THE INNER LIFE OF POLISH JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF DECLINE
1. JEWISH SELF-GOVERNMENT
The fact that the Jews of Poland, despite the general disintegration of
the country, where right was supplanted by privilege and liberty by
license, were yet able to hold their own as an organized social unit,
was principally due to that vast scheme of communal self-government
which had become an integral part of Polish-Jewish life during the
preceding period. Surrounded by enemies, ostracized by all other estates
and social groups, Polish Jewry, guided by the instinct of
self-preservation, endeavored to close its ranks and gather sufficient
inner strength to offer effective resistance to the hostile non-Jewish
world. One of the appeals issued in 1676 by the central organ of Polish
Jewry, the "Council of the Four Lands," begins with these characteristic
words:
Gravely have we sinned before the Lord. The unrest grows from
day to day. It becomes more and more difficult to live. Our
people has no standing whatsoever among the nations. Indeed, it
is a miracle that in spite of all misfortunes we are still
alive. The only thing left for us to do is to unite ourselves in
one league, held together by the spirit of strict obedience to
the commandments of God and to the precepts of our pious
teachers and leaders.
These sentences are followed by a set of paragraphs calling upon the
Jews of Poland to obey without murmuring the mandates of their Kahals,
to refrain from farming state taxes, from accepting the stewardship of
Shlakhta estates, and entering into business partnership with non-Jews
without the permission of the Kahals, for the reason that such
enterprises are bound to result in conflicts with the Christian
population and in complaints on their part about the Jews. The Council
also forbids "intrusting Jewish goods to strange hands," resorting to
the intervention of the Polish authorities for purposes injurious to the
interests of the community, generating schisms and party strife among
Jews, and similar actions.
The rabbinical Kahal administration endeavored to impose its will upon
every single member of the community by regulating his economic and
spiritual life, and to prevent as far as possible his coming in contact
with the outside world. The greatest assistance in this endeavor came
from the Polish Government. Attaching great value to the Kahal as a
convenient tool for the collection of Jewish taxes, the Government
bestowed upon it vast administrative and judicial powers. The Government
found it to its interest to deal with the Jewish communities rather than
with individual Jews. The Kahal was held responsible by the Government
for the action of every one of its members or for any inaccuracy of the
latter in the payment of taxes. The Kahal extended its influence in
proportion to its responsibility. This tutelage of the Kahal resulted in
strengthening the social organization of the Jews, while it curbed at
the same time the personal liberty of its members to a greater extent
than was demanded even by the strictest social discipline.
As far as the Polish Government was concerned, the Kahal was
particularly valued as a responsible collecting agency among the Jews on
behalf of the exchequer. At the sessions of the Waads, the wholesale
amount of the Jewish head-tax (designated as _gulgoleth_ in the Jewish
sources) was periodically fixed and apportioned among the Kahal
districts. Within these Kahal districts as well as in the individual
communities the apportionment of the taxes was the function of the local
Kahal elders, who were in charge of the tax collection, and were held
responsible for its being accurately remitted to the exchequer. In 1672
the King bestowed upon the Kahal elders of Lithuania the right of
excluding from the community or of punishing by other measures those
recalcitrant members of their Kahals who by their acts were likely to
arouse the resentment of the Christian population against the Jews. Ten
years later the Starosta of Brest issued a rescript forbidding the pans
to lend money to private persons among the Jews without the knowledge of
the Kahal elders. This was done in compliance with the request of these
elders themselves, since they were held responsible for the insolvent
debtors of their respective districts. On a previous occasion, at a
conference of the representatives of the Lithuanian communities held in
1670, it was decided to prosecute every Jew who borrowed money from the
pans or priests without the knowledge of their Kahal. The Voyevoda of
Lemberg in 1692 forbade letting the collection of various state imposts,
such as the excise on distilleries and retail sale of spirits, to Jews
unless they produced a certificate of the Kahal elders testifying to
their good conduct. The right of owning real estate or exploiting
articles of revenue (leases and land-rent) was granted to private
persons only with the permission of the Kahal (_hazaka_). Without this
license and the payment of a special tax (_hezkath yishub_) no Jew was
allowed to settle in a given locality or to enroll his name in the
community.
The limits of Jewish communal autonomy were not precisely laid down by
the law of the state. They were enlarged or contracted in accordance
with the will of the provincial administration, the voyevodas and
starostas,[171] and the agreements between these officials and the
Kahals concerning their respective spheres of influence. The model of a
free communal constitution may be found in the statute granted by the
Voyevoda of Red Russia (Galicia) in 1692 to the central Kahal of
Lemberg. This statute authorizes the Jewish community to hold periodic
elections, to choose its elders "in accordance with its customs and
rights," without the slightest interference on the part of the local
administration. The chosen elders are recognized as the lawful officials
and judges of their coreligionists in a given locality. Disputes and
litigation between Jew and Jew are in the first instance to be settled
exclusively by the Kahal court (_beth-din_), consisting of rabbis and
elders, the latter acting as a jury. Cases between Jews and non-Jews as
well as appeals from the decisions of the Beth-Din are to be tried by
the voyevoda court and the special "Jewish judge" attached to it, the
latter being a Christian official especially appointed for such cases.
This judge is to be selected by the voyevoda from two candidates
nominated by the Jewish elders. His function is to settle disputes and
complaints "in a definite place near the synagogue" (in the "Kahal
chamber"), in the presence of the Kahal elders. In his verdicts the
"Jewish judge" is to be guided not only by the general laws of the
state, but also by the Jewish common law. The regular sessions of the
court are to take place twice a week. In special cases extra sessions
may be arranged for on any day with the exception of the Jewish
holidays. Subpoenas are issued through the synagogue beadle, or
_shamash_.[172] The protocols of the court are to be kept in the Kahal
chamber near the synagogue. The appeals from the judgments of this court
are to be submitted to the voyevoda himself.
The elections of the various grades of Kahal elders[173] were held, as
in former years, annually during the intermediate days of Passover. This
custom had legal sanction, and was enforced by the local authorities.
When, in 1719, the elders of the Kahal of Brest, prompted by personal
considerations, were, in spite of the approach of Passover, delaying the
holding of new elections, the Lithuanian hetman[174] sent an order from
Vilna branding the act of the Kahal of Brest as illegal, on the ground
that, "though obliged by law and custom to hold new elections of elders
every Passover, they have not done so, delaying the elections for their
own personal benefit."
The elections were indirect, taking place through a limited number of
electors, and only persons of fairly high financial standing, such as
house-owners or large tax-payers, were allowed to be candidates. As a
matter of fact, intellectual qualifications were no less valued than
financial standing, scholars occupying an honorable place in the
communal council.
The Kahal administration was thus oligarchic in character. The lower and
poorer classes had no representation in it, and, as a result, their
interests frequently suffered. In the eighteenth century complaints,
coming from the Jewish rank and file, are constantly heard about the
oppression of the Kahal "bosses," about the inequitable apportionment of
taxes, and similar abuses.
During the same period litigation between individual Kahals frequently
arose concerning the boundaries of their respective districts. This
litigation was due to the fact that the Jewish residents of the townlets
and villages were subject to the jurisdiction of the nearest Kahal,
whose income they helped to swell. Since, however, the Kahal districts
had never been officially delimited, several Kahals would occasionally
lay claim to the control of the neighboring townlets and settlements
(called in Hebrew _sebiboth_ and _yishubim_, and in the official
language _prikahalki_[175]). Cases of this kind were brought either
before the conferences of the District Kahals or the two central
parliamentary institutions of Polish Jewry, the "Council of the Four
Lands" and the "Council of the Principal Communities of Lithuania."
The centralization of Jewish self-government in these two Councils--that
of the Crown and of Lithuania--was one of the main factors in
stabilizing Jewish autonomy during that period of instability and
disintegration. The meetings or Diets of these Councils, which were
attended by the representatives of the Kahals and the rabbinate,
afforded a regular opportunity for discussing the questions affecting
the general welfare of the Polish Jews and for establishing well-defined
relations with the Government and the Diets of the country. Attached to
the Waads were special advocates (_shtadlans_, designated as "general
syndics" in the Polish documents), who went to Warsaw during the
sessions of the Polish Chamber for the purpose of submitting the
necessary applications in defense of Jewish rights or of presenting the
taxation lists of the Jewish communities. The Waad of the Crown
continued to meet periodically in Lublin, and Yaroslav (in Galicia), and
occasionally in other places, while the Lithuanian Council assembled in
different towns in Lithuania.
The activity of these central agencies of self-government was
particularly intensified in the latter part of the seventeenth century,
when the state of communal affairs, sorely shaken during the preceding
period of unrest, had to be restored. The Government upheld the
authority of the Waads in the eyes of the Jewish population, finding it
more convenient to maintain relations with one or two central
organizations than to deal with a large number of local agencies. In
1687 the "Jewish Elders of the Crown" (of Poland proper), acting on
behalf of the Council at Yaroslav, lodged a complaint with King
Sobieski, declaring themselves unable to assume the responsibility for
the collection of the Jewish head-tax to the amount fixed by the
preceding Polish Diet, owing to the fact that many Jews in the cities
and villages, benefiting by the protection of the pans and even the
royal officials, refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the "Elders
of the Crown" and shirked their duty as tax-payers. In view of this, the
King issued a decree condemning in strong terms "such interference and
disorder," and enjoining the individual Kahals to submit to the
apportionment of taxes by the Elders of the Crown, and altogether to
acknowledge their jurisdiction in general Jewish affairs, under the pain
of severe fines for the disobedient.
The gradual deterioration of social and economic conditions in Poland
rendered the activities of the Waads more complicated. The Waads were
now called upon to regulate also the inner affairs of the communities as
well as their relations to the Government and the urban estates, the
magistracies and guilds. It cannot be said that the Waads exhibited on
all occasions an adequate understanding of the political situation, or
that they did full justice to the far-reaching demands of a truly
popular representation. They were too little democratic in their
composition to accomplish so large a task. The delegates to the Waads
were not elected by the communities with this end in view, but were
recruited from among the rabbis and elders of the principal communities,
the notables and "influential men." However, in spite of their
inadequate, oligarchic organization, the Waads were largely instrumental
in unifying communal Jewish life and in enhancing discipline in
Polish-Lithuanian Jewry.
One of the most important duties of the Waads was the maintenance of
Jewish public schools, the Talmud Torahs and yeshibahs, which at
communal expense imparted religious instruction primarily to poor
children and youths. From the minutes of the Lithuanian Waad which have
come down to us we learn of the fact that every one of its conferences
placed at the head of its enactments a number of clauses providing for
the obligatory instruction of the young in yeshibahs throughout the
country, for the maintenance of the students by the various communities
in cash and in kind, and for the formulation of the curricula and the
statutes of all these institutions of learning. No wonder that the
endeavors of the Waad were crowned with success, and that the
intellectual level of the Jews of Lithuania was very high. It must be
owned, however, that their mental horizon was not large, inasmuch as the
whole course of study, even in the highest schools, was limited to the
Talmud and rabbinic literature.
Furthermore, the Council of the Four Lands established a control over
the books issued by the printing-presses of Cracow and Lublin, or
imported from abroad. Only such books were allowed to circulate as were
supplied with a printed approbation, or _haskama_, of the Waad or some
authoritative rabbis. Very frequently the Waad also intervened in the
struggle of parties and sects which, as will be seen later,[176]
followed the rise of the Sabbatian movement.
Many public functions which lay outside the sphere of activity of the
central Waads were discharged by the local District conventions, or
"Dietines" (_waade medinah_, or _waade galil_), the latter acting as the
agencies of the Kahal federations of the given region. In official
language these District federations were often designated as
"synagogues." Especially prominent during this period were the
"Volhynian Synagogue," _i. e._ the federation of the Kahals of Volhynia,
and the "White Russian Synagogue," composed of the federated communities
of the present Government of Moghilev. The former sent its
representatives to the Council of the Four Lands, while the latter was
affiliated with the Waad of Lithuania. The periodic conventions of these
two "synagogues" not only decided the allotment of taxes within the
Kahal districts, but also took up questions of a general character, such
as the sending of advocates to the general Polish Diet, the instructions
to be given to the deputies of the central Waads, the problem of Jewish
education, the rabbinate, etc. Less noticeable was the activity of the
Kahal federations of the three "Crown provinces": Little Poland with the
central community of Cracow, Great Poland with Posen, and Red Russia
with Lemberg. We know, however, that they too assembled periodically,
either at the initiative of the Kahals themselves or by order of the
voyevoda of a given province. These conventions or "Dietines" had their
"floor leaders" or "marshals," after the pattern of the provincial
Polish Diets. At least such was the insistent demand of the voyevodas,
who preferred to transact their official business with the responsible
leaders of the conferences. The interference of the administration in
the affairs of the Jewish autonomous organization became particularly
frequent in the first part of the eighteenth century, when political
anarchy in Poland reached its climax.
The whole Kahal organization received a severe blow at the hands of the
Polish Government in 1764. The General Confederacy which preceded the
election of King Stanislav Augustus, having framed a new "constitution,"
decided to change fundamentally the system of Jewish taxation. Instead
of the former procedure of fixing the amount of the head-tax _in toto_,
and leaving its allotment to the Districts and individual communities to
the conferences of the elders and Kahals, the Diet passed a resolution
imposing a uniform tax of two gulden on every registered Jewish soul of
either sex, beginning with the first year after birth. This change was
justified on the ground that, in the opinion of the Government, the
previous wholesale system of taxation enabled the Kahals to collect from
the tax-payers a much larger sum than originally determined upon.
Moreover, simultaneously with the head-tax other imposts were levied by
the Kahals. This resulted in burdening the Jewish population and in
hiding its true tax-paying capacity from the Government, while according
to the new system the exchequer was likely to receive a much larger
revenue.
To secure the accurate collection of the head-tax, a general
registration of the Jewish population in the whole country was ordered.
The taxes of each community were to be remitted by its Kahal elders to
the nearest state treasury. In consequence, the functions of the
Kahals, as far as the apportionment of the taxes was concerned, were
officially discontinued, and the Kahal elders became mere go-betweens,
who handed over the tax revenues to the exchequer. The Government ceased
to recognize the rôle of the Kahal as a fiscal agent, which it had
formerly valued so greatly, and no more considered it necessary to
uphold the authority of this autonomous organization. The whole
machinery of Jewish self-government, all these Diets and Dietines, the
Waads and District conferences, suddenly became superfluous, if not
injurious, in the eyes of the Government. No wonder then that the same
Diet of 1764 passed a resolution forbidding henceforth the holding of
conventions of District elders for the fixation or distribution of any
tax collections or for any other purpose.
This limitation of the activities of the Kahals and the entire abolition
of the central agencies of Jewish autonomy took place on the eve of the
abolition of political independence in Poland itself, eight years before
its first partition. We shall see later that the subsequent period of
unrest, marked by the transfer of the greater part of Polish territory
to the dominion of Russia, introduced even greater disorder into the
once so firmly consolidated autonomous organization of the Jews, and
robbed the Jewish people of one of the mainstays of its national
existence.
2. RABBINICAL AND MYSTICAL LITERATURE
The social and economic decline of the Polish Jews, which set in after
1648, was not conducive to widening the Jewish mental horizon, which had
been sharply defined during the preceding epoch. Even at the time when
Polish-Jewish culture was passing through its zenith, Rabbinism reigned
supreme in school and literature. Needless to say there was no chance
for any broader intellectual currents to contest this supremacy during
the ensuing period of decline. The only rival of Rabbinism, whose
attitude was now peaceful and now warlike, was Mysticism, which was
nurtured by the mournful disposition of a life-worn people, and grew
into maturity in the unwholesome atmosphere of Polish decadence.
The intensive Talmudic culture, which had been fostered by many
generations of rabbis and rosh-yeshibahs was not distributed evenly. In
those parts of the country which had suffered most from the horrors of
the "terrible decade" (1648-1658), in the Polish Ukraina, Podolia, and
Volhynia, the intellectual level of the Jewish masses sank lower and
lower. Talmudic learning, which was formerly widespread among the Jews
of those provinces, now became the possession of a narrow circle of
scholars, while the lower classes were stagnating in ignorance and
superstition. A firmer position was still held by Rabbinism in Lithuania
and in the original provinces of Poland. But here too the intellectual
activity became pettier and poorer, not so much in quantity as in
quality. It is still possible to enumerate a large number of names of
great Talmudists and rabbis, who commanded the respect and admiration
not only of the Jews of Poland but also of those outside of it. But in
the domain of literary productivity these scholars did not leave so
profound an impress on posterity as their predecessors, Solomon Luria,
Moses Isserles, Mordecai Jaffe, and Meïr of Lublin.
Even within the narrow sphere of the rabbinic literary output
originality was sadly missing. The "stars" of Rabbinism who were engaged
in learned correspondence (_Shaaloth u-Teshuboth_) with one another
were, as a rule, immersed in fruitless controversies about complicated
and petty cases of religious and legal practice, frequently degenerating
into the discussion of questions which do not arise in real life. Others
wrote diffuse hair-splitting commentaries and _novellae_ (_hiddushim_)
on various tractates of the Talmud, including those which had long lost
all legal significance. Thus Aaron Samuel Kaidanover, Rabbi of Cracow,
who had narrowly escaped the massacres of 1648, commented on the section
dealing with the sacrifices and the ancient ritual of the temple in
Jerusalem (_Birkhath ha-Zebah_[177]). Still others wrote annotations and
supplements to the _Shulhan Arukh_.[178] Lithuania, in particular,
excelled by the number of its celebrities in the field of rabbinic
scholasticism, all men who refused to acknowledge any branch of secular
and even religious knowledge outside the domain of Talmudic dialectics.
A rare exception among these scholars was Jehiel Halperin (ab.
1670-1746), rabbi of Minsk, who wrote an extensive historic chronicle
under the name of _Seder ha-Doroth_, "The Order of the Generations."
Halperin's work, which is divided into three parts, narrates in the
first the events of Jewish history from Biblical times down to the year
1696. The second part enumerates, in alphabetical order, the names of
all the Tannaim and Amoraim,[179] and cites the opinions and sayings
attributed to each of them in the Talmud. The third part contains a list
of authors and books of the post-Talmudic period. The original
contribution of Halperin consists in his having systematized the
extremely complicated material, and rendered it available for a
characterization of the Talmudic rabbis. In all else he merely copied
earlier chroniclers, particularly David Gans,[180] without any attempt
at a critical analysis. He even fails to render account of such
important events of his own time as the Messianic movement of Sabbatai
Zevi. The essence of history to him is identical with the genealogies of
scholars, saints, and rabbis; the only reason for existence which in his
judgment historiography may claim is to serve as the handmaid of
Rabbinism. Even this outlook upon history, narrow though it be, was
entirely foreign to Halperin's contemporaries.
Side by side with the scholastic literature of Rabbinism flourished
popular ethical literature (_musar_[181]). Its originators were the
preachers (_darshanim_), some of whom occupied permanent posts attached
to synagogues, while others wandered about from town to town. The
synagogue sermons of that period, which have come down to us in various
collections,[182] consist of a long string of Haggadic and Cabalistic
quotations, by means of which the Biblical texts are given an entirely
perverted meaning. The preachers were evidently less anxious to instruct
their audience than to exhibit their enormous erudition in theological
literature. Some of these preachers endeavored in particular to foist
upon the people the notions of the "Practical Cabala."[183] The "secret"
writings of Ari[184] and his school were circulated in Poland in
manuscript copies, which went from hand to hand. The ideas embodied in
the Cabalistic doctrine of Ari were popularized in the shape of
"gruesome stories" concerning life after death, the tortures of the
sinners in hell, the transmigration of souls, and the exploits of
demons.
The books which endeavored to inculcate piety among the masses by means
of these stories became rapidly popular. Towards the end of the
seventeenth century, the Cabalist Joseph Dubno wrote a work in this
spirit under the title _Yesod Yoseph_, "Foundation of Joseph." Prior to
its publication, Dubno's work was utilized by Hirsch Kaidanover, a son
of the above-mentioned rabbi of Cracow, Aaron Samuel Kaidanover,[185]
and issued by him in an improved and amplified version in
Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1705, under the name _Kab ha-Yashar_, "The
Just Measure." A few years later the book was published also in the
Yiddish vernacular, and became a great favorite among the lower classes
as well as among women.
The _Kab ha-Yashar_ breathes a spirit of gloomy asceticism, and is
expressive of a funereal frame of mind. "O man,"--the author
exclaims--"wert thou to know how many demons thirst for thy blood, thou
wouldst abandon thyself entirely, with heart and soul, to Almighty God!"
The air, according to the doctrine preached in this book, is filled with
the invisible spirits of the dead who can find no rest in the other
world, and teems with the wandering shadows of sinners and demons, who
frequently slip into living beings and force them to rage like madmen.
Scores of "reliable" stories are quoted, telling of the conflicts
between men and demons and of the exploits of miracle-workers who have
exorcised the evil spirits by means of incantations.
Prominent among these stories is an account of the expulsion of devils
from a house in Posen, which produced a great sensation at the time.
Evil spirits had been constantly haunting the inhabitants of the house.
At first they sought advice of the local Jesuit priests. When the remedy
employed by the latter proved of no avail, the inhabitants invited the
famous magician and miracle-worker Joel Baal-Shem[186] from
Zamoshch.[187] The miracle-worker subjected the demons to a regular
cross-examination, demanding an explanation why they refused to abandon
the ill-fated house. At the cross-examination the demons argued that the
house was theirs by inheritance, inasmuch as they were the legitimate
children of the former owner of the house, a Jewish artisan who had had
relations with a female devil. As a result, a conference of the rabbis
of Posen was held in the presence of the above-mentioned miracle-worker,
and their verdict was that the demons had no claim to immovable property
in places populated by human beings, but were limited in their right of
residence to forests and deserts.
Such was the spiritual pabulum on which the Jewish masses were fed by
their leaders. A writer of the beginning of the eighteenth century makes
the observation, that "there is no country where the Jews are so much
given to mystical fancies, devil hunting, talismans, and exorcism of
evil spirits, as they are in Poland." The demand brought forth a supply,
and even the celebrated rabbis frequently devoted themselves to
Cabalistic exercises. One of these was the Rabbi of Ostrog and Posen,
Naphtali Cohen (1640-1719), of whom the following curious incident is
related. After settling in Frankfort-on-the-Main, he made the people
believe that he had discovered a magic formula against fire. As luck
would have it, a fire broke out in his own house, and destroyed a
considerable part of the Jewish quarter. The ill-fated Cabalist was sent
to jail on the charge of careless handling of fire during his
pyrotechnic experiments (1711). After his release from prison Naphtali
Cohen led the life of a wanderer, entering into suspicious relations
with Hayyun, the notorious emissary of the Sabbatian sect, though
afterwards, when Hayyun's heresy had been unmasked in Amsterdam, he
renounced all connection with the heretic. During the contest which for
many years was waged by Emden against Eibeshütz and his mysterious
talismans,[188] the majority of Polish rabbis sided with Eibeshütz.
Evidently they found nothing objectionable in the attempt to cure
diseases by means of cabalistically inscribed talismans.
3. THE SABBATIAN MOVEMENT
The mystical and sectarian tendencies which were in vogue among the
masses of Polish Jewry were the outcome of the Messianic movement,
which, originated by Sabbatai Zevi in 1648, spread like wildfire
throughout the whole Jewish world. The movement made a particularly deep
impression in Poland, where the mystical frame of mind of the
Polish-Jewish masses offered a favorable soil for it. It was more than a
mere coincidence that one and the same year, 1648, was marked by the
wholesale murder of the Jews of the Ukraina and the first public
appearance of Sabbatai Zevi in Smyrna. The thousands of Jewish captives,
who in the summer of that terrible year had been carried to Turkey by
the Tatar allies of Khmelnitzki and ransomed there by their
coreligionists, conveyed to the minds of the Oriental Jews an appalling
impression of the destruction of the great Jewish center in Poland.
There can be no doubt that the descriptions of this catastrophe deeply
affected the impressionable mind of Sabbatai, and prepared the soil for
the success of the propaganda he carried on during his wanderings in
Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt.
When, in the year 1666, the whole Jewish world resounded with the fame
of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messianic liberator of the Jewish people, the
Jews of Poland responded with particularly keen, almost morbid
sensitiveness.
The Jews--says the contemporary Ukrainian writer
Galatovski--triumphed. Some abandoned their houses and property,
refusing to do any work and claiming that the Messiah would soon
arrive and carry them on a cloud to Jerusalem. Others fasted for
days, denying food even to their little ones, and during that
severe winter bathed in ice-holes, at the same time reciting a
recently-composed prayer. Faint-hearted and destitute
Christians, hearing the stories of the miracles performed by the
false Messiah and beholding the boundless arrogance of the Jews,
began to doubt Christ.
From the South, the Sabbatian agitation penetrated to the North, to
distant White Russia. We are informed by a contemporary monastic
chronicler, that on the walls of the churches in Moghilev on the Dnieper
mysterious inscriptions appeared proclaiming the Jewish Messiah
"Sapsai."
In the course of the eventful year in which the whole Jewish world raved
about the coming of the Messiah and deputations arrived from all over
the Jewish world at the "Castle of Splendor," Sabbatai's residence in
Abydos, near Constantinople, a delegation was also dispatched by the
Jews of Poland. In this delegation were included Isaiah, the son of
David Halevi, the famous rabbi of Lemberg, author of the Taz,[189] and
the grandson of another celebrity, Joel Sirkis.[190] The Polish
delegates were sent, as it were, on a scouting expedition, being
instructed to investigate on the spot the correctness of the rumors
concerning the Messianic claims of Sabbatai.
When, in the summer of 1666, they were presented to Sabbatai at Abydos,
they were deeply impressed by the sight of the thousands of enthusiastic
admirers who had come from all possible countries to render homage to
him. Sabbatai handed the Polish delegates an enigmatic letter, addressed
to the Rabbi of Lemberg:
On the sixth day after the resuscitation of my spirit and light,
on the twenty-second of Tammuz.... I herewith send a gift to the
man of faith, the venerable old man, Rabbi David of the house of
Levi, the author of _Ture Zahab_--may he flourish in his old age
in strength and freshness! Soon will I avenge you and comfort
you, even as a mother comforteth her son, and recompense you a
hundredfold [for the sufferings endured by you]. The day of
revenge is in my heart, and the year of redemption hath arrived.
Thus speaketh David, the son of Jesse, the head of all the kings
of the earth.... the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the Lion of
the mountain recesses, Sabbatai Zevi.
The gift referred to in the letter consisted of a shirt which Sabbatai
handed over to Rabbi David's son, with the instruction to put it on his
aged and feeble father and recite at the same time the words, "May thy
youth be renewed like that of the eagle!"
Having learned from the delegates that a Cabalistic propagandist, by
the name of Nehemiah Cohen, who predicted the coming of the Messiah, had
appeared in Poland, Sabbatai added a postscript to his letter in which
he asked that this "prophet," being the forerunner of the Messiah, be
sent to him speedily. The omniscient Messiah failed to foresee that this
invitation spelled ruin for him. It is generally conceded that the
interview between Nehemiah, the Cabalistic fanatic, and Sabbatai was one
of the causes that accelerated the downfall of the Messiah. After a
Cabalistic argument with Sabbatai, which lasted three days, Nehemiah
refused to acknowledge him as the expected Messiah. While in Adrianople
he revealed Sabbatai's plans to the Turkish authorities, and this led to
the arrest of the pseudo-Messiah and his feigned conversion to Islam.
The news of the hideous desertion of Judaism by the redeemer of the
Jewish people was slow in reaching the Jews of Poland, and when it did
reach them, only a part of his adherents felt it their duty to abandon
him. The more credulous rank and file remained steadfast in their
loyalty, hoping for further miracles, to be performed by the mysterious
savior of Judaism, who had "put on the turban" temporarily in order to
gain the confidence of the Sultan and afterwards to dethrone him. When
Sabbatai died, Poland witnessed the same transformation of political
into mystical Messianism which was taking place at the time in Western
Europe.
The proximity to Turkey and to the city of Saloniki, the headquarters of
the Sabbatian sect, lent particular intensity to the sectarian movement
in Poland, fomenting a spiritual agitation in the Jewish masses from the
end of the seventeenth down to the end of the eighteenth century. The
main center of the movement came to be in Podolia, part of which had
been annexed by Turkey, after the Polish-Turkish War of 1672, and was
returned to Poland only in 1699 by the Peace Treaty of Carlowitz.
The agitators and originators of these sects were recruited partly from
among the obscure masses, partly from among the Cabalists whose minds
were befogged. At the end of the seventeenth century, a Lithuanian Jew
by the name of Zadok, a plain, ignorant man, who had been an innkeeper,
began to prophesy that the Messiah would appear in 1695. About the same
time a more serious propagandist of the Messianic idea appeared in the
person of the Cabalist Hayyim Malakh. Having resided in Turkey, where he
had been in contact with the Sabbatian circle in Saloniki, Malakh
returned to Poland and began to muddle the heads of the Jews. He
secretly preached that Sabbatai Zevi was the Messiah, and that, like
Moses, who had kept the Israelites in the desert for forty years before
bringing them to the borders of the Promised Land, he would rise from
the dead and redeem the Jewish people in 1706, forty years after his
conversion.
Malakh's propaganda proved successful, particularly among the ignorant
masses of Podolia and Galicia. Malakh was soon joined by another
agitator, Judah Hasid, from Shidlovitz or Shedletz.[191] Having studied
Practical Cabala in Italy, Judah Hasid returned to his native land and
began to initiate the studious Polish youths into this hidden wisdom.
The circle of his pupils and adherents grew larger and larger, and
became consolidated in a special sect, which called itself "the Pious,"
or _Hasidim_. The members of this sect engaged in ascetic exercises; in
anticipation of the Messiah, they made public confession of their sins
and inserted mystical prayers in their liturgy. Hayyim Malakh joined the
circle of Judah Hasid, and brought over to it his Sabbatian followers.
The number of "the Pious" grew so large that the Orthodox rabbis became
alarmed and began to persecute them. Under the effect of these
persecutions the leaders of the sect started a propaganda for a
mass-emigration to Palestine, there to welcome in triumph the
approaching Messiah.
Many Jews were carried away by this propaganda. In the beginning of
1700, a troop of one hundred and twenty pilgrims started on their way,
under the joint leadership of Judah Hasid and Hayyim Malakh. The
emigrants traveled in groups, by way of Germany, Austria, and Italy,
stopping in various cities, where their leaders, dressed, after the
manner of penitent sinners, in white shrouds, delivered fiery
exhortations, in which they announced the speedy arrival of the Messiah.
The lower classes and the women were particularly impressed by the
speeches of the rigorously ascetic Judah Hasid. On the road the Polish
wanderers were joined by other groups of Jews desirous of visiting the
Holy Land, so that the number of the travelers reached 1300 souls. One
party of emigrants, led by Hayyim Malakh, was dispatched, with the help
of charitable Jews of Vienna, from that city to Constantinople. Another
party, headed by Judah Hasid, traveled to Palestine by way of Venice.
After much suffering and many losses on the journey, during which
several hundred died or remained behind, one thousand reached Jerusalem.
On arriving at their destination the new-comers experienced severe
disappointment. One of the leaders, Judah Hasid, died shortly after
their arrival in the Holy City. His adherents were cooped up in some
courtyard, and depended on the gifts of charitable Jews. The destitute
inhabitants of Jerusalem, themselves living on the charity of their
European brethren, were not in a position to support the pilgrims, who
soon found themselves without means of subsistence. Disillusioned and
discouraged, the sectarians rapidly dispersed in all directions. Some
joined the ranks of the Turkish Sabbatians, who posed as Mohammedans.
Others returned to Western Europe and Poland, mystifying credulous
people with all kinds of wild tales. Still others in their despair let
themselves be persuaded by German missionaries to embrace Christianity.
Hayyim Malakh, the second leader of the pilgrims, remained in Jerusalem
for some time with a handful of his adherents. In this circle symbolic
services, patterned after the ritual of the Sabbatians, were secretly
held, and, as rumor had it, the sectarians performed dances before a
wooden image of Sabbatai Zevi. Having been forced to leave Jerusalem,
the dangerous heretic traveled about in Turkey, where he maintained
relations with sectarian circles. After being banished from
Constantinople by the rabbis, Hayyim Malakh returned to his native
country, and renewed his propaganda in Podolia and Galicia. He died
about 1720.
The ill success of the "Hasidim" failed to check the spread of
sectarianism in Poland. In Galicia and Podolia, the conventicles of
"Secret Sabbatians," dubbed by the people "Shabsitzvinnikes" (from the
name of Sabbatai Zevi), or, in abbreviated form, "Shebsen," continued
as before. These Sabbatians neglected many ceremonies, among them the
fast of the Ninth of Ab, which, because of its being the birthday of
Sabbatai, had been transformed by them from a day of mourning into a
festival. Their cult contained elements both of asceticism and
libertinism. While some gave themselves over to repentance,
self-torture, and mourning for Zion, others indulged in debaucheries and
excesses of all kinds. Alarmed by this dangerous heresy, the rabbis at
last resorted to energetic measures. In the summer of 1722, a number of
rabbis, coming from various communities, assembled in Lemberg, and, with
solemn ceremonies, proclaimed the _herem_ (excommunication) against all
Sabbatians who should fail to renounce their errors and return to the
path of Orthodoxy within a given time.
The measure was partly successful. Many sectarians publicly confessed
their sins, and submitted to severe penances. In most cases, however,
the "Shebsen" clung stubbornly to their heresy, and in 1725 the rabbis
were forced to launch a second herem against them. By the new act of
excommunication every Orthodox Jew was called upon to report to the
rabbinical authorities all the secret sectarians known to him. The act
of excommunication was sent out to many communities, and publicly
recited in the synagogues. But even these persecutions failed to wipe
out the heresy. Secret Sabbatianism continued to linger in the nooks and
corners of Podolia and Galicia, and finally degenerated into the
dangerous movement known as Frankism.
4. THE FRANKIST SECT
Jacob Frank was born about 1726 in a town of Podolia. His father Judah
Leib belonged to the lower Jewish clergy, among whom all kinds of
perverted mystical notions were particularly in vogue. Judah Leib fell
under suspicion as an adherent of Sabbatianism, and was expelled from
the community, which he had served as rabbi or preacher. He settled in
Wallachia, where little Jacob grew up in an atmosphere filled with
mystic and Messianic fancies and marked by superstition and moral
laxity. From his early youth he showed repugnance to study, and
remained, as he later called himself, an ignoramus. While living with
his parents in Wallachia, he first served as clerk in a shop, and
afterwards became a traveling salesman, peddling jewelry and notions
through the towns and villages. Occasionally young Jacob traveled with
his goods to adjoining Turkey, where he lived for some time in Saloniki
and Smyrna, the centers of the Sabbatian sect. Here, it seems, Jacob
received his nickname Frank, or Frenk, a designation applied in the East
to all Europeans. Between 1752 and 1755 he lived alternately in Smyrna
and Saloniki, and came in contact with the Sabbatians, participating in
their symbolic, semi-Mohammedan cult. It was then and there that Jacob
Frank was struck by the idea of returning to Poland and playing the rôle
of prophet and leader among the local secret Sabbatians, who were
oppressed and disorganized. It was selfish ambition and the spirit of
adventure rather than mystical enthusiasm that pushed him in that
direction.
In 1755 Frank made his appearance in Podolia and, joining hands with the
leaders of the local "Shebsen," began to initiate them into the
doctrines he had imported from Turkey. The sectarians arranged secret
meetings, at which the religious mysteries centering around the
Sabbatian "Trinity" (God, the Messiah, and a female hypostasis of God,
the _Shekhinah_) were enunciated. Frank was evidently regarded as the
second person of the Trinity and as a reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi,
being designated as S. S., _i. e._ Santo Senior,[192] "the Holy Lord."
One of these assemblies ended in a scandal, and turned the attention of
the rabbis to this new agitation.
During the fair held in Lantzkorona,[193] Frank and two score of his
followers, consisting of men and women, had assembled in an inn to hold
their mystical services. They sang their hymns, exciting themselves to
the point of ecstasy by merrymaking and dancing. Inquisitive outsiders
managed to catch a glimpse of the assembly, and afterwards related that
the sectarians danced around a nude woman, who may possibly have
represented the Shekhinah, or _Matronitha_,[194] the third person of the
Trinity. The Orthodox Jews on the market-place, who were not used to
such orgies, were profoundly disgusted by the conduct of the sectarians.
They informed the local Polish authorities that a Turkish subject was
exciting the people and propagating a new religion. The gay company was
arrested, Frank, being a foreigner, was banished to Turkey, and his
followers were delivered into the hands of the rabbis and the Kahal
authorities (1756).
A conference of rabbis was held in the town of Satanov,[195] and scores
of men and women, who had formerly belonged to the Sabbatian sect,
presented themselves to confess their sins and to repent. The sectarians
owned to having committed acts which were subversive not only of the
Jewish religion but also of the fundamental principles of morality and
chastity. The women admitted that they had violated their conjugal
fidelity, and told of the sexual excesses in vogue among the sectarians,
which were justified by mystical speculations. On the basis of all this
evidence, the conference of rabbis in Brody, which met during the
sessions of the Council of the Four Lands, proclaimed a strict herem
against all heretics who had failed to repent, and forbade all contact
with them. They also prohibited the study of the Zohar before the age of
thirty and of the Cabalistic writings of Ari,[196] which were circulated
during that period in manuscript form, before the age of forty in order
to avoid the snares of mystical heterodoxy.
It was then that the excommunicated and persecuted Podolian sectarians,
prompted by their leaders, resorted to a counsel of despair. Their
representatives appeared in the city of Kamenetz-Podolsk before the
Catholic Bishop Dembovski, and declared that the Jewish sect of which
they were members rejected the Talmud as a false and harmful work, that
they only acknowledged the Zohar, the sacred book of the Cabala, and
believed that God was one in three persons, of whom the Messianic
Redeemer was one. This declaration aroused in Bishop Dembovski the hope
of converting the sectarians to Christianity, notwithstanding the fact
that by the "Messianic Redeemer" they understood Sabbatai Zevi, or his
reincarnation, Jacob Frank. The Bishop ordered the publication of the
ambiguous confession of faith of the "Contra-Talmudists" or
"Zoharists"--as the sectarians designated themselves--and decided to
arrange a religious disputation between the Frankists and the rabbis.
The Podolian rabbis received strict orders from the Bishop to send
delegates from their midst to participate in the proposed disputation.
Their failure to appear was to be punished by fines and the burning of
the Talmud.
After considerable preparations, the disputation between the leaders of
the Contra-Talmudists and a number of rabbis took place in Kamenetz, in
the summer of 1757, in the presence of Bishop Dembovski and
representatives of the Catholic clergy. The contest lasted seven days.
The discussions centered around certain peculiar utterances in the
Talmudic Haggada, which the Frankists cited as evidence of the
"blasphemous" character of the Talmud. The rabbis retorted feebly,
hampered by their inadequate mastery of the Polish language; moreover,
when the dispute turned on the fundamental dogmas of Judaism, they
refused to discuss them in the presence of Catholic priests. The Bishop
received the impression that the Talmudists had been defeated. In the
autumn of 1757 he issued a rescript imposing a fine upon the Talmudists,
to be paid out to their opponents, for having insulted them at the fair
of Lantzkorona, and ordering that all Talmud copies found in the diocese
of Podolia be taken away from their owners and delivered to the flames.
The revolting scenes of the time of Louis IX., of France, and Pope Paul
IV. were re-enacted. Thousands of Talmud copies were taken away from the
Jews and carried to Kamenetz, where they were publicly burned on the
market-place. The sectarians witnessed their revenge on their
persecutors and triumphed. It is difficult to say how this triumph would
have ended, had not Bishop Dembovski suddenly died, in November, 1757.
The sectarians were deprived of their mainstay, and became again the
target of the Kahal authorities. In 1758 they finally succeeded in
obtaining a safe-conduct from King Augustus III., but even this could
not rescue them from the uncomfortable position peculiar to those who,
having forfeited the sympathies of their own, have not yet been able to
gain the confidence of strangers.
At that critical juncture the sectarians decided to recall Jacob Frank,
their leader, from Turkey. The latter immediately appeared in Podolia
with a new plan, which, he hoped, would at once rid him and his
adherents of all opponents. In the discourses delivered before his
followers Frank dwelt a great deal on his exalted mission and on the
divine revelations which commanded him to follow in the footsteps of
Sabbatai Zevi. Just as Sabbatai had been compelled to embrace the
Mohammedan faith temporarily, so he and his adherents were predestined
from above to adopt the Christian religion as a mere disguise and as a
stepping-stone to the "faith of the true Messiah." Filled with thirst
for revenge, the sectarians hit upon the fiendish thought of lending the
weight of their testimony to the hideous ritual murder accusation, which
was agitating the whole of Poland at that time, claiming many a victim
in the Jewish ranks.
In 1759 the Frankists were busily engaged in negotiations with the
highest representatives of the Polish Church concerning their proposed
conversion to Christianity. They requested at the same time that they be
allowed to hold a public disputation with the rabbis, whom they hoped to
expose before the non-Jews. The Primate of the Polish Church Lubinski
and the Papal Nuncio Serra received the advances of the Frankists with
considerable skepticism. But the temporary administrator of the diocese
of Lemberg, Canon Mikolski, insisted that their request be complied
with. A second religious disputation between the Talmudists and the
Frankists, presided over by Mikolski, was held in Lemberg, and took up
eleven sessions (July-August, 1759). At this disputation the Orthodox
Jews were represented by a number of Talmudists, headed by the Rabbi of
Lemberg, Hayyim Rapoport, while the cause of the sectarians was
championed by Solomon Shorr and Leib Krysa, the principal associates of
Frank, as well as several learned Catholic theologians.
The sectarians advanced seven theses as a basis for discussion. Six
dealt with the Messianic belief and the dogma of the Trinity, the latter
having been practically adopted by them in its Christian formulation.
The seventh asserted that "the Talmud considers the use of Christian
blood obligatory." The discussion about the first six clauses was rather
tame and conventional, largely owing to the fact that the rabbis, who
were afraid of offending the religious susceptibilities of the
Christians, declined in many cases to state their views. Only when it
came to the last point, the malicious accusation of ritual murder, were
the rabbis energetic in refuting it, protesting vehemently against the
Frankists, who openly appeared as the enemies of their people.
When the disputation was over, the sectarians were called upon to prove
their devotion to Christianity by immediate action. The conversion of
the Frankists began. The baptismal ceremony was performed with great
solemnity in the churches of Lemberg, members of the Polish nobility
acting as sponsors. The neophytes assumed the family names and titles of
their godfathers, and in this way received admission into the ranks of
the Polish nobility. In Lemberg alone 514 men and women, among them Leib
Krysa, Solomon Shorr, and the other fellow-workers of Frank, were
converted in the course of 1759 and 1760. Frank entered Lemberg with
great pomp, riding in a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded by a
large body-guard. Here he submitted to a preliminary baptism, desiring
to complete the ceremony with greater solemnity in Warsaw. Having
arrived in the Polish capital, Frank petitioned King Augustus III. to
act as his godfather. The King consented, and the conversion of the
sectarian chief to Catholicism took place in November, 1759, with
extraordinary splendor, in the presence of the royal family and the
court dignitaries. At his baptism Jacob Frank assumed the name Joseph.
However, the attitude of the Polish clergy towards the newly-converted
sectarians remained as skeptical as theretofore. Frank's obscure past,
his strange manner of living, the reverence accorded to him by his
followers, who styled him the "Holy Lord"--all this was bound to arouse
the suspicion of the ecclesiastic authorities. The indiscretion of some
Frankists, or perhaps a secret denunciation, confirmed the clergy in
their suspicions. They learned that the conversion of the sectarians had
been an act of hypocrisy, that Frank continued to pose among them as
Messiah and "Holy Lord," and that the Trinity professed by them had very
little in common with the corresponding Christian dogma. They decided to
investigate the matter, and, in case their suspicion should prove true,
to indict the leaders of the sect before the ecclesiastic courts.
In January, 1760, Frank was arrested in Warsaw by order of the highest
Church authorities, and subjected to a searching cross-examination. With
all his astuteness, the chief of the Frankists failed to convince the
judges of his Christian Orthodoxy. Many of the depositions made by his
disciples or by himself only strengthened the case against him. The
ecclesiastic court, having previously ascertained the attitude of Rome
through the Papal Nuncio, sentenced Frank to imprisonment in the citadel
of Chenstokhov and to detention in the local monastery, so as to prevent
all contact with his followers.
Thirteen years (1760-1772) Frank remained in the citadel, but the
Catholic clergy failed in its purpose. The Frankists continued their
relations with the "Holy Lord," who as a suffering Messiah was now
surrounded in their eyes with a new halo. They even managed to penetrate
into Chenstokhov itself, and settled in large numbers on the outskirts
of the town, which, in accordance with old Messianic notions, they
designated as "the gates of Rome."[197] They beheld in Frank's fate a
repetition of the destiny of Sabbatai Zevi, who had been equally kept
prisoner in the castle of Abydos, near the capital of Turkey. They were
inspired by Frank's mystical discourses and epistles, the gist of which
was that their only salvation lay in the "holy religion of Edom," a term
by which he understood a strange medley of Christian and Sabbatian
ideas. The new religion was devoid of any truly religious or moral
element, and the same applies to the life of Frank, who cynically
expressed himself to his followers: "I have come to rid the world of all
the laws and statutes which have been in existence hitherto." There was
nothing reminding one of an apostle about the conduct of the "Holy
Lord," based as it was on mystification and on the endeavor to
accommodate oneself to the environment.
The first partition of Poland put an end to Frank's imprisonment in the
monastery. He was released by the commander of the Russian troops which
occupied Chenstokhov towards the end of 1772. After a brief stay in
Warsaw, where he managed to re-establish direct relations with the
sectarians, Frank, accompanied by his family and a large retinue, left
the boundaries of Poland and settled in Brünn, in Moravia (1773).
The further exploits of this adventurer were performed in a new field,
in Western Europe. In Catholic Austria, Frank assumed the rôle of a
Christian missionary among the Jews, and even succeeded in gaining the
favor of the Court in Vienna. However, his past soon became known, and
he had to leave Austria. Frank settled in Germany, in Offenbach, near
Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he arrogated to himself the title of "Baron
of Offenbach." In his new place of residence, Frank, assisted by his
daughter Eve, or the "Holy Lady," stood at the head of a secret circle
of sectarians, and, supported by his Polish and Moravian partisans, led
a life of ease and luxury.
After the death of Frank, which occurred in 1791, his sect began to
disintegrate, and the flow of gifts for the benefit of the Offenbach
Society gradually ceased. After unsuccessful endeavors to attract
sectarians, Frank's successor, Eve, found herself entangled in debts,
and, pursued by her creditors, died in 1816 in Offenbach. The Frankists
who had stayed in Poland, though outwardly Catholics, remained loyal to
the "Holy Lord" down to the day of his death. For a long time they
intermarried among themselves, and were known in Poland under the name
of "Neophytes." But by and by they were merged with the Catholic
population, gradually losing the character of a sect, and were at last
completely absorbed by their Polish environment.
5. THE RISE OF HASIDISM AND ISRAEL BAAL-SHEM-TOB
Frankism proved the grave of Sabbatianism, by turning its dreamy
mysticism into mystification, and its lofty Messianism into the selfish
desire to escape Jewish suffering through disloyalty to Judaism. It was
a grossly negative, materialistic movement, which disregarded the
noblest strivings and the most genuine longings of the Jewish soul. The
need for a deepened religious consciousness, which the formalities of
Rabbinism had failed to satisfy, remained as alive as ever among the
Jewish masses. This need was bound to give rise to a positive religious
movement, which was in harmony with the traditional ideas of the Jewish
people.
In the spiritual life of Polish Jewry the distinction between its two
ethnographic groups, the northwestern, the Lithuanian and White Russian,
and the southwestern, the Polish and Ukrainian, became more and more
accentuated. In the northwest rabbinic scholasticism reigned supreme,
and the caste of scholars, petrified in the ideas of Talmudic Babylonia,
was the determining factor in public life.
Talmudic scholarship--remarks a contemporary Lithuanian Jew, the
subsequently famous philosopher Solomon Maimon--constitutes the
principal object of education among us. Wealth, physical
attractions, or endowments of any kind, though appreciated by
the people, do not, in its estimation, compare with the dignity
of a good Talmudist. The Talmudist has the first claim on all
offices and honorary posts in the community. Whenever he appears
at an assembly, all rise before him, and conduct him to the
foremost place. He is the confidant, the counselor, the
legislator, and the judge of the plain man.
Matters, however, were different in Podolia, Galicia, Volhynia, and in
the whole southwestern region in general. Here the Jewish masses were
much further removed from the sources of rabbinic learning, having
emancipated themselves from the influence of the Talmudic scholar. While
in Lithuania dry book-learning was inseparable from a godly life, in
Podolia and Volhynia it failed to satisfy the religious cravings of the
common man. The latter was in need of beliefs easier of understanding
and making an appeal to the heart rather than to the mind. He found
these beliefs in the Cabala, in mystic and Messianic doctrines, in
Sabbatianism. He even let himself be carried away by teachings which
ultimately proved heterodox and subversive of the spirit of Judaism.
With the downfall of secret Sabbatianism, which had been utterly
compromised by the Frankists, disappeared the last will-o'-the-wisp of
Messianism, which had beckoned to the groping Jewish masses. It was
necessary to fill the mental void thus created, and provide new food for
the unsatisfied religious longings. This task was undertaken by the new
_Hasidism_ ("Doctrine of Piety"), originated by Besht, a product of
obscure Podolian Jewry.
Israel Baal-Shem-Tob (in abbreviated form BeSHT) was born about 1700 on
the border line of Podolia and Wallachia of a poor Jewish family. Having
lost his parents at an early age, he was cared for by some charitable
townsmen of his, who sent him to a Jewish school, or heder, to study the
Talmud. The heder-learning did not attract the boy, endowed as he was
with an impressionable and dreamy disposition. Israel frequently played
the truant, and was more than once discovered in the neighboring forest
lost in thought. The boy was finally given up as a bad case, and
expelled from school. At the age of twelve, Israel, confronted by the
necessity of earning a livelihood, became a _behelfer_, an assistant
teacher, and, a little later, obtained the post of a synagogue beadle.
In his new dignity, Besht conducted himself rather oddly. In daytime he
slept, or pretended to sleep, but at night, when all alone in the
synagogue, he prayed fervently, or read soul-saving books. Those around
him looked upon him as an eccentric or maniac. He nevertheless persisted
in his course. He delved more and more deeply in the mysteries of the
Practical Cabala, studied the "Ari manuscripts," which were circulated
from hand to hand, and acquainted himself with the art of performing
miracles by means of Cabalistic incantations.
When about twenty years of age, Israel settled in Brody, one of the
principal cities of Galicia, and married the sister of the well-known
rabbi and Cabalist of the town, Gershon Kutover. Kutover at first tried
to interest his brother-in-law in the study of the Talmud, but, finding
him entirely indifferent to this kind of mental occupation, the proud
rabbi, abashed by his relationship with such an ignoramus, advised
Israel to leave Brody. Besht followed the advice, and removed with his
wife to a village between the towns of Kuty and Kosovo. He frequently
retired to the neighboring Carpathian mountains, where in strict
solitude he fasted, prayed, and lost himself in religious speculation.
He eked out an existence for himself and his wife by digging clay in the
mountains, which his wife carried into the city for sale. According to
the Hasidic legend, Israel Besht led this kind of life for seven years.
It was a period of preparation for his subsequent calling. At the end of
his mystical exploits in the Carpathian mountains, Besht lived in the
Galician town of Tlusta, where he occupied minor ecclesiastic positions,
acting in succession as melammed, shohet, and cantor of a synagogue. He
was universally regarded as an ignoramus, no one being aware of his
innermost cravings.
At last, after reaching the age of thirty-six, Besht decided,--by
inspiration from above, as the Hasidim believe,--that the time had come
"to reveal himself to the world." He began to practice as a
_Baal-Shem_,[198] _i. e._ as a magician and Cabalist and to cure
diseases by means of secret incantations, amulets (_kameoth_), and
medicinal herbs. The figure of a wandering Baal-Shem was not unusual
among the Polish Jews of the time, and Besht chose this career, for it
subsequently proved a convenient medium for his religious propaganda. He
traveled about the towns and villages of Volhynia and Podolia, curing
with his herbs and incantations not only Jews, but also peasants and
even pans, who had great faith in magic remedies. He won the reputation
of a miracle-worker, and was nicknamed the "good Baal-Shem" (in Hebrew,
_Baal-Shem-Tob_). The Jewish masses felt that he was not the ordinary
type of conjurer, but a man of righteousness and saintliness. Besht was
frequently called upon to foretell the future, and, opening at random
the Zohar before him, made predictions as suggested by the holy book. In
curing the sick, he resorted not only to herbs and incantations, but
also to prayer. While praying, he often fell into ecstasy and
gesticulated violently.
Besht became the favorite of the masses. Warm-hearted and simple in
disposition, he managed to get close to the people and find out their
spiritual wants. Originally a healer of the body, he imperceptibly grew
to be a teacher of religion. He taught that true salvation lies not in
Talmudic learning, but in whole-hearted devotion to God, in
unsophisticated faith and fervent prayer. When he encountered men of
learning, Besht endeavored to convince them of the correctness of his
views by arguments from the Cabala. But he did not recognize that
ascetic form of Cabala which enjoined upon the Jew to foster a mournful
frame of mind, to kill the flesh, and strive after the expiation of sin
in order to accelerate the coming of the Messiah. He rather had in mind
that Cabala which seeks to establish an intimate communion between man
and God, cheering the human soul by the belief in the goodness of God,
encouraging and comforting the poor, the persecuted, and the suffering.
Besht preached that the plain man, imbued with naïve faith, and able to
pray fervently and whole-heartedly, was dearer and nearer to God than
the learned formalist spending his whole life in the study of the
Talmud. Not to speculate in religious matters, but to believe blindly
and devotedly, such was the motto of Besht. This simplified formula of
Judaism appealed to the Jewish masses and to those democratically
inclined scholars who were satisfied neither with rabbinic scholasticism
nor with the ascetic Cabala of the school of Ari.
About 1740 Besht chose for his permanent residence the small Podolian
town of Medzhibozh. The rôle of sorcerer and miracle-worker gradually
moved to the background, and Besht emerged as a full-fledged teacher of
religion. He placed himself at the head of his large circle of disciples
and followers, who were initiated by him into the mysteries of the new
doctrine, not by way of systematic exposition, but rather in the form of
sayings and parables. These sayings have been preserved by his nearest
disciples, Besht himself having left nothing in writing.
Two ideas lie at the bottom of the "Doctrine of Piety," or the Hasidism,
of Besht: the idea of Pantheism, of the Omnipresence of God, and the
idea of the interaction of the lower and upper worlds. The former may be
approximately defined by the following utterances of Besht:
It is necessary for man constantly to bear in mind that God is
with him always and everywhere; that He is, so to speak, the
finest kind of matter, which is poured out everywhere; that He
is the master of all that happens in the Universe.... Let man
realize that when he looks at things material he beholds in
reality the Divine Countenance, which is present everywhere.
Keeping this in mind, man will find it possible to serve the
Lord at all times, even in trifles.
The second fundamental idea is borrowed from the Cabala, and signifies
that there is a constant interaction between the world of the Divine and
the human world, so that not only does the Deity influence human
actions, but the latter exert a similar influence on the will and the
disposition of the Deity.
The further elements of the Besht doctrine follow logically from these
premises. _Communion with God_ is and must be the principal endeavor of
every truly religious man. This communion may be attained by
concentrating one's thoughts upon God, and attributing to Him all
happenings in life. The essence of faith lies in the emotions, not in
the intellect; the more profound the emotions, the nearer man is to God.
_Prayer_ is the most important medium through which man can attain
communion with God. To render this communion perfect, prayer must be
ecstatic and fervent, so that he who prays may, as it were, throw off
his material film. To attain to this ecstatic condition, recourse may be
had to mechanical contrivances, such as violent motions of the body,
shouts, shaking, and so on. The study of Jewish religious legislation is
of secondary importance, and is useful only when it succeeds in arousing
an exalted religious disposition. From this point of view the reading of
ethical books is preferable to the study of Talmudic casuistry and
rabbinical folios.
Contrary to the fundamental precept of the Practical Cabala, Besht
insists that excessive fasting, the killing of the flesh, and ascetic
exercises in general, are injurious and sinful, and that a lively and
cheerful disposition is more acceptable to God. What is most important
in religion is the frame of mind and not the external ceremonies:
_excessive minuteness of religious observance is harmful_. The pious, or
_Hasid_, should serve God not only by observing the established
ceremonies, but also in his everyday affairs and even in his thoughts.
By means of constant spiritual communion with God, man may attain to the
gift of clairvoyance, prophecy, and miracle-working. The Righteous, or
_Tzaddik_, is he who lives up to the precepts of Hasidism in the highest
measure attainable, and is on account of it nearer and dearer to God
than any one else. The function of the Tzaddik is _to serve as mediator
between God and the common people_. The Tzaddik enables man to attain to
perfect purity of soul and to every earthly and heavenly blessing. The
Tzaddik ought to be revered and looked up to as God's messenger and
favorite.
In this way the doctrine preached by Besht undermined not only
scholastic and ceremonial Rabbinism, but also the ascetic Cabala,
emphasizing in their stead the principle of blind faith in Providence,
of fervent and inspiring prayer, and, last but not least, the dogma of
attaining salvation through the medium of the miracle-working Tzaddik.
The last-mentioned article of faith was of immense consequence for the
further development of Hasidism, and subsequently overshadowed the
cardinal principles of the new movement.
As a matter of fact, the personality of Besht as the first Tzaddik
impressed the people far more than his doctrine, which could be fully
grasped only by his nearest associates and disciples. Among these the
following were particularly prominent: Jacob Joseph Cohen, who occupied
the post of rabbi successively in Shargorod, Niemirov, and Polonnoye;
Baer of Mezherich, a Volhynian preacher and Cabalist; Nahman of Horodno,
Nahman of Kosovo, Phineas of Koretz, all of whom frequently visited
Besht in Medzhibozh. Even the former Rabbi of Brody, Gershon Kutover,
who had once looked down on his brother-in-law as an _Am ha-Aretz_,
acknowledged his religious mission.
About 1750, Besht sent to his brother-in-law Kutover, who had in the
meantime settled in the Holy Land, a kind of prophetic manifesto,
telling of his miraculous vision, or _revelation_. In it Besht asserted
that on the day of the Jewish New Year his soul had been lifted up to
heaven, where he beheld the Messiah and many souls of the dead. In reply
to the petition of Besht, "Let me know, my Master, when thou wilt appear
on earth," the Messiah said:
This shall be a sign unto thee: when thy doctrine shall become
known, and the fountains of thy wisdom shall be poured forth,
when all other men shall have the power of performing the same
mysteries as thyself, then shall disappear all the hosts of
impurity, and the time of great favor and salvation shall
arrive.
Revelations of this kind were greatly in vogue at the time, and had a
profound effect upon mystically inclined minds. The notion spread that
Besht was in contact with the prophet Elijah, and that his "teacher" was
the Biblical seer Ahijah of Shilo. As far as the common people are
concerned, they believed in Besht as a miracle-worker, and loved him as
a religious teacher who made no distinction between the educated and the
ordinary Jew. The scholars and Cabalists were fascinated by his wise
discourses and parables, in which the most abstract tenets of the Cabala
were concretely illustrated, reduced to popular language, and applied to
the experiences of everyday life. Besht's circle in Medzhibozh grew
constantly in number. Shortly before his death, Besht witnessed the
agitation conducted by the Frankists in Podolia and their subsequent
wholesale baptism. The Polish rabbis rejoiced in the conversion of the
sectarians to Catholicism, since it rid the Jewish people of dangerous
heretics. But when Besht learned of the fact, he exclaimed: "I heard the
Lord cry and say: As long as the diseased limb is joined to the body,
there is hope that it may be cured in time; but when it has been cut
off, it is lost forever." There is reason to believe that Besht was one
of the rabbis who had been invited to participate in the Frankist
disputation in Lemberg, in 1759. In the spring of the following year,
Besht breathed his last, surrounded by his disciples.
6. THE HASIDIC PROPAGANDA AND THE GROWTH OF TZADDIKISM
At the time of Besht's death, his doctrine had gained a considerable
number of adherents in Podolia, Galicia, and Volhynia, who assumed the
name Hasidim. But the systematic propaganda of Hasidism began only after
the death of Besht, and was carried on by his successors and apostles.
His first successor was the preacher Baer of Mezherich, referred to
previously, under whom the little town of Mezherich became the
headquarters of Hasidism in Volhynia, just as Medzhibozh had been in
Podolia. In point of originality and depth of sentiment Baer was vastly
inferior to his master, but he surpassed him in erudition. His
scholarship insured the success of the Hasidic propaganda among the
learned class, and also enabled him to become one of the main exponents
of the theory of Hasidism.[199] In the course of twelve years
(1760-1772) Baer managed to surround himself with a large number of
prominent Talmudists, who had become enthusiastic converts to Hasidism;
some of them came from arch-rabbinical Lithuania and White Russia. Baer
developed the doctrine of Besht, laying particular stress upon the
principle of Tzaddikism. He trained a staff of apostles, who eventually
became the founders of Tzaddik dynasties in various parts of Poland and
Lithuania. Tzaddikism served as a bait for the common people, who,
instead of a rational belief in certain religious truths, preferred to
put their blind faith in the human exponents of these truths--in the
Tzaddiks.
The same tendency characterized the activity of another apostle of
Besht, Jacob Joseph Cohen, who paid for his devotion to Hasidism by
having to endure the persecutions of his rabbinical colleagues. Having
lost the post of rabbi in Shargorod, Cohen, with the aid of Besht,
accepted the position of preacher in Niemirov, and, after the death of
his master, acted as preacher in Polonnoye. Everywhere he was zealously
engaged in propagating the Hasidic doctrine by means of the spoken and
written word. Jacob Joseph Cohen was the first to attempt a literary
exposition of the fundamental principles of Hasidism. In 1780 he
published a collection of sermons, under the title _Toldoth Ya`kob
Yoseph_,[200] reproducing numerous sayings which he had heard from the
lips of Besht. While exalting the importance of the Tzaddiks, who were
solicitous about the salvation of the common people, Jacob Joseph
bitterly assails the arrogant Talmudists, or "pseudo-scholars," whose
whole religion is limited to book-learning, and whose attitude towards
the masses is one of contempt. Jacob Joseph's book laid the foundation
of Hasidic literature, which differs both in content and form not only
from rabbinical but also from the earlier Cabalistic literature.
In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Hasidism spread with
incredible rapidity among the Jewish masses of Poland and partly even of
Lithuania. Numerous communities saw the rise of Hasidic congregations
and the establishment of separate houses of prayer, in which services,
characterized by boundless ecstasy, violent shouts, and gestures, were
held in accordance with Besht's prescriptions. The Hasidim adopted the
Cabalistic prayer-book of Ari, which differed from the accepted liturgy
by numerous textual alterations and transpositions. They neglected the
traditional time limit for morning prayers, changed the ritual of
slaughtering animals, and some of them were in the habit of dressing
themselves in white on the Sabbath. They were fond of whiling away their
time in noisy assemblies, and frequently indulged in merry drinking
bouts, to foster, in accordance with Besht's precept, "a cheerful
disposition."
The most characteristic trait of the Hasidim, however, was their
boundless veneration of the "holy" Tzaddiks. Though logically the
outcome of Hasidism, in practice Tzaddikism was in many cases its
forerunner. The appearance of some miracle-working Tzaddik in a certain
neighborhood frequently resulted in wholesale conversions to Hasidism.
The Tzaddik's home was overrun by crowds of men and women who in their
credulity hoped to obtain a cure for diseases or a remedy for the
sterility of their women, or who asked for a blessing, for predictions
of the future, or sought advice in practical matters. If, in one case
out of many, the Tzaddik succeeded in helping one of his clients, or if
one of his guesses or predictions proved to be correct, his fame as a
miracle-worker was firmly established, and the population of the
neighborhood was sure to be won over to Hasidism.
The number of Hasidic partisans grew in proportion to the number of
Tzaddiks, of whom there were a great many in the last two decades of the
eighteenth century. The most authoritative Tzaddiks came from the circle
of Baer of Mezherich. Every one of them either laid his own individual
impress upon the doctrine preached by him, or endeavored to adapt
himself to the habits of the population of his district. As a result,
the Hasidic doctrine branched out rapidly, falling into different
varieties. The principal branches of Hasidism were two: that of Poland
and Ukraina, and that of Lithuania and White Russia.
The former was represented by Elimelech of Lizno, in Galicia, Levi
Itzhok of Berdychev, Nohum of Chernobyl, and Borukh of Tulchyn, a
grandson of Besht. Elimelech of Lizno, who died in 1786, carried the
doctrine of practical Tzaddikism to its radical conclusions. He preached
that the first duty of the Hasid consists in reverence for the Tzaddik.
The Tzaddik is "a middleman between Israel and God." Through his
intercession God bestows upon the faithful all earthly blessings--"life,
children, and sustenance"[201]; if the Tzaddik wills otherwise, the flow
of blessings is stopped. The Hasid is therefore obliged to have blind
faith in the Tzaddik, to look upon him as his benefactor, and to give
him of his means. The Tzaddik should be supported by donations in cash
and in kind, so that he may devote himself wholly to the service of God
and thereby prove a blessing to mankind.
This commercial theory of an exchange of services accomplished its
purpose. The people brought their last pennies to the Tzaddik, and the
Tzaddik in turn was indefatigable in bestowing blessings, pouring forth
divine favors upon earth, healing the cripples, curing the sterility of
women, and so on. The profitable calling of Tzaddik became hereditary,
passing from father to son and grandson. Everywhere petty "dynasties" of
Tzaddiks sprang up, which multiplied rapidly and endeavored to wrest the
supremacy from one another. Such was the fate of the cult of the
Righteous taught by Besht, which now assumed gross materialistic forms.
It is fair to add, however, that not everywhere did Tzaddikism sink to
such low depths. There were Tzaddiks who were idealists, lovers of
mankind, and saintly men, however strange the forms in which these
virtues often manifested themselves. One of these men, to quote one
instance, was Levi Itzhok of Berdychev, who in his youth had been
cruelly persecuted by the Lithuanian rabbis for his devotion to
Hasidism. Towards the end of the eighteenth century he settled in
Berdychev as Tzaddik, and became tremendously popular in his new calling
on account of his saintly life and his fatherly love for the common
people. Speaking generally, however, the Ukrainian, Podolian, and
Galician Tzaddiks had one tendency in common, that of inculcating in
their followers a blind faith in the truths of Hasidism and shunning all
"speculation" as injurious to religious sentiment.
The development of Hasidism in Lithuania and White Russia was altogether
different. Whereas in the south Hasidism captured entire communities at
one stroke, meeting with feeble resistance from the dry-as-dust
representatives of Rabbinism, in the north it was forced to engage in a
bitter struggle for existence with powerful Rabbinism as represented by
the Kahal organization. At the same time it received a special coloring
there. The Hasidism of Besht, having been carried to the north by the
disciples of Baer of Mezherich, Aaron of Karlin, Mendel of Vitebsk, and
Zalman of Ladi, could not help absorbing many elements of the dominant
doctrine of Rabbinism. The principal exponent of this new teaching in
the North, Zalman Shneorsohn[202] (died 1813), of Lozno, and later of
Ladi, both in the Government of Moghilev, succeeded in creating a
remarkable system of thought, which may well be designated as "rational
Hasidism." He summed up his theory in the words: "Wisdom, Understanding,
and Knowledge."[203]
While in the main adopting the doctrine of Besht, Zalman injected into
it the method of religious and philosophic investigation. "Speculation"
in matters of faith--within certain limits, of course--was, in his
opinion, not only permissible but even obligatory. He demanded that the
Tzaddik be, not a miracle-worker, but a religious teacher. He purged
Hasidism of numerous vulgar superstitions, robbing it at the same time
of the childlike _naïveté_ which characterized the original doctrine of
Besht. Zalman's own theory was adapted to the comparatively high
intellectual level of the Jewish population of the Northwest. In the
South it was never able to gain adherents.
7. RABBINISM, HASIDISM, AND THE FORERUNNERS OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Rabbinism had long been scenting a dangerous enemy in Hasidism. The
principle proclaimed by Besht, that man is saved by faith and not by
religious knowledge, was in violent contradiction with the fundamental
dogma of Rabbinism, which measured the religious worth of a man by the
extent of his Talmudic learning. The rabbi looked upon the Tzaddik as a
dangerous rival, as a new type of popular priest, who, feeding on the
superstition of the masses, rapidly gained their confidence. The lower
Jewish classes abandoned the uninspiring Talmudist, whose subtleties
they failed to comprehend, and flocked to the miracle-working Tzaddik,
who offered them, not only his practical advice, but also his blessing,
thus saving soul and body at one and the same time. However, completely
defeated by Hasidism in the South, Rabbinism still reigned supreme in
the North, and finally declared a war of extermination against its
rival.
During the period under discussion, in the latter part of the eighteenth
century, the leader of the Lithuanian rabbis was Elijah of Vilna
(1720-1797), who received the ancient, high-sounding title of Gaon.[204]
He was the incarnation of that power of intellect which was the product
of subtle Talmudic reasoning. Early in his childhood Elijah displayed
phenomenal ability. At the age of six he managed to read the Talmudic
text without the aid of a teacher. At the age of ten he participated in
difficult Talmudic discussions, amazing old rabbis by his erudition. His
mind rapidly absorbed everything that came within its range. Elijah was
familiar with the Cabala, and incidentally picked up enough of
mathematics, astronomy, and physics, to be able to follow certain
discussions in the Talmud. He lived in Vilna as a recluse, leading the
life of an ascete and burying himself entirely in his books. He took
little nourishment, slept two hours a day, rarely conversed about
secular affairs, his contact with the outside world being practically
limited to the Talmudic lectures which he delivered before his pupils.
Elijah avoided the method of pilpul, which was meant to exercise the
mind by inventing artificial contradictions in the Talmudic text and
subsequently removing them. Knowing by heart almost the entire Talmudic
and rabbinic literature, he had no difficulty in solving the most
complicated questions of Jewish law, and, guided by subtle critical
observations, occasionally allowed himself to emend the text of the
Talmud. Elijah Gaon wrote commentaries and all sorts of "annotations" to
Biblical, Talmudic, and Cabalistic books, but his style was, as a rule,
careless, consisting of hints, references, and abbreviations,
intelligible only to the learned reader. In his spare moments he
occasionally wrote about Hebrew grammar and mathematical sciences.
Rabbinical learning was his native element, embodying for him the whole
meaning of religion. In questions of religious ceremonialism he was a
rigorist, adding here and there new restrictions to the multifarious
injunctions of the _Shulhan Arukh_. He was the idol of all the learned
rabbis of Lithuania and other countries, but the masses understood him
as little as he understood them. A spiritual aristocrat, he was bound to
condemn severely the "plebeian" doctrine of Hasidism. The latter
offended in him equally the learned Talmudist, the rigorous ascete, and
the strict guardian of ceremonial Judaism, of which certain minutiae had
been modified by the Hasidim after their own fashion.
As far back as 1772, when the first Hasidic societies were secretly
organized in Lithuania, and several of their leaders were discovered in
Vilna, the rabbinical Kahal court of that city pronounced, with the
permission of Elijah Gaon, the herem against the sectarians. From Vilna
circulars were sent out to the rabbis of other communities, calling upon
them to wage war against the "godless sect." In many towns of Lithuania
the Hasidim became the object of persecution. The rabbis of Galicia,
having been forewarned from Vilna, followed suit, and at a meeting held
in Brody, during the local fair, issued a most rigorous herem against
every Jew following the Hasidic liturgy, dressing in white on Saturdays
and holidays,[205] and in general participating in the conventicles of
the Hasidim.
We have already had occasion[206] to refer to the work of the Hasidic
apostle Jacob Joseph Cohen (_Toldoth Ya`kob Yoseph_), which for the
first time reproduced the sayings of Besht, and, by way of comment,
indulged in attacks upon the scholastic "pseudo-wisdom" of the rabbis.
Cohen's work, which appeared in 1780, once more stirred the rabbinical
world. From Vilna the signal was given for a new campaign against the
Hasidim. The rabbis of Lithuania, assembling in 1781 at the fair of
Zelva, in the Government of Grodno, issued appeals to all Jewish
communities, demanding the severest possible penalties for "the
dishonorable followers of Besht, the destroyer of Israel." All orthodox
Jews were called upon to ostracize the Hasidim socially, to regard them
as infidels, to shun all contact and avoid intermarriage with them, and
to refrain from burying their dead. The opponents of the Hasidim called
themselves _Mithnagdim_, "Protestants," and persecuted them everywhere
as dangerous schismatics.
The formation of important Hasidic societies in White Russia, under the
leadership of Zalman Shneorsohn, increased the agitation of the
Mithnagdim. At the rabbinical conferences held in Moghilev and Shklov
severe measures were adopted against the Hasidim, and their leader was
proclaimed a heretic. In vain did Zalman defend himself, and, in his
epistles to the rabbis, demonstrate his Orthodoxy. In vain did he travel
to Vilna to obtain a personal interview with Elijah Gaon and remove the
stain of heresy from himself and his followers. The stern Gaon refused
even to see the exponent of heterodoxy. At the very end of the
eighteenth century the strife of parties in Russian Jewry became more
and more accentuated, and finally led, as we shall see later,[207] to
the interference of the Russian Government.
While warring with one another, Rabbinism and Hasidism found a point of
contact in their common hatred of the new Enlightenment, which proceeded
from the Mendelssohn circle in Berlin. If Rabbinism opposed secular
knowledge actively, looking upon it as a competitor who contested its
own spiritual monopoly, Hasidism opposed it passively, with its whole
being, prompted by an irresistible leaning towards mental drowsiness and
"pious fraud." Hasidism and its inseparable companion Tzaddikism, the
products of a mystical outlook on life, were powerless against cold
logical reasoning. It stands to reason that the Tzaddiks were even more
hostile towards secular learning than the rabbis. True, Rabbinism had
immersed the Jewish mind in the stagnant waters of scholasticism, but
Hasidism, in its further development, endeavored altogether to lull
rational thinking to sleep, and to cultivate, to an excessive degree,
the religious imagination at its expense. The new cultural movement
which had arisen among the Jews of Germany had no chance of penetrating
into this dark realm, which was guarded on the one hand by scholasticism
and on the other by mysticism. The few isolated individuals in Polish
Jewry who manifested a leaning towards secular culture were forced to go
abroad, primarily to Berlin.
One of these rare fugitives from the realm of darkness was Solomon
Maimon (1754-1800). He was born the son of a village arendar in
Lithuania, near Nesvizh, in the Government of Minsk, where he received a
Talmudic education, and where, having scarcely reached the age of
twelve, he was married off by his old-fashioned parents. However, unlike
thousands of other Jewish lads, he managed to escape spiritual death in
the mire of everyday life. Endowed with a searching mind, Solomon Maimon
was driven constantly onward in his mental development. From the Talmud
he passed to the Cabala, in which at one time he was completely
absorbed. From the Cabala he made a sudden leap to the religious
philosophy of Maimonides and other medieval Jewish rationalists. His
youthful intellect was eager for new impressions, and these his
immediate surroundings failed to give him. In 1777 Maimon left home and
family, and went to Germany to acquire secular culture. He found himself
first in Königsberg, and then proceeded to Berlin, Posen, Hamburg, and
Breslau, enduring all kinds of suffering, and tasting to the full the
bitterness of a wanderer's life in a strange land. In Berlin he came in
contact with Mendelssohn and his circle, rapidly acquired a knowledge
of German literature and science, and made a deep study of philosophy,
particularly of the system of Kant.
The sudden transition from rabbinic scholasticism to the "Critical
Philosophy" of Germany, and from the primitive existence of a Lithuanian
Jew to the free life of an educated European, destroyed Maimon's mental
equilibrium. He fell a prey to skepticism and unbelief, denying the
foundations of all religion and morality, and led a disorderly life,
which made his best friends turn from him. In his philosophic criticism,
Maimon went much further than Kant. In 1790 he published in German "A
Tentative Investigation of Transcendental Philosophy," and this book was
followed by a number of writings dealing with metaphysics and logic.
Kant, on reading his first book, made the remark: "No one among my
opponents has grasped the essence of my system as profoundly as Maimon,
nor are there altogether many men endowed with so refined and
penetrating a mind in questions so abstract and complex." In 1792
Solomon Maimon published his "Autobiography" (_Lebensgeschichte_), a
remarkable book, in which he vividly describes the conditions of life
and the ideas prevalent among Polish Lithuanian Jews as well as his own
sad Odyssey. The Autobiography made a profound impression upon educated
Christians, among others on Goethe and Schiller. The last years of his
life Maimon spent in Silesia, on the estate of his friend Count
Kalkreuth, where he continued his philosophic studies. He died in 1800,
and was buried in Glogau. During the last years of his life Maimon was
completely estranged from Judaism. He contributed next to nothing to the
enlightenment of his fellow-Jews, the only work written by him in Hebrew
being an uncompleted commentary on Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed."
Having escaped the realm of darkness, he no more returned thither. Nor
perhaps was he able to do so without risking the same fate as Uriel
Acosta.
The time for cultural rejuvenation had not yet arrived for the Jews of
Poland and Lithuania. Least of all could such a rejuvenation have been
stimulated by the change in their external, political situation: the
transfer of the bulk of the Jewish population from the power of
disintegrating Poland to that of Russia, a country even less civilized
and built upon the foundations of autocracy and serfdom.
FOOTNOTES:
[171] [See p. 46, n. 1, and p. 60, n. 1.]
[172] [Generally pronounced _shammes_.]
[173] See p. 107.
[174] [_I. e._ military commander. Originally the title is found among
the Cossacks; see p. 143, n. 1.]
[175] [See p. 108, n. 1.]
[176] See pp. 204 _et seq._
[177] ["Blessing of the Sacrifice," allusion to I Sam. ix. 13.]
[178] Compare _Be'er ha-Gola_, "Well of the Exiles," by Moses Rivkes,
who fled from Vilna during the massacre of 1655; _Magen Abraham_,
"Shield of Abraham" [allusion to Gen. xv. 1], by Abel Gumbiner,
Rosh-Yeshibah in Kalish, whose parents perished during the time of
unrest, and many others.
[179] [Tannaim are the Talmudic authorities before 200 C. E.; Amoraim
are those between that date and the conclusion of the Talmud, in 500 C.
E.]
[180] [Died 1613. Author of the Hebrew chronicle _Tzemah David_, "Branch
of David."]
[181] [The word originally means "chastisement" (generally by the
father). It then signifies instruction, particularly ethical
instruction.]
[182] Such as _`Amudeha Shiv`ah_ ["Her Seven Pillars," allusion to Prov.
ix. 1], by Bezalel of Kobrin, 1666; _Maor ha-katon_ ["The Lesser Light,"
allusion to Gen. i. 16], by Meïr of Tarnopol, 1697; _Nethib ha-Yashar_,
"The Right Path," by Naphtali of Minsk, 1712, and many others.
[183] [See p. 134, n. 3.]
[184] [See p. 134, n. 4.]
[185] See p. 200.
[186] [On the meaning of the name see p. 223, n. 1.]
[187] [In Polish, _Zamość_, a town in the region of Lublin.]
[188] [See on this controversy Grätz's History, English translation, v.
257 f.]
[189] [See p. 130.]
[190] [_Ibid._]
[191] [In Hebrew the two names are not clearly distinguishable. The
former town, in Polish, _Szydlowiec_, is near Radom. The latter, in
Polish, _Siedlce_, is the capital of the present Russian Government of
the same name, not far from Warsaw.]
[192] [The Turkish Sabbatians, from whom this Spanish title was
borrowed, spoke the Judeo-Spanish dialect. On the abbreviation S. S.,
see Grätz, _Geschichte der Juden_, x^3, 379, n. 1.]
[193] [In Polish, _Lanckorona_, a town in Podolia.]
[194] [Literally, "the Lady," a Cabalistic term for the Divine
Presence.]
[195] [In Podolia.]
[196] [See p. 134, n. 4.]
[197] _Tar`ā de-Rōmēm_, the legendary dwelling-place of the Messiah.
[Comp. Sanhedrin 98a.]
[198] [Literally, "Master of the Name," a man able to perform miracles
through the Name of God.]
[199] An exposition of his doctrines may be found in the book entitled
_Maggid Debarav le-Ya`kob_ ["Showing His Words unto Jacob"--allusion to
Ps. cxlvii. 19], also called _Likkute Amarim_, "Collection of Sayings."
It was published after his death, in 1784.
[200] ["History of Jacob Joseph"--a clever allusion to the Hebrew text
of Gen. xxxvii. 2.]
[201] _Hayye, bane, u-mezone_ [allusion to a well-known Talmudic dictum;
Mo`ed Katan 28^a].
[202] [His full name was Shneor Zalman, which is used by the author
later on. Subsequently he assumed the family name Shneorsohn.]
[203] In Hebrew, _Hokma_, _Bina_, _Da`ath_, abbreviated to HaBaD, from
which the White Russian Hasidim received the nickname "Habadniks."
[204] הגר״א [_Hagro_, abbreviation of _Ha-G_aon _R_abbi _E_(א=o)lia].
[205] The custom of wearing white garments was adopted, for certain
mystical considerations, by the Tzaddiks and the most pious of their
followers.
[206] See p. 230.
[207] See pp. 377 _et seq._