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From: JUICE Administration
juice@wzo.org.il
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: JUICE week 10 History

Modern Jewish Identity
Tzvi Howard Adelman, Jerusalem

Week 10
Introduction

While denominational development expressed the most unified and ultimately
the most enduring form of identification, most Jews, as is the case today,
did not and do not identify with any particular branch of Judaism and have
formulated many individualistic approaches towards their Jewishness. The
theme which, especially in retrospect, united many of these diverse
formulations, was the Jewish Question. In other words, most Jews did not
struggle with matters of Jewish identity only in light of the Jewish
experience, but rather also as a reaction to many external pressures
concerning their Jewishness from Christian society.

A. Eastern Europe

1. The Hasidic Movement and the Mitnagdim

While it could be considered as a modern denomination as well, the Hasidic
movement of Poland, for want of space last week if for any other reason,
can be considered as a movement of identity that influenced secular and
alienated Jews as much as it deal extremely religious ones.

The historiography of the Hasidic movements is wracked with controversy.
On the one hand the nineteenth century historian Heinrich Graetz called it
"grossest superstition" and "daughter of darkness born in gloom." On the
other hand, the twentieth century philosopher Martin Buber popularized the
movement, especially their legends for western intellectuals in search of
spiritual models.

The movement was founded by The Besht, Israel ben Eliezer Baal Shem Tov
(1700-1760), of Miedzyboz, Podolia, Poland. His life has been shrouded in
mystery and legend. Despite the claims of later Hasidim, it is not clear
whether he was an ignorant peasant or a rabbinic scholar, whether he
created the Hasidim or they already existed and turned to him for
leadership.

One of the major sources of the early movement, Shivhei Habesht, In
Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, first published in 1814, and then in many
different versions, including an English translation, may either report
the actual life of the Baal Shem Tov or merely conventional folk motives,
Jewish as well as Christian, including the influence of contemporary
Russian Orthodox mysticism. For example, the work bears strong
similarities to earlier hagiographic writings such as Shivhei Haari about
Isaac ben Solomon Luria (1534-1572, Ha-Elohi Rabbi Yitzhak). Both men were
conceived in purity, without sexual desire on part of their parents, and
both had supernatural knowledge of languages of palm trees, of which there
were not too many in Podolia.

The Baal Shem Tov was, according to his followers, 1) a faith healer and
miracle worker, who produced signs, wonders, amulets, spells, and charms,
using methods such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and communication with
ghosts, for a fee--which is what a baal shem tov does; 2) a religious
leader, capable of ecstatic prayers for intimate contact with God,
devekut, and ascent of the soul to heaven, aliyat neshamah; and 3) a
Jewish leader, who used his special powers to protect Jews, cancel evil
decrees, redeem prisoners, and supervise communal affairs.

Recently Moshe Rosman, using the records of the Czartoryski family which
owned Miedzyboz which are still extant in Cracow and now available to
Jewish scholars, has been able to reconstruct the life of the Besht. Much
of what he has discovered confirms the realia of Shivhei Habesht. In fact
the Besht himself is actually mentioned as "Kabalista," "Balsem,"
"Balsam," and "Balszem Doktor." According to the records, he lived tax
free in a house owned by the Jewish community. From this material it
seems that the Besht was prominent and respected, supported by the Jewish
community, head of an elite group, and a member of the Jewish
establishment. Thus, not, as is often claimed, a boorish illiterate who
created a new social movement nor one who was opposed by the community.
After he died, the occupant of the house was listed as Herzko, Zvi Hirsh,
his son, showing the continuity of the position in his family.

Many reasons have been advanced by historians for the spread of the
movement, often having to do as much as with the political position of the
Jews in eastern Europe as well as with their changing religious needs. So
that the movement was attributed by Benzion Dinur to the fading of the
corporate nature of Jewish society with the end of the Council of Four
Lands in 1764 and the partitions of Poland beginning in 1772. Gershom
Scholom, however saw the movement as a continuation of the Sabbatean
messianic movement and Simon Dubnow saw it as a reaction against what he
characterized as the repressive nature of rabbinic religion and the lack
of satisfying spiritual outlets, a view modified slightly by Jacob Katz
who saw the fervent mysticism of Besht attracting a movement desirous of
religious experience but still remaining faithful to rabbinic law. Some
historians, particularly the Marxist Raphael Mahler, saw the movement as a
class struggle between the oppressed lower classes and the upper classes,
between corrupt leaders of the kehillah and the merchants who oppressed
the masses, especially the outcasts, neglected, humble, poor, and women.
The movement was, therefore, an opportunity for secondary
leaders--community functionaries-- to rise up against them, a view which
may be belied by Rossman's recent findings, questions of whether Jewish
life was that bad during the eighteenth century, whether there is
evidence for social activism, and particularly, whether, despite claims to
the contrary, women enjoyed any opportunities in the Hasidic movement.

One of the main forces in the development of the hasidic movement was the
idea of the zaddik, the divinely illuminated, served as an intermediary
between God and human kind, longstanding historiographical and popular
Jewish resistance to believe that such forces have existed among the Jews
notwithstanding. Through love of the zaddik, a person could win the grace
of God; through the zaddik the hasid found communion with God; and through
business partnerships with the zaddik the hasid could find success.
Zadikim therefore also profited financially as well as spiritually and
established very opulent courts which became a source of criticism of the
movement.

Among the Hasidim, the zadik and his court represented sacred space and a
replacement, like the Hamburg Temple was for the German Reformers, for the
holy spaces of Jerusalem: "Kotz iz dokh bimkoim ha-mikdash," Kotz, the
home of one of the major hasidic courts, instead of the Temple. And
changing the world Zion in Isaiah 12:6, "Rejoice and exult, thou who
dwellest in Bratslav." Today in Israel, Kefar Habad, one of the major
branches of Hasidism (see below), is modeled after their late Rebbe's
center at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and at their meeting place in
Jerusalem they display a model of his Brooklyn headquarters, reversing the
usual hierarchies of Jewish spiritual space.

By the summer of 1772, led by Elija ben Solomon Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna
(1720-1797), himself a kabbalist and charismatic leader, the Mitnagdim or
Misnogdim, began to organize opposition to the hasidic movement. Equally
observant, equally kabbalistic, these two movements have continued to this
day with their differences, especially in neighborhoods such as Meah
Shearim undiscernible to outside observers (390).

The most common hasidic group today, especially because of its outreach to
non-hasidic Jews, is the Habad movement or the Lubavitchers. The letters
stand for hokhmah, binah, and deah, that is wisdom, understanding, and
knowledge and Lubavitch was their main center. The founder of the
movement, Shneur Zalman of Liady (1748-1813), the first Lubavitcher Rebbe,
aimed to reconcile Torah study and Hasidism. In addition, he supported
Russia against France in 1810 because he saw the Tzar as better for
Judaism than the changes of the French Revolution. As a sign of the
frustrations of the Jewish Question in eastern Europe, despite his
enthusiasm for the Russians, both he and his son, after rabbis made
accusations against them before the government, were arrested. And equally
related to the Jewish Question was the conversion of one of his sons to
Catholicism.

Also a significant measure of the impact of the Jewish Question on the
hasidic movement was the work of Joseph Isaac Schneerson (1880-1950), the
third Rebbe, who succeeded his father Shalom Dov Beer (d. 1920), the
second Rebbe, Shneur Zalman's son and heir. Reflecting what we have seen
as a new tendency among the enlightened Jews of western Europe, the Rebbe
devoted a great deal of time to the study of the history of the hasidic
movement, an area of inquiry usually not of much interest to Hasidim. In
his historical reconstructions of Hasidism, Joseph Isaac tried to show
that the movement had always reflected its current patterns of
organization, viz. that the Besht himself had disciplined disciples,
including already many from Lubavitch, who, sometime working in secret,
engaged in a battle for Judaism, that the movement had been based on
dynastic succession from the start, and, most interestingly not only in
light of the Jewish Question but also today's discussions, that the Besht
had initiated the movement for the productivization of Jewish economic
life by encouraging farming and crafts. These policies certainly had been
established by Czar Alexander I at the beginning of the 19th century and
were supported then by Dov Beer of Lubavitch. Thus, like Maskilim,
Reformers, and others, Joseph Isaac used the current coinage of
vindication by history to inspire his followers with a sense of their
history.

He in fact went so far as to rely on materials that some considered to
have been forgeries, the Kherson Genizah of letters attributed to the
Besht discovered after the First World War in Ukraine, especially when
they placed Shneur Zalman of Liady, not mentioned at all in Shivhei
Habesht, in a place of prominence in succession to Dov Baer of Mezhirech,
the main disciple of the Besht.

At the same time, while the Russians were systematically trying to
eliminate Jewish life, the Rebbe fought to preserve Jewish practice
underground. During the war he came to the US and organized Habad's
outreach activities. His son-in-law, who took his wife's family name, was
the most recent leader of the Habad movement. At the time of his death,
leaving no children nor successors, his followers divided on the questions
who would be his successor, whether he was the messiah, and whether, as
some now claim, he is God incarnate who has not died but will be
resurrected and provide salvation to the Jewish people (387, 391,
284/247).

************************************************************************

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