preserve intact through so many centuries of persecution, and for the sake
of which no labour seemed too severe, no sacrifice too large. “Bethink
Thee, O God,” exclaimed one of our Jewish sages who flourished about the
same period, “bethink Thee of Thy faithful children who, amid their
poverty and want, are busy in the study of Thy Law. Bethink Thee of the
poor in Israel who are willing to suffer hunger and destitution if only
they can secure for their children the knowledge of Thy Law.” And so
indeed it was. Old and young, weak and strong, rich and poor, all pursued
that single study, the Torah. The product of this prolonged study is that
gigantic literature which, as a long unbroken chain of spiritual activity,
connects together the various periods of the Jews’ chequered and eventful
history. All ages and all lands have contributed to the development of
this supreme study. For under the word Torah was comprised not only the
Law, but also the contributions of later times expressing either the
thoughts or the emotions of holy and sincere men; and even their honest
scepticism was not entirely excluded. As in the canon of the Bible,
Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon found place in the same volume that
contains the Law and the Prophets, so at a later time people did not
object to put the philosophical works of Maimonides and the songs of Judah
Hallevi on the same level with the Code of the Law compiled by R. Isaac
Alfasi, and the commentaries on the Bible by R. Solomon b. Isaac.(7) None
of them was declared infallible, but also to none of them, as soon as
people were convinced of the author’s sincerity, was denied the homage due
to seekers after truth. Almost every author was called Rabbi (“my master”)
or Rabbenu (“our master”),(8) and nearly every book was regarded more or
less as a contribution to the great bulk of the Torah. It was called
Writ,(9) and was treated with a certain kind of piety. But, by a series of
accidents too long to be related here, sincerity ceased and sport took its
place. I refer to the casuistic schools commonly known by the name of
Pilpulists(10) (the “seasoned” or the “sharp” ones), who flourished in the
last two centuries preceding ours. To the authors of this unhappy period,
a few glorious exceptions always allowed, the preceding Jewish literature
did not mean a “fountain of living waters,” supplying men with truth and
religious inspiration, but rather a kind of armoury providing them with
juristic cases over which to fight, and to out‐do each other in sophistry
and subtlety. As a consequence they cared little or nothing for that part
of the Jewish literature that appeals less to the intellect than to the
feelings of men. In short, religion consisted only of complicated cases
and innumerable ordinances, in which the wit of these men found delight.
But the emotional part of it, whose root is the Faith and Love of men, was
almost entirely neglected.
But it was precisely these higher religious emotions that were Baalshem’s
peculiar province, and it was to them that he assigned in his religious
system a place befitting their importance and their dignity. And the
locality where his ministration lay was curiously adapted for such
propaganda. To that universal study of the Law of which I have just spoken
there was one exception. That exception was amongst the Jews in the
territories which bordered on the Carpathian Mountains, and comprise the
principalities of Moldavia, and Wallachia, Bukowina, and the Ukraine.
It is historically certain that the first arrival of the Jews in Roumania
was at a very early date, but there is no trace of any intellectual
productivity among the immigrants until recent times, and it is admitted
that the study of the Law was almost entirely neglected. It was in these
districts of mental, and perhaps we might add of even spiritual, darkness
that Chassidism took its rise and achieved its first success. “The sect of
the Chassidim,” says one of the bitterest but most trustworthy of their
opponents, “first gained ground in the most uncivilised provinces; in the
wild ravines of Wallachia and the dreary steppes of the Ukraine.”
Apart from the genius of its founder, Chassidism owed its rapid growth to
the intellectual barrenness of these districts as compared with the
intellectual fertility of the other regions where Jews most thickly
congregated. The Roumanian Jews were to some extent under the jurisdiction
of the Rabbis of Poland. Now the Poles were celebrated even in Germany for
the elaboration of their casuistry. These over‐subtle Rabbis, delighting
in the quibbles of their sophistry, and reducing religion to an unending
number of juristic calculations and all sorts of possibilities and
impossibilities, were but too apt to forget the claims of feeling in their
eager desire to question and to settle everything. They may have been
satisfactory guides in matters spiritual to the men of their own stamp,
but they were of no avail to their Roumanian brethren who failed to
recognise religion in the garb of casuistry. It was, therefore, not
surprising that a revolt against the excess of intellectualism should have
sprung up and flourished in those districts where the inhabitants were
constitutionally incapable of appreciating the delights of argument. The
field was ready, and in the fulness of time came the sower in the person
of Baalshem.
In the above estimate of the Polish Rabbis there undoubtedly lurks a touch
of exaggeration. But it represents the view which the Chassidim took of
their opponents. The whole life of Baalshem is a protest against the
typical Rabbi thus conceived. The essential difference in the ideals of
the two parties is perhaps best illustrated in those portions of their
biographical literature where legend treads most closely upon the heels of
fact.
The hero of Polish Rabbinic biography at five years of age can recite by
heart the most difficult tractates of the Talmud; at eight he is the
disciple of the most celebrated teacher of the time, and perplexes him by
the penetrative subtlety of his questions; while at thirteen he appears
before the world as a full‐fledged Doctor of the Law.
The hero of the Chassidim has a totally different education, and his
distinctive glory is of another kind. The legendary stories about
Baalshem’s youth tell us little of his proficiency in Talmudic studies;
instead of sitting in the Beth Hammidrash with the folios of some
casuistic treatise spread out before him, Baalshem passes his time singing
hymns out of doors, or under the green trees of the forest with the
children. Satan, however, says the Chassid, is more afraid of these
innocent exercises than of all the controversies in the Meheram Shiff.(11)
It was through external nature, the woods of his childhood, the hills and
wild ravines of the Carpathians where he passed many of his maturer years,
that Baalshem, according to his disciples, reached his spiritual
confirmation. The Chassidic hero had no celebrated Rabbi for his master.
He was his own teacher. If not self‐taught, it was from angelic lips, or
even the Divine voice itself, that he learned the higher knowledge. From
the source whence the Torah flowed Baalshem received heavenly lore. His
method of self‐education, his ways of life, his choice of associates were
all instances of revolt; not only did he teach a wholly different theory
and practice, but he and his disciples seem to have missed no opportunity
of denouncing the old teachers as misleading and ungodly. Among the many
anecdotes illustrating this feature, it is told how once, on the evening
before the great Day of Atonement, Baalshem was noticed by his disciples
to be, contrary to his usual custom, depressed and ill at ease. The whole
subsequent day he passed in violent weeping and lamentations. At its close
he once more resumed his wonted cheerfulness of manner. When asked for the
explanation of his behaviour, he replied that the Holy Spirit had revealed
to him that heavy accusations were being made against the Jewish people,
and a heavy punishment had been ordained upon them. The anger of heaven
was caused by the Rabbis, whose sole occupation was to invent lying
premisses and to draw from them false conclusions. All the truly wise
Rabbis of the olden time (such as the Tannaim, the Amoraim(12) and their
followers, whom Baalshem regarded as so many saints and prophets) had now
stood forth as the accusers of their modern successors by whom their words
were so grossly perverted from their original meaning. On this account
Baalshem’s tears had been shed, and his prayers as usual had been
successful. The impending judgment was annulled. On another occasion, when
he overheard the sounds of eager, loud discussion issuing from a
Rabbinical college, Baalshem, closing his ears with his hands, declared
that it was such disputants who delayed the redemption of Israel from
captivity. Satan, he said, incites the Rabbis to study those portions of
Jewish literature only on which they can whet the sharpness of their
intellects, but from all writings of which the reading would promote piety
and the fear of God he keeps them away. “Where there is much study,” says
a disciple of Baalshem, “there is little piety.” “Jewish Devils”(13) is
one of the numerous polite epithets applied to the Rabbis by the friends
of Baalshem. “Even the worst sinners are better than they; so blind are
they in the arrogance of their self‐conceit that their very devotion to
the Law becomes a vehicle for their sin.” It will be found when we deal
with the most positive side of Baalshem’s teaching that this antagonism to
the attitude and methods of the contemporary Rabbis is further emphasised,
and it will readily be seen that his whole scheme of religion and of
conduct in relation to God and man rendered this acknowledged hostility
inevitable. In approaching this part of our subject it should be
remembered that, as stated above, Baalshem himself wrote nothing. For a
knowledge of his sayings we are therefore dependent on the reports of his
friends and disciples. And it is not unfrequently necessary to supplement
these by the teaching of his followers, whom we may suppose in large
measure to have caught the spirit of their master. Unfortunately the
original authorities are in a difficult Hebrew patois which often obscures
the precise meaning of whole passages.
The originality of Baalshem’s teaching has been frequently impugned,
chiefly by the suggestion that he drew largely from the Zohar (Book of
Brightness).(14) This mystical book, “the Bible of the Cabbalists,”
whether we regard its subject‐matter or its history and influence, is
unique in literature. Its pretended author is Simeon ben Yochai, a great
Rabbi of the second century, but the real writer is probably one Moses de
Leon, a Spanish Jew, who lived eleven centuries later. The book is one of
the most interesting literary forgeries, and is a marvellous mixture of
good and evil. A passage of delicate religious fancy is succeeded by
another of gross obscenity in illustration and suggestion; true piety and
wild blasphemy are strangely mingled together. Baalshem undoubtedly had
studied the Zohar, and he even is reported to have said that the reading
of the Zohar had enabled him to see into the whole universe of things.
But, for all that, Baalshem was no copyist; and the Zohar, although it may
have suggested a hint to him here and there, was not the source whence his
inspiration was drawn.
Its attraction for Baalshem is sufficiently explained by the fantastic,
imaginative, and emotional nature of its contents. It lent itself more
easily than the older Rabbinical literature to new explanations unthought
of by its author. But even the Talmud and its early commentaries became
apocalyptic to the heroes of Chassidism. Nay, the driest and most legal
disquisitions about _meum_ and _tuum_ could be translated into parables
and allegories and symbols full of the most exalted meanings. Baalshem,
like every other religious reformer, was partially the product of his age.
The influences of the past, the history and literature of his own people,
helped to make him what he was. But they do not rob him of his
originality. He was a religious revivalist in the best sense; full of
burning faith in his God and his cause; convinced utterly of the value of
his work and the truth of his teaching.
Although there can be no real doubt of Baalshem’s claim to originality, it
should be borne in mind that his teaching is not only distinctively
Jewish, but that for every part of it parallels and analogies could be
found in the older Hebrew literature. Indeed it is not wonderful that in a
literature, extending over 2000 years, of a people whose chief thoughts
have been religion, and who have come in contact with so many external
religious and philosophic influences, the germs can be discovered of
almost every conceivable system, and the outline of almost every
imaginable doctrine.
The keynote of all Baalshem’s teachings is the Omnipresence, or more
strictly the Immanence, of God. This is the source from which flows
naturally every article of his creed; the universality of the Divinity is
the foundation of the entire Chassidic fabric. The idea of the constant
living presence of God in all existence permeates the whole of Baalshem’s
scheme; it is insisted on in every relation; from it is deduced every
important proposition and every rule in conduct of his school.
All created things and every product of human intelligence owe their being
to God. All generation and all existence spring from the thought and will
of God. It is incumbent upon man to believe that all things are pervaded
by the divine life, and when he speaks he should remember that it is this
divine life which is speaking through him. There is nothing which is void
of God. If we imagine for a moment such a thing to be, it would instantly
fall into nothingness. In every human thought God is present. If the
thought be gross or evil, we should seek to raise and ennoble it by
carrying it back to its origin. So, if a man be suddenly overwhelmed by
the aspect of a beautiful woman, he should remember that this splendour of
beauty is owing to the all‐pervading emanation from the divine. When he
remembers that the source of corporeal beauty is God, he will not be
content to let his thought abide with the body when he can rise to the
inward contemplation of the infinite soul of beauty, which is God. A
disciple of Baalshem has said: Even as in the jewels of his beloved the
lover sees only the beauty of her he loves, so does the true lover of God
see in all the appearances of this world, the vitalising and generative
power of his divine master. If you do not see the world in the light of
God you separate the creation from its Creator. He who does not fully
believe in this universality of God’s presence has never properly
acknowledged God’s Sovereignty, for he excludes God from an existing
portion of the actual world. The word of God (to Baalshem, a synonym for
God himself), which “is settled in heaven” and “established on earth,” is
still and always speaking, acting, and generating throughout heaven and
earth in endless gradations and varieties. If the vitalising word were to
cease, chaos would come again. The belief in a single creation after which
the Master withdrew from his completed work, is erroneous and heretical.
The vivifying power is never withdrawn from the world which it animates.
Creation is continuous; an unending manifestation of the goodness of God.
All things are an affluence from the two divine attributes of Power and
Love, which express themselves in various images and reflections.
This is the doctrine of universality in Chassidism. God, the father of
Israel, God the Merciful, God the All‐powerful, the God of Love, not only
created everything but is embodied in everything. The necessity of
believing this doctrine is the cardinal Dogma. But as creation is
continuous so also is revelation. This revelation is only to be grasped by
faith. Faith, therefore, is more efficacious than learning. Thus it is
that in times of persecution, the wise and the foolish, the sinner and the
saint, are wont alike to give up their life for their faith. They who
could render no answer to the questions of the casuist are yet willing to
die the most cruel of deaths rather than deny their faith in the One and
Supreme God. Their strength to face danger and death is owing to that
divine illumination of the soul which is more exalted than knowledge.
We should thus regard all things in the light of so many manifestations of
the Divinity. God is present in all things; therefore there is good,
actual or potential, in all things. It is our duty everywhere to seek out
and to honour the good, and not to arrogate to ourselves the right to
judge that which may seem to be evil. In thinking therefore of a fellow‐
man, we should above all things realise in him the presence of the spirit
of good. Whence we have the Doctrine that each of us, while thinking
humbly of himself, should always be ready to think well, and always slow
to think evil, of another. This explains the Chassidic attitude towards
erring humanity. Baalshem viewed human sin and infirmity in a very
different light from that of the ordinary Rabbi. Ever conscious of the
Divine side of Humanity, he vigorously combated the gratuitous assumption
of sinfulness in man which was a fertile subject with contemporary
preachers. They, among the Roumanian Jews as in other communities,
delighted chiefly to dwell on the dark side of things, and found their
favourite theme in elaborate descriptions of the infernal punishments that
were awaiting the sinner after death. It is related how on one occasion
Baalshem rebuked one of these. The preacher had been denouncing woe to an
audience of whom he knew nothing whether for evil or for good. Baalshem,
indignant at this indiscriminative abuse and conceited arrogation of the
divine office of judgment, turned on him in the following words: “Woe upon
thee who darest to speak evil of Israel! Dost not know that every Jew,
when he utters ever so short a prayer at the close of day, is performing a
great work before which the angels in heaven bow down?” Great, as it would
seem, was the value set by Baalshem upon the smallest evidence of the
higher nature in man, and few there were, as he believed, who, if their
spirit was not darkened by pride, did not now and again give proof of the
divine stamp in which God had created them. No sin so separates us from
God that we need despair of return. From every rung of the moral ladder,
no matter how low, let man seek God. If he but fully believe that nothing
is void of God, and that God is concealed in the midst of apparent ruin
and degradation, he will not fear lest God be far from him. God is
regained in a moment of repentance, for repentance “transcends the limits
of space and time.” And he who leads the sinner to repentance causes a
divine joy; it is as though a king’s son had been in captivity and were
now brought back to his father’s gaze.
Baalshem refused to regard any one as wholly irredeemable. His was an
optimistic faith. God was to be praised in gladness by the dwellers in
this glorious world. The true believer, recognising the reflection of God
in every man, should hopefully strive, when that reflection was obscured
by sin, to restore the likeness of God in man. The peculiar detestability
of sin lies in this, that man rejects the earthly manifestations of the
Divinity and pollutes them. One of Baalshem’s disciples delighted in the
saying that the most hardened sinners were not to be despaired of, but
prayed for. None knows the heart of man, and none should judge his
neighbour. Let him who burns with zeal for God’s sake, exercise his zeal
on himself, not others. Baalshem said, “Let no one think himself better
than his neighbour, for all serve God; each according to the measure of
understanding which God has given him.”
From this position it is a natural step to Baalshem’s view of prayer. He
is reputed to have said that all the greatness he had achieved was the
issue not of study but of prayer. But true prayer “must move,” as Baalshem
phrased it, “in the realms above,” and not be concerned with affairs
sublunary. Your prayer should not be taken up with your wishes and needs,
but should be the means to bring you nigh to God. In prayer man must lay
aside his own individuality, and not even be conscious of his existence;
for if, when he prays, Self is not absolutely quiescent, the object of
prayer is unattainable. Indeed it is only through God’s grace that after
true prayer man is yet alive; to such a point has the annihilation of self
proceeded.
It may be necessary to caution the reader against ascribing to Baalshem
any modern rationalistic notions on the subject of prayer. The power of
prayer, in the old‐fashioned sense, to produce an answer from God was
never doubted by Baalshem for a moment. Baalshem’s deity is not restricted
towards any side by any philosophic considerations. All Baalshem meant was
that any reference or regard to earthly requirements was unworthy and
destructive of this communion of man with God. The wise man, says
Baalshem, does not trouble the king with innumerable petitions about
trifles. His desire is merely to gain admission into the king’s presence
and to speak with him without a go‐between. To be with the king whom he
loves so dearly is for him the highest good. But his love for the king has
its reward; for the king loves him.
It has already been implied that, with regard to our duty towards our
fellow‐man, we must not only honour him for the good, and abstain from
judging the evil that may be in him, but must pray for him. Furthermore we
must work for his spiritual and moral reclamation. In giving practical
effect in his own life to this doctrine, Baalshem’s conduct was in
striking contrast to that of his contemporaries. He habitually consorted
with outcasts and sinners, with the poor and uneducated of both sexes,
whom the other teachers ignored. He thus won for his doctrines a way to
the heart of the people by adapting his life and language to their
understanding and sympathies. In illustration of this, as well as of his
hatred of vanity and display, it is told how, on the occasion of his being
accorded a public reception by the Jews on his arrival at Brody, instead
of addressing to them in the conventional fashion some subtle discourse
upon a Talmudical difficulty, he contented himself with conversing upon
trivial topics in the local dialect with some of the less important
persons in the crowd.
This incident is perhaps the more noteworthy because it occurred in Brody,
which was at that time a seat of learning and Rabbinic culture,—a place
where, for that very reason, Chassidism was never able to gain a foothold.
It is probable enough that Baalshem in his visits to this town kept aloof
from the learned and the wise, and sought to gather round him the
neglected and humbler elements of Jewish society. It is well known that
Baalshem consorted a good deal with the innkeepers of the district, who
were held in very low repute among their brethren. The following remark by
one of his followers is very suggestive in this respect. Just as only
superficial minds attach a certain holiness to special places, whilst with
the deeper ones all places are alike holy, so that to them it makes no
difference whether prayers be said in the synagogue or in the forest; so
the latter believe that not only prophecies and visions come from heaven,
but that every utterance of man, if properly understood, contains a
message of God. Those who are absorbed in God will easily find the divine
element in everything which they hear, even though the speaker himself be
quite ignorant of it.
This line of conduct gave a fair opening for attack to his opponents, an
opportunity of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Baalshem was
pointed at as the associate of the lowest classes. They avenged themselves
for his neglect of and hostility to the learned by imputing the worst
motives to his indifference to appearances. He was accused of idling about
the streets with disreputable characters, and one polemical treatise draws
the vilest inferences from his apparent familiarity with women. To this
charge Baalshem’s conduct, innocent in itself, gave some colour; for his
views and habits in relation to women marked a strong divergence from
current customs. The position of women in contemporary circles was neither
debased nor inevitably unhappy, but it was distinctly subordinate. Their
education was almost entirely neglected, and their very existence was
practically ignored. According to the Chassidic doctrine of Universality,
woman was necessarily to be honoured. “All Jews,” says one Chassid, “even
the uneducated and the women, believe in God.” Baalshem frequently
associated with women, assigning to them not only social equality, but a
high degree of religious importance.