Hasidism and Modernity

Study This: • where did the Hasidic movement emerge?• what were the main characteristics that made this a new

movement in the Jewish community?• what is the difference between Hasidic Jews (from 17th-19th

century) and today's ultra-orthodox, or haredi, Jews, who are descendants of Hasids but are actually ultra-orthodox?

• how do haredi Jews practice Judaism today?• what is a yeshivah? what do they study there? how is it

different than how we are studying Judaism in academic circles?

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

CharacteristicsMedieval Modern Post Modern

Dates 400 – 1600 CE 1500 - 1900 1900 - present

Political System Feudal monarchy, urbanization

Democracy, nation states

Globalization, corporations

Economic System feudalism capitalism International capitalism

Manufacture handcraft industrial service-based

Spirit of the Age Catholic church Secular/rational Distrust of collectivization

Philosophy One God, one church; regional variations caused problems

Humanist/unifying/ Enlightenment/Haskalah

deconstruction

Events Fall of Roman Empire; Crusades; urbanization

Protestant Reformation,

Fascism, WWII, Holocaust

Christians and JewsMedieval Modern Post Modern

Dates 400 – 1600 CE 1500 - 1900 1900 - present

Some defining events

Disputations; Islam harbored Jews expelled from other countries; Sicut Judaeis (forbade forced conversion, theft of property, disruption of ritual & desecration of cemeteries on pain of excomncat’n. )

Shabbtai Tsvi 1626-76

Chmielnitsky massacre (Ukraine)[1]

Pogroms 1881-84

Holocaust 1933-45

[1] Stories about massacre victims who had been buried alive, cut to pieces, or forced to kill one another spread throughout Europe and beyond. These stories filled many with despair, and resulted in a revival of the ideas of Isaac Luria, and the identification ofSabbatai Zevi as the Messiah.[17]

Medieval Modern Post ModernDates 400 – 1600 CE 1500 - 1900 1900 - present

Some defining events

Disputations; Islam harbored Jews expelled from other countries; Sicut Judaeis (forbade forced conversion, theft of property, disruption of ritual & desecration of cemeteries on pain of excomncat’n. )

Shabbtai Tsvi 1626-76

Chmielnitsky massacre 1648 (Ukraine)[1]

Hasidism 1730

Pogroms 1881-84

Holocaust 1933-45

[1] Stories about massacre victims who had been buried alive, cut to pieces, or forced to kill one another spread throughout Europe and beyond. These stories filled many with despair, and resulted in a revival of the ideas of Isaac Luria, and the identification ofSabbatai Zevi as the Messiah.[17]

Christians and Jews

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

OriginsIsrael ben Eliezer

Born 1698 in village of Okopy [@various times a Polish/Ukrainian/Russian] 70 miles W of Warsaw

Bio• Orphan• Daycare worker• Shammes• Married – wife died• Teacher/arbitrator• Ephraim of Brody/Chana• Secret studies of mystical texts• Mysterious stranger• Laborer clay and lime -

Carpathian Mountains – peasants and plant lore

• Shochet, innkeeper

Miracle Workers - 1

• Talmud– Honi the Circle Drawer (Rain)– Hanina ben Dosa (Prayer)

• Middle ages and into early modern period– Miracle workers by the hundreds– Healing the sick, casting out demons.– Journeying from lower realm (where we live) to

upper realm to intercede with heavenly powers (courts, God as King)

Miracle Workers - 2

• THE Master of the Good Name BeSHT• Kabbalists use the names of God, the names

of the angels, and significant passages of Torah for practical magic: to protect women during childbirth, or to drive away demons that cause illness.

Bio - 2

• Home-base Brody; a healer & preacher, wandering from town to town

• Moved to ‘urban’ medzribozh

• Change in tactics• “court,” disciples,

scribes

What the BeSHT preached

• To the rural populations of Poland, the BeSHT preached a story-based Torah, rather than a study based-Torah:– God is in everything– Duty to Cleave to God (Dveikut)– Ecstatic (Hitlahavut) prayer– Union with God; ever growing recognition of God– Joy

Aphorisms of the BeSHT

• Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, so will be the image you perceive. But should you look upon your fellow and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.

Aphorisms of the BeSHT

• Cleave with devotion to your words. Slander murders 3: the person slandered, the teller, and the listener. This is all in spiritual terms, which is more severe than physical murder.

Aphorisms of the BeSHT

• Every single thing that a person sees or hears, is an instruction to him in his conduct in the service of G d.‑

How the BeSHT preached

• Niggunim (wordless melodies)– Niggun of the Alter Rebbe

• Magical tales and mystical stories with simple morals that showed the spiritual value of simple lives filled with God

• Ecstatic (Hitlahavut) prayer, filled with joy, characterized by shockling

• Focused Kavannah (intention)

Hasidic tales about the BeSHT

• Journey with the BeSHT (Chabad.org)

BeSHTian Time Warp53 miles from Brody to Poznan

Died 1760 in the Ukranian city of Medzabizh [also var. Rus/Polish/Uke]

What the BeSHT accomplished

• Spiritual revolution - Democratization of Jewish spirituality (contrast with traditional Kabbalah study)

• Folk magic, a spiritual economy more satisfying than prayer alone and more accessible than study

• Simple revelation of mystical truths in the form of parables

• A Jew is joyful and loving in the midst of hardship because all is God.

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

Mitnagdim vs Hasidim

What the opponents preached

• Mitnagdim [“the opponents”]– Vilna Gaon, leader of Lithuanian Jews– Urban populations, yeshivas, more affluence– Divinity emanates from God to us – a filtration or

trickle down theory– Rote piety, precision in prayer, asceticism– Talmud study as a way to God

Dynastic Diaspora

After the BeSHT

Hasidism spread across Poland to the Ukraine and on to Russia, Romania, and Hungary.

After the BeSHT

• A lineage of powerful Rabbis who carried on his work, wrote down his words, and built up the numbers of Hasidim– R Dov Bear of Mezriz

• CHANGES:– Tzaddik - Charismatic Rebbe became central,

rather than the theological innovations of Hasidism

– Dynasties (and corruption …)

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

The Remnant in Diaspora• 15% of all Polish Jews survived, and an even smaller number of Hasidim.• Yaffa Eliach, in Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, tells the story of the arrival in

New York of Rabbi Israel Spira, the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov, in 1946. An American G.I. translated for him into Yiddish the lines on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

• The rabbi listened intently and wiped a tear from his eye. There he was, the lone survivor of his family; his beard was burnt off, his head and body still covered with open wounds from beatings... He placed his hand on the G.I.'s shoulder and said, 'My friend, the words you have just translated to me are indeed beautiful. We, the few survivors coming to these shores, are indeed poor, tired, and yearning for freedom. But we are no longer masses. We are remnants, a trickle of broken individuals who search for moments of peace in this world, who hope to find a few relatives on these shores.

Settling in

the US

Williamsburg -• Satmar• Klausenberg

Crown Heights- • Lubavitch

Boro Park• Bobover• Munkach• Ger• Belz• Stoliner

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

Lubavitch

Lubavitch

Lubavitch

Who inherits Hasidic legacy?• Modern Hasidism, also known as Ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jews?

– A present day Hasidic wedding– Exclusionary, very rigid and legalistic, honoring of study, but also capable of

joy, cutting loose and celebrating• Pluralistic Modern Orthodoxy?

– Adheres to Orthodox doctrine but allows Jews of all denominations to study in their yeshiva, with men and women together; not so much on the ‘joy’ side. Also legalistic.

– Yeshiva Jewish studies vs academic Jewish studies• Jewish Renewal movement?

– Cross-denominational. – Chabad outreach to students by Shlomo Carlebach and Zalman

Shachter-Shlomi– Shlomo reacts to the Holocaust

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day “Hasidim”• Controversy II

Ultra Orthodox

• Gender segregated prayer, learning and ritual space

• Unequal educational opportunities for women; secular education for all is limited

• In Israel, on Ultra Orthodox bus lines, women sit at the back of the bus

• Birth rate is high, population is growing

Traditional 18th c. Sabbath garb

Everyday garb - Tzitzit

Everyday (for prayer) - Tefillin

The boxes contain …

… verses of Torah.

Everyday (for prayer) - Tefillin

Ashkenazi Wrap

How to Lay Tefillin

The Tefillin Booth

Jewish Renewal

• Unaffiliated, undisciplined, appeals to old hippies and young activists

• Not at all ‘observant’ in a traditional sense, but you’ll see more renewal-niks wearing tefillin than Conservative Jews.

• Zalman Shachter-Shalomi on the difference between a movement and a denomination

What’s odd about this picture?

Contents

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern• Origins of Hasidism• Controversy I• Effects of the Holocaust• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal• Present-day Hasidim• Controversy II

Pick an issue …

• Gay marriage and ordination• Women’s ordination• Israel’s treatment of Palestinian population• Ethics– Madoff ponzii scheme– Agriprocessors (Kosher meat debacle)– Sexual misconduct of rabbis; no training as

counselors or pastoral caregivers

Review• where did the Hasidic movement emerge?• what were the main characteristics that made this a new

movement in the Jewish community?• what is the difference between Hasidic Jews (from 17th-19th

century) and today's ultra-orthodox, or haredi, Jews, who are descendants of Hasids but are not "hasids" but are ultra-orthodox?

• how do haredi Jews practice Judaism today?• what is a yeshivah? what do they study there? how is it

different than how we are studying Judaism in academic circles?