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HASIDISM.   Term Paper ID:25235 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Jewish movement's origins, leadership, followers, the Enlightenment, beliefs & practices, population.... More...

8 Pages / 1800 Words 4 sources, 19 Citations, MLA Format $32.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Jewish movement's origins, leadership, followers, the Enlightenment, beliefs & practices, population. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION Hasidism is a Jewish movement dating from the eighteenth century. It began as a strong movement and then lost much of its force as times changed and because of its own internal failures, but the underlying conception persisted and was revived during the period of Jewish existentialism. Hasidism is not a single sect but an idea and an attitude that has given birth to a number of different philosophical systems, though all are linked in terms of a sense of spiritual community. ORIGINS The gospel of Hasidism was born in eighteenth-century Europe through the offices of Bal Shem Tov, in Poland. The conditions in Europe at that time were similar to those in ancient Palestine in the first century A.D., and just as Christianity developed out Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. However, fierce opposition to the movement developedand within a century, Hasidism had lost its force, though not so muchbecause of attacks upon it as because of its own internal weakness: New religions, like revolutions, must be quickly institutionalized, because they contain the seeds for their own destruction. TENETS Hasidism has no specific articles of faith and does not demandallegiance to a formal code. A History of the Jews. He founded a movement and was responsible for twoinstitutions. The Satmarers believe that a trueJewish state cannot exist until the Messiah comes, and they believe thatthe existence of a democratic Jewish state that functions independently ofJewish laws is sacrilege. He worked outside the synagogue system and traveled aroundthe country. Israel ben Eliezer, later known as Bal Shem Tov, or the Besht, felt acall in 1736. A hasid is known by the life he leads,showing faith in the tzaddik, joy, humility, devotion (kavanah), andenthusiasm (hitlahavut): "Hasidism attaches importance to every word, toevery thought, and to every act, for every Jew is a coworker with theAlmighty in the renewal of creation" (Rabinowicz 318). They helped to destroy the image the Jews had of themselves as eternal ghetto dwellers. What theywanted, however, was to be westernized without being Christianized, becausethey wanted to create a Jewish culture that could also be used by the West: As they looked about them, these harbingers of the early Haskala saw half of Eastern Europe's Jews infected with the Hasidic doctrines of salvation. He thus creates a vacuum, which is filled up by a sort of supernal being, who acts and speaks for him (Johnson 297). Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1988.----------------------- 11 Dov Ber, his disciple, spread the hasidic gospelthroughout Europe. The key to salvation is thus botha collective and an individual encounter with God through faith, and such afaith needs no dogma and so is accessible to all, as the Besht would havesaid (Dimont 362). This isbecause the Besht was a revivalist and not a revolutionary, as noted, andhis intent was thus to revitalize the Jewish religion and the Jewishpeople. Over time, the Enlightenment of the West and the Haskala of theEast would move closer to one another and reach an accommodation around19 . They sought for answers inphilosophy and did not switch to Christianity as did many in the West atthat time. Buber was the primary thinker whose views strongly influencedJewish existentialism and also Protestant existentialists such as PaulTillich: "Today, Buber's thinking like that of Freud, permeates Westernculture" (Dimont 361). By the mid-nineteenth century, as the Haskala was in full swing, theHasidists were identified as the enemy. All are children of the living God. For one thing, the Lubavitchershave succeeded in capturing the imaginations of many young Jews, among themsome Satmarers. One sect is the Lubavitchers, whose name comes formthe Belorussian city that was the home to their dynasty for many years.They are now believed to be the largest sect worldwide, though there is nocensus available, and they are one of forty sects that survived theHolocaust and the Russian pogroms. Not always had the Jews been such derided creatures, these novels implied. Before World War II, there were some 5 Hasidic sects. He is a friend in this world and an advocate in then world to come, giving life new meaning, new color, and new hope (Rabinowicz 319).The tzaddik is neither elected nor appointed by the community; he requiresno ordination; and his office is not hereditary. He had little learning himself, and no authentic work of hishas survived. Haskala writers expressed this innovels which mirrored the sort of escape fiction popular at the time. Hasidism was no exception, As there was no organization to establish tradition or give the movement direction, it took off without tradition in all directions (Dimont 289).In consequence, each Hasidic rabbi seized a piece of territory so thatthere were soon hundreds of Hasidic "principalities," "duchies," and"palatinates," with each maintaining its rabbi like a separate prince. Hasidism recognizes no aristocracy, neither the aristocracy of wealth nor the aristocracy of learning. Another surviving group is the Satmarers, and they live inthe Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. INTRODUCTION Hasidism is a Jewish movement dating from the eighteenth century. The Talmud and thebooks of the Maccabees refer to the second-century B.C.E. The hasidim did not believe in asceticism or in detachment fromthe material world. As Orthodoxy has gained adherents and power in recentyears, the ranks of the Lubavitcher have swelled with Jews from all walksof life. Hasidism: The Movement and Its Masters. This helper is called a tzaddik. The concept of the tzaddik did not originate with Besht but is foundin much earlier literature. Some 2 , live in the United Stats, and one-half of thatnumber in Brooklyn. He became highly influential and was visited by people whocame great distances. It would also resurface in thecontemporary school of Jewish theological existentialism under Martin Buber(Dimont 289). It is he who can teach you to conduct your affairs so that your soul can remain free, and he can teach you to strengthen your soul to keep you steadfast beneath the blows of destiny (Rabinowicz 319). sect of the"Hasideans," derived from the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew hasidim,and these were valiant defenders of the law. While Hasidismuplifts the poor, it does not denigrate wealth but simply tries toeliminate the barriers between man and man and between man and his Maker: Much is expected of the hasid. Itbegan as a strong movement and then lost much of its force as times changedand because of its own internal failures, but the underlying conceptionpersisted and was revived during the period of Jewish existentialism.Hasidism is not a single sect but an idea and an attitude that has givenbirth to a number of different philosophical systems, though all are linkedin terms of a sense of spiritual community. Jews, God and History. In addition, Hasidism was not dogmatic and believed inmany different groups following the same essential understanding, so theewere marked differences among the sects developed by Ruzhin and Kotzk,Sochaczew and Sadgora, Ger and Lubavith, and others. Buber emphasized the importance of history in theworld today. New York: Harper, 1987.Rabinowicz, Harry M. He can heal both the ailing body and the ailing soul, for he knows ho one is bound up with the other, and the knowledge gives him the power to influence both. It is like seeing through a transparent object . Buber describes the role as follows: A helper is needed, a helper for both body and soul, for both earthly and heavenly matters. EXISTENTIALISM Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber were each born on the borderlandbetween Eastern and Western Europe, and each seized upon the underlyingpsychological structure of hasidism for their more modern approach toJudaism. FOLLOWERS Bal Shem Tov left no writings, and what we know of him we know fromhis disciples. THE ENLIGHTENMENT "Haskala" refers to the Jewish form of the European Enlightenment,and a belief in the Haskala was known as a maskil. They later wereallied with the Hasmoneans, then merged with either the Pharisees or theEssenes (Rabinowicz 318). He found that man has a soul he identified as his unconsciousnational soul, a mirror image of the collective soul of the Jewish people.The latter soul comprises four thousand years of Jewish history:"Therefore, in order to know himself, the Jew must at all times be aware ofthe history of his people" (Dimont 362). The conditions in Europe at thattime were similar to those in ancient Palestine in the first century A.D.,and just as Christianity developed out of a period of oppressive rule andstrife, so did Hasidism develop in a time of political oppression, socialunrest, revelation, penance, and mystic cults. Once they had been romantic lovers, brave warriors, people of destiny (Dimont 354).By this time, Hasidism was losing force, but the novels also contributed tothis decline so that many Jews no longer viewed Hasidism as a returnJudaism but rather as a regression from it: The image of the romantic, brave Jew in the novels was more to their liking than the hymn-singing, dancing Hasid of the revival meetings (Dimont 355). First, he revived the ancient concept of the zaddik, orsuperior human being, superior because he had the special capacity toadhere to God. Second, theBesht invented a form of popular prayer which enabled ordinary, humble Jewsto contribute. The Bal Shem Tov achieved a level of popular participationby means of the new theory of prayer taught by him and his successors,stressing that prayer was not so much a human activity as a supernaturalact in which the human being breaks down the barriers to his naturalexistence and reaches into the divine world. As he does so, their actual shapes dissolve and--this is a typical kabbalistic idea--the divine attributes concealed in the letters become spiritually visible. The Lubavitchers give muchmore support to israeli politics (Harris 179-181). Holy Days. Christian intellectuals were asking how large a part God should playin an increasingly secular culture, while Jews were asking whether secularknowledge should play a role in the culture of God. Hasidism never found such a man, and within a century and a half themovement had virtually died out. The Hasidists, they realized, were their enemy, and they aligned themselves with the reluctant rabbis to weaken that enemy (Dimont 354).The Jews in the East managed to create for themselves a set of Jewishvalues with which they could identify. The Besht taught that, in order to enter in, the man has to annihilate his personality and become nothing. They were set primarily in Palestine and had Jews as heroesand heroines, lovers, and villains. . Other groups live in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, andthey number about 35, . In Eastern Europe, Jews became enamored of Western ideas, fromscience to philosophy, the social sciences, and literature. The zaddik was not a messiah in this view but also notquite an ordinary human being. Where the Talmud preached that noignorant man could be pious, Hasidism taught the opposite, affirming theJewish spirit without the Jewish tradition. The term hasid isused in the bible to connote a man of piety, and the term is even appliedto the Deity. Most Hasidim are suspicious of outsidersand do not like the way they have been depicted in the media, as if theywere cultists (Harris 12). Hasidism sloughed off theobscene, the gross, and the sexual in Sabbateanism and Frankism and keptonly the essence of a new religious movement intended to exalt the spirit: But just as Christianity in its early forms was unrealistic in its attitude toward the state, so early Hasidism was unrealistic in its attitude toward the dual role man has to play on earth-- his role in relation to stat, and his role in relation to God (Dimont 287).Hasidism was a complex belief system. This view was the view shared by most Orthodoxrabbis in Eastern Europe before World War I. Therabbinical offices became hereditary, leading to nepotism and politicsinstead of wisdom and ability. In addition, there are tensions between some of the sects, with themost prominent being that between the Lubavitchers and the Satmarers. However, the Hasidim developed the conceptfurther and produced a type of leader unique in the Jewish hierarchy: The tzaddik is teacher, counselor, and confessor, to whom the hasid could unburden his heart. However, the real tension with the Satmarers stems from adifference about the State of Israel. Christianity would have had the sameproblem except that it found Paul, a man who could organize in a practicalway. This was because theywere still involved in a medieval view of a completely religious society.The distinction only increased the degree to which the jews were made toseem backward, and Europe continued to see the Jews as nothing more than aproblem (Johnson 299). Jewish history was now divided into aromantic past, where love was joyously indulged in, and a miserable presentin which sex was hidden: These escape novels accomplished a useful purpose. This is accomplished bytaking the prayer book and concentrating the mind entirely on the letters: He does not read, he wills. Thisfeud can be traced to ideological causes. They fought Antiochus IV andat first refused to defend themselves on the Sabbath. Hasidism shows no separation between theory and practice, and thelife of the hasid was considered the best exposition of Hasidism. POPULATION It is estimated that there are some 25 , Hasidim in the worldtoday, which is about one-fifth the number that existed at the turn of thecentury. New York: Macmillan, 1985.Johnson, Paul. He is required to fulfill himself, to perfect himself, as his own personal contribution to the redemption of the world. New York: Mentor, 1994.Harris, Lis. As an epithet, hasid is often used in this way in rabbinicliterature so that an ignorant man cannot be a hasid. A smaller number are found in Westchester,Rockland County, and New Jersey. Most of this has been preserved in the form of allegoriesand parables. He is not self-sufficientand looks to his followers for inspiration even as they look to him forguidance. However, its influence was not completelygone and would resurface with the Jewish renaissance, the so-calledHaskala, or Jewish Enlightenment. They originally came from Hungary andsurvived then war in greater numbers because the war did not reach Hungaryuntil 1944. Works CitedDimont, Max I. He was thus a new kind of religiouspersonality, one who could perpetuate and spread the movement. It differed in thedegree of emancipation it afforded and in other respects between EastEuropean and West European Jews, much as the Enlightenment did in generalbetween Eastern and Western Europe. All men are equal, and no man is more equal than his neighbor (Rabinowicz 317). The Jewish Enlightenment is most tiedto the Enlightenment in Germany because in Germany the movement sought anew understanding and accommodation with the religious spirit in man, asdid the Jews: For perhaps the first time Jews in Germany began to feel a distinct affinity with Germany culture, and thus sowed in their hearts the seeds of a monstrous delusion (Johnson 299). ORIGINS The gospel of Hasidism was born in eighteenth-century Europe throughthe offices of Bal Shem Tov, in Poland. . Thenovels were written in Hebrew and were intended to undermine the influenceof Hasidism. When Bal Shem Tov died in 176 , he had some 1 , followers, and at this point, Hasidism may have included half the Jews inEastern Europe. They have the largest New Yorkfollowing with 45, members. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.