History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume I Part 15

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 a.s.sumed 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 surpa.s.sed him in erudition. His scholarship insured the success of the Hasidic propaganda among the learned cla.s.s, 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 t.i.tle _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 a.s.sails the arrogant Talmudists, or "pseudo-scholars," whose whole religion is limited to book-learning, and whose att.i.tude towards the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.semblies, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Chern.o.byl, 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 G.o.d." Through his intercession G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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, pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sumed 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 princ.i.p.al 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 superst.i.tions, robbing it at the same time of the childlike _navete_ 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 superst.i.tion of the ma.s.ses, rapidly gained their confidence. The lower Jewish cla.s.ses 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 t.i.tle 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 ma.s.ses 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 p.r.o.nounced, 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 "G.o.dless 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 Sat.u.r.days and holidays,[205] and in general partic.i.p.ating 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, a.s.sembling 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 compet.i.tor who contested its own spiritual monopoly, Hasidism opposed it pa.s.sively, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Konigsberg, 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 p.r.o.nounced _shammes_.]

[173] See p. 107.

[174] [_I. e._ military commander. Originally the t.i.tle 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 ma.s.sacre 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 "chastis.e.m.e.nt" (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 Mer 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, _Zamosc_, a town in the region of Lublin.]

[188] [See on this controversy Gratz's History, English translation, v.

257 f.]