(Anything positive and interesting that I know from my personal experience about the modern-day Hasidim, I owe to Rabbi Yisroel Rice of the Marin County Chabad in California. By observing him as a person, I have also learned quite a few unpleasant--- albeit most interesting as well!-- things about the Hasidim, but the sum total of the positives and the negatives balances out heavily in favor of the positives.)
The historians of Jewish Mysticism, in most Encyclopedic renditions, such as in the eminently authoritative Encyclopædia Britannica, habitually progress from the section on Lurianic Kabbalah to Shabbetaianism, or the False Messiah phenomenon, and from there, to Hasidism. Why so? The apparent reason is the terrible urge of the post-Lurianic Jews for a speedy arrival of their long-awaited Messiah, which somehow managed not only to elicit the cheerful “Here I am!” from several charlatans posing as the Messiahs, but, even worse, to have their "glorious" appearances and ignominious exits justified in mystical terminology, by some overly zealous pseudo-Kabbalistic “fraud-deniers,” leading to a sequence of very ugly developments in the history of the Jewish people, which speak volumes, and not a word of them well, about the integrity and credibility, or, rather, the lack thereof, of that particular portion of the Jewish intellectual heritage.
Having great respect for the legitimate aspects of the Rabbinical tradition, as epitomized by the work of the Talmudic scholars, and by the theosophical wisdom (pardon the tautology) of the pillars of the Kabbalah, I see no place in this subsection for “the bad and the ugly,” who are consequently relegated to the dark pages of the Jewish history in a later subsection, and I now move on to the Hasidic phenomenon, which is in itself, however, by no means without a congenital blemish, yet the blemish, in this case, is quite inseparable from the better contents of the overall package.
The story of the Hasidim is steeped in contrasts, taking note of the negative aspects of Hasidic life, but also pointing to the positives, which are, first and foremost, in maintaining the best of the rabbinical tradition that all other denominations either ignore, or, in the case of “normal” Jewish Orthodox congregations, do not pursue with as much zeal and intellectual acuity, both of which their common historical heritage deserves in an exuberant abundance.
So here is the bottom line. Their places of worship, shuls, are cramped, shabby, and frequently outright dirty. Their singing and dancing are wild and unaesthetic. Their lifestyle habits are, frankly, often reprehensible. If you wanted to visit a sparkling and spacious religious temple, see a well-dressed and dignified audience, and listen to an aesthetically pleasing religious service, choose the Reform, or the Conservative,--- but never the Hasids. If, on the other hand, you are after a totally different, unique, essentially authentic experience, if you really want to properly learn and understand the treasures of Jewish, or any other kind of mysticism, for that matter, there is no better place to go to, in America today, than the Hasidic shul…
Webster’s Dictionary (once again I must remind the reader of this that I am using this and similar sources as reference only, rather than as any sort of authority) describes the Hasidim (spelled by it as Chassidim) as “a sect of Jewish mystics that originated in Poland in the eighteenth century,” clearly tracing this movement to its more recent emergence under the auspices of Baal Shem Tov, born Yisroel ben Eliezer (1700-1760).
It is necessary, though, to maintain some measure of continuity by pointing to a much earlier appearance of a Hasidic phenomenon in Germany, known as German, or Ashkenazic Hasidism, and best expressed in the Sefer Hasidim, the work of Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (1160-1238).
There is a great temptation to disassociate these two Hasidic phenomena completely, not only by seeing the long span of five hundred years, between Eleazar ben Judah and Baal Shem Tov, as an already good excuse to keep them apart, but especially by pointing to the conspicuous dissimilarity between the two men: one, a learned scholar, the other, a poorly educated, but exceptionally charismatic populist leader. Even more so, Baal Shem Tov’s Hasidism is seen as a populist revolt against the esoteric nerdishness of the Jewish Rabbi, and as a spirited effort to bring vitality into the life of a Jewish shtetl in Poland. Characteristically, a lively revival of Yiddish as a legitimate language results from this revolt, particularly through the literary efforts of Baal Shem Tov’s own great-grandson Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, and others. (On Yiddish see my next entry).
But the actual link does exist. The two ostensibly incompatible expressions of Hasidism, those of Eleazar ben Judah and of Baal Shem Tov, have, ironically, found an inextricable connection in modern Hasidism. Whether or not the cerebral elements of the former had an adequately prominent place in the cerebellar preoccupations of the latter, is certainly hard for me to judge. The common thread of Jewish mysticism which unmistakably ties them together seems to emphasize their connectedness, an admirable unity of cerebrum and cerebellum.
I have indeed observed how an exceptional scholarship in the best of the traditional Jewish learning, on the part of the Hasidic rabbis, goes hand in hand with an extremely random, even bizarre and chaotic lifestyle, where the strictest possible observance of the precepts of Shulkhan Arukh, and, particularly, of the Kashrut laws, such as, for instance, the sincere dedication to keeping the milchig in meticulous separation from the fleischig, do not lead to perfect cleanliness, but, on the contrary, too often end up in total disregard of the standard, “Gentile,” norms of hygiene, common to all civilized societies, even by the American standards, much coarsened and polluted by the inferior standards of an uncontrollable third-world immigration.
Another unpleasant feature of the modern Hasidic lifestyle is its almost perpetual state of drunkenness, too often bringing very young men--- in their impressive ankle-long black robes, and with large black hats or black kipahs, the skullcaps, still on,--- from a very shaky position at the Hasidic table, ashy pale, visibly spaced out, and incoherent, to an eventual rest under the table, so shockingly incongruent at first sight, but so familiar… and so, well, expected, after a while.
The striking contrast, which is the very nature of the Hasidim, the coexistence of the highly admirable with the utterly repulsive, where the one cannot possibly be extricated from the other,--- this contrast speaks a lot about the subject matter of the present Section, the res Judaica, and about the historical state of Judenthum as such. As an expression of pure Jewishness, I will take the Hasidim any time over everybody else of their Jewish kin, who may look more “normal” to non-Jews than their Ultra-Orthodox brethren, but at the same time are completely devoid of their precious authenticity and of all their other unique assets. (The frequent expressions of hypocrisy, which I have found among some members of the Hasidic flock, do not, however, infringe on the compelled authenticity of the shepherds, induced by the dominancy of their peculiar lifestyle and daily religious practices, completely overriding, in my opinion, the human capacity for dissimulation.)
The historians of Jewish Mysticism, in most Encyclopedic renditions, such as in the eminently authoritative Encyclopædia Britannica, habitually progress from the section on Lurianic Kabbalah to Shabbetaianism, or the False Messiah phenomenon, and from there, to Hasidism. Why so? The apparent reason is the terrible urge of the post-Lurianic Jews for a speedy arrival of their long-awaited Messiah, which somehow managed not only to elicit the cheerful “Here I am!” from several charlatans posing as the Messiahs, but, even worse, to have their "glorious" appearances and ignominious exits justified in mystical terminology, by some overly zealous pseudo-Kabbalistic “fraud-deniers,” leading to a sequence of very ugly developments in the history of the Jewish people, which speak volumes, and not a word of them well, about the integrity and credibility, or, rather, the lack thereof, of that particular portion of the Jewish intellectual heritage.
Having great respect for the legitimate aspects of the Rabbinical tradition, as epitomized by the work of the Talmudic scholars, and by the theosophical wisdom (pardon the tautology) of the pillars of the Kabbalah, I see no place in this subsection for “the bad and the ugly,” who are consequently relegated to the dark pages of the Jewish history in a later subsection, and I now move on to the Hasidic phenomenon, which is in itself, however, by no means without a congenital blemish, yet the blemish, in this case, is quite inseparable from the better contents of the overall package.
The story of the Hasidim is steeped in contrasts, taking note of the negative aspects of Hasidic life, but also pointing to the positives, which are, first and foremost, in maintaining the best of the rabbinical tradition that all other denominations either ignore, or, in the case of “normal” Jewish Orthodox congregations, do not pursue with as much zeal and intellectual acuity, both of which their common historical heritage deserves in an exuberant abundance.
So here is the bottom line. Their places of worship, shuls, are cramped, shabby, and frequently outright dirty. Their singing and dancing are wild and unaesthetic. Their lifestyle habits are, frankly, often reprehensible. If you wanted to visit a sparkling and spacious religious temple, see a well-dressed and dignified audience, and listen to an aesthetically pleasing religious service, choose the Reform, or the Conservative,--- but never the Hasids. If, on the other hand, you are after a totally different, unique, essentially authentic experience, if you really want to properly learn and understand the treasures of Jewish, or any other kind of mysticism, for that matter, there is no better place to go to, in America today, than the Hasidic shul…
Webster’s Dictionary (once again I must remind the reader of this that I am using this and similar sources as reference only, rather than as any sort of authority) describes the Hasidim (spelled by it as Chassidim) as “a sect of Jewish mystics that originated in Poland in the eighteenth century,” clearly tracing this movement to its more recent emergence under the auspices of Baal Shem Tov, born Yisroel ben Eliezer (1700-1760).
It is necessary, though, to maintain some measure of continuity by pointing to a much earlier appearance of a Hasidic phenomenon in Germany, known as German, or Ashkenazic Hasidism, and best expressed in the Sefer Hasidim, the work of Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (1160-1238).
There is a great temptation to disassociate these two Hasidic phenomena completely, not only by seeing the long span of five hundred years, between Eleazar ben Judah and Baal Shem Tov, as an already good excuse to keep them apart, but especially by pointing to the conspicuous dissimilarity between the two men: one, a learned scholar, the other, a poorly educated, but exceptionally charismatic populist leader. Even more so, Baal Shem Tov’s Hasidism is seen as a populist revolt against the esoteric nerdishness of the Jewish Rabbi, and as a spirited effort to bring vitality into the life of a Jewish shtetl in Poland. Characteristically, a lively revival of Yiddish as a legitimate language results from this revolt, particularly through the literary efforts of Baal Shem Tov’s own great-grandson Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, and others. (On Yiddish see my next entry).
But the actual link does exist. The two ostensibly incompatible expressions of Hasidism, those of Eleazar ben Judah and of Baal Shem Tov, have, ironically, found an inextricable connection in modern Hasidism. Whether or not the cerebral elements of the former had an adequately prominent place in the cerebellar preoccupations of the latter, is certainly hard for me to judge. The common thread of Jewish mysticism which unmistakably ties them together seems to emphasize their connectedness, an admirable unity of cerebrum and cerebellum.
I have indeed observed how an exceptional scholarship in the best of the traditional Jewish learning, on the part of the Hasidic rabbis, goes hand in hand with an extremely random, even bizarre and chaotic lifestyle, where the strictest possible observance of the precepts of Shulkhan Arukh, and, particularly, of the Kashrut laws, such as, for instance, the sincere dedication to keeping the milchig in meticulous separation from the fleischig, do not lead to perfect cleanliness, but, on the contrary, too often end up in total disregard of the standard, “Gentile,” norms of hygiene, common to all civilized societies, even by the American standards, much coarsened and polluted by the inferior standards of an uncontrollable third-world immigration.
Another unpleasant feature of the modern Hasidic lifestyle is its almost perpetual state of drunkenness, too often bringing very young men--- in their impressive ankle-long black robes, and with large black hats or black kipahs, the skullcaps, still on,--- from a very shaky position at the Hasidic table, ashy pale, visibly spaced out, and incoherent, to an eventual rest under the table, so shockingly incongruent at first sight, but so familiar… and so, well, expected, after a while.
The striking contrast, which is the very nature of the Hasidim, the coexistence of the highly admirable with the utterly repulsive, where the one cannot possibly be extricated from the other,--- this contrast speaks a lot about the subject matter of the present Section, the res Judaica, and about the historical state of Judenthum as such. As an expression of pure Jewishness, I will take the Hasidim any time over everybody else of their Jewish kin, who may look more “normal” to non-Jews than their Ultra-Orthodox brethren, but at the same time are completely devoid of their precious authenticity and of all their other unique assets. (The frequent expressions of hypocrisy, which I have found among some members of the Hasidic flock, do not, however, infringe on the compelled authenticity of the shepherds, induced by the dominancy of their peculiar lifestyle and daily religious practices, completely overriding, in my opinion, the human capacity for dissimulation.)
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