Hasidism

General Information

Hasidism is a pietistic movement within Judaism that was founded by the Baal Shem Tov in the 18th century. It began in the Carpathian border provinces of Walachia, Podolia, and Volhynia, among persecuted lower class Jews who resented the domination of Jewish community life by an elite of the wealthy and the learned and were disappointed following the collapse of the hopes raised by Sabbatian messianism, a movement founded by Sabbatai Zevi. Inspired in part by comparable pietistic movements in both Eastern and Western European Christianity, Hasidism stressed the superiority of religious enthusiasm and devotion over study and intellectualism. The Jewish masses found this message heartening, and the movement quickly spread through the depressed rural areas.

The Baal Shem Tov taught largely through parables that stressed humility and purity of heart. His immediate successor, Dov Baer of Mezhirich, began systematizing the doctrinal implications of these parables in light of the kabbalistic doctrines of Isaac Luria. Later, divisions appeared in the movement, and leadership became vested in dynastic families, the heads of which were known as tzaddikim ("righteous ones"). These groups, which still persist, differ in the degree to which they combine an intellectual emphasis with their emotional pietism; they agree, however, in their opposition to the forces of reform and secularization in Jewish life. Most Hasidic groups today live in Israel and the United States

Joseph L Blau

Bibliography:
M Buber, Hasidism (1948); A L Lowenkopf, The Hasidim (1973); H M Rabinowicz, The World of Hasidism (1970); B Safran, ed., Hasidism (1985); I B Singer, Hasidism (1973); E Wiesel, Souls on Fire (1972).