The founder of
Hasidism is shrouded in legend and mystery.
By Louis Jacobs
Reprinted with
permission from The Jewish Religion: A
Companion, published by Oxford
University Press.
Baal Shem Tov, ?Master of the Good Name,? was the title
given to Israel ben Eliezer (1698‑1760), founder of the Hasidic movement
(Hasidism). The title (often abbreviated to Besht, after its initial letters)
refers to the use, as in the Kabbalah, of various combinations of divine names
(?names of God?) in order to effect miraculous cures. Like other miracle
workers of the time, the Besht was first known as a practitioner of white
magic, but this aspect of his life is usually played down by the Hasidim, who
prefer his role as spiritual master and guide to predominate.
The life of the Besht is so
surrounded by legends that some historians doubted his existence. The legendary
biography Shivhey HaBesht (Praises of the Besht) was not published
until around fifty years after his death, by which time numerous legends had
proliferated, and it was thought of as pure fiction. But recently it has been
established beyond doubt that there is a strong core of fact in the
hagiographical material. As M.J. Rossman has shown, the name Israel ben Eliezer
appears in Polish archives with the addition of the words ?doctor and
Kabbalist.? We now know that the Besht lived in the town of Miedzyboz in
Podolia for many years, where he received a handsome stipend from the Jewish
community (thus giving the lie to the notion that Hasidism was anti‑establishment
from its inception). In Miedzyboz there gathered around him a group of
pneumatics out of which the new movement emerged. It has to be appreciated that
at the time in Eastern Europe there were a number of charismatic leaders, of
whom the Besht was only one. However, the Besht?s teachings and way of life so
influenced like‑minded followers that the other groups eventually
vanished from the scene. Hasidism became Beshtian Hasidism.
It is also difficult to
distinguish the original ideas of the Besht from those taught in later
varieties of Hasidism. The sayings attributed to him in Toledot Yaakov Yosef, by his disciple Jacob Joseph of Polonoyye,
and in Degel Mahaney Efrayim, by his
grandson, Ephraim of Sudlikov, have an air of authenticity about them but come
to us at second or third hand. The Besht stressed the divine immanence,
contemplation of which is bound to fill the heart with religious joy and
enthusiasm. In Israel Zangwill?s essay ?The Master of the Name? (in his Dreamers of the Ghetto) the Besht
appears as a jolly coachman full of the love of life who strikes the narrator
as a mere simple man of faith until he stands in prayer, lost in profound
contemplation. Zangwill?s portrait is not without value but ignores the numinous
quality of life as perceived by the master.
The figure of the Besht became
the prototype of the Hasidic Zaddik [wise man] and is treated in every variety
of Hasidism with the utmost veneration, although, at the same time, he is seen
as caring passionately for the well‑being of the Jewish people as the
people of God. In later Hasidism, to tell the story of the Besht is itself a
means of bringing down the divine grace from on high. The curious early Hasidic
legend that the heavenly mentor of the Besht was Ahijah the Shilonite (I Kings
11:29‑39) is undoubtedly based on the need to link the novel ideas of the
Besht to the Torah of Moses (according to rabbinic legend, Ahijah was present
at the time of the Exodus as a contemporary of Moses and he lived on for
hundreds of years).
© Louis Jacobs, 1995.
Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this
material may be stored, transmitted, retransmitted, lent, or reproduced in any
form or medium without the permission of Oxford University Press.
Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs
is the rabbi of the New London Synagogue, Goldsmid Visiting Professor at
University College London, and Visiting Professor at Lancaster University. His books include Jewish Prayer, We Have Reason to Believe, Principles of the Jewish Faith, and A Jewish Theology.
