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, a.s.sembled 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 superst.i.tion 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, partic.i.p.ating 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 role 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" (G.o.d, the Messiah, and a female hypostasis of G.o.d, 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 a.s.semblies 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sembly, 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 chast.i.ty. The women admitted that they had violated their conjugal fidelity, and told of the s.e.xual 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 ma.n.u.script 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 G.o.d 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 partic.i.p.ate 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. .h.i.t 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 princ.i.p.al a.s.sociates 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 a.s.serted 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 n.o.bility acting as sponsors. The neophytes a.s.sumed the family names and t.i.tles of their G.o.dfathers, and in this way received admission into the ranks of the Polish n.o.bility. 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 pet.i.tioned King Augustus III. to act as his G.o.dfather. 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 a.s.sumed the name Joseph.
However, the att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude 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 repet.i.tion 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 part.i.tion 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 Brunn, in Moravia (1773).
The further exploits of this adventurer were performed in a new field, in Western Europe. In Catholic Austria, Frank a.s.sumed the role 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 t.i.tle of "Baron of Offenbach." In his new place of residence, Frank, a.s.sisted 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 n.o.blest 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 ma.s.ses. 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--const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sembly, 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 ma.s.ses were much further removed from the sources of rabbinic learning, having emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the influence of the Talmudic scholar. While in Lithuania dry book-learning was inseparable from a G.o.dly 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 ma.s.ses. 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 a.s.sistant 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 ma.n.u.scripts," 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Tl.u.s.ta, 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses. 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, cheering the human soul by the belief in the goodness of G.o.d, encouraging and comforting the poor, the persecuted, and the suffering.
Besht preached that the plain man, imbued with nave faith, and able to pray fervently and whole-heartedly, was dearer and nearer to G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses 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 role 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d_ is and must be the princ.i.p.al endeavor of every truly religious man. This communion may be attained by concentrating one"s thoughts upon G.o.d, 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 G.o.d.
_Prayer_ is the most important medium through which man can attain communion with G.o.d. 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d than any one else. The function of the Tzaddik is _to serve as mediator between G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 a.s.sociates 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 a.s.serted 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 pet.i.tion 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 ill.u.s.trated, 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 partic.i.p.ate in the Frankist disputation in Lemberg, in 1759. In the spring of the following year, Besht breathed his last, surrounded by his disciples.