasidism's strongest-and most controversial-ideas. Hasidism's
opponents charged that the Tzaddikim (plural) often enriched
themselves at the expense of their followers. In the generation after
Dov Baer, numerous new Hasidic groups were formed, each with its own Tzaddik,
referred to as a rebbe. These rebbes became a kind of
Jewish royalty. When one died, he was succeeded by either his son or
soninlaw. Those Hasidic groups that established eminent family
dynasties became successful. Many Hasidic groups, however, went into
decline when their rebbe died and left behind less capable
successors.
The best known group of Hasidim in
the United States are the Lubavitcher,
who are headquartered in Brooklyn. Their current rebbe
is Menachem
Mendel Schneersohn, the seventh leader since the
movement was founded in the late 1700s. But though Lubavitch
is the one Hasidic group nonOrthodox Jews are most
apt to meet-because of the movement's various outreach
programs-there are dozens of other Hasidic dynasties
in the United States (many of them located in Brooklyn)
and in Israel.
In their early years, the Hasidim
were actively persecuted by the Mitnagdim, who feared
they would become another heretical sect, similar to
that of Shabbetai Zevi.
But in its formative stages, Hasidism wisely put its
primary emphasis on personal religious growth rather
than on national salvation, and it downplayed the messianic
element. This was not enough, however, to appease the
Mitnagdim. Other Hasidic traits, such as their laissezfaire
attitude toward the appropriate hours for prayer, bitterly
provoked their opponents. The Hasidim answered that
they couldn't legislate precise hours for reciting each
of the three daily prayer
services; they prayed with such intensity (kavannah)
that they couldn't do so while looking at a watch.
The Israeli historian Jacob Katz has documented how other
practices provocatively separated the Hasidim from their neighbors.
For example, Hasidim advocated using a sharper knife when
slaughtering animals than the one used by the Mitnagdim's
slaughterers. Such stringency had a socially divisive effect: The
Hasidim no longer could eat at the Mitnagdim's houses. The Hasidim
also adopted a different prayerbook, so that their synagogue service
differed somewhat from that of other Jews and had to be conducted
separately. Their most brilliant act of "public relations"
was labeling themselves Hasidim, the Hebrew word for both
"pious" and "saintly," while calling their
adversaries Mitnagdim, Hebrew for "opponents." These terms
made the Hasidim seem like the more dynamic and positive of the two
groups.
With the passage of time, the Hasidim
and Mitnagdim recognized that their differences were
increasingly inconsequential, particularly after both
groups found themselves facing a common enemy: the nineteenth
century Haskala,
or Jewish Enlightenment. Jewish parents who once feared
that their Hasidic or Mitnagdish child might go over
to the other camp, were now far more afraid that their
child might become altogether irreligious.
An additional factor that lessened the HasidicMitnagdish split
was nineteenth and twentieth century Hasidism's increasing emphasis
on Talmud study. As the movement expanded, it put less emphasis on
meditation and communing with God, and more on traditional Jewish
learning. As a result, Hasidim today are no longer regarded as
revolutionaries; in fact, they are the conservative stalwarts of
Orthodox Judaism, easily recognized by the eighteenth and nineteenth
century black coats and hats worn by most of their male adherents.
Nonetheless, the Hasidic approach
to Judaism significantly differs from that of the Mitnagdim.
Hasidism generally places a much greater stress on simcha shel mitzvah — the joy of performing
a commandment.
Sources: Joseph Telushkin. Jewish
Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish
Religion, Its People and Its History. NY: William Morrow and
Co., 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author |