From the South, the Sabbatian agitation penetrated to the North, to distant White Russia. We are informed by a contemporary monastic chronicler, that on the walls of the churches in Moghilev on the Dnieper mysterious inscriptions appeared proclaiming the Jewish Messiah "Sapsai."

In the course of the eventful year in which the whole Jewish world raved about the coming of the Messiah and deputations arrived from all over the Jewish world at the "Castle of Splendor," Sabbatai's residence in Abydos, near Constantinople, a delegation was also dispatched by the Jews of Poland. In this delegation were included Isaiah, the son of David Halevi, the famous rabbi of Lemberg, author of the Taz,[189] and the grandson of another celebrity, Joel Sirkis.[190] The Polish delegates were sent, as it were, on a scouting expedition, being instructed to investigate on the spot the correctness of the rumors concerning the Messianic claims of Sabbatai.

When, in the summer of 1666, they were presented to Sabbatai at Abydos, they were deeply impressed by the sight of the thousands of enthusiastic admirers who had come from all possible countries to render homage to him. Sabbatai handed the Polish delegates an enigmatic letter, addressed to the Rabbi of Lemberg:

The gift referred to in the letter consisted of a shirt which Sabbatai handed over to Rabbi David's son, with the instruction to put it on his aged and feeble father and recite at the same time the words, "May thy youth be renewed like that of the eagle!"

Having learned from the delegates that a Cabalistic propagandist, by the name of Nehemiah Cohen, who predicted the coming of the Messiah, had appeared in Poland, Sabbatai added a postscript to his letter in which he asked that this "prophet," being the forerunner of the Messiah, be sent to him speedily. The omniscient Messiah failed to foresee that this invitation spelled ruin for him. It is generally conceded that the interview between Nehemiah, the Cabalistic fanatic, and Sabbatai was one of the causes that accelerated the downfall of the Messiah. After a Cabalistic argument with Sabbatai, which lasted three days, Nehemiah refused to acknowledge him as the expected Messiah. While in Adrianople he revealed Sabbatai's plans to the Turkish authorities, and this led to the arrest of the pseudo-Messiah and his feigned conversion to Islam.

The news of the hideous desertion of Judaism by the redeemer of the Jewish people was slow in reaching the Jews of Poland, and when it did reach them, only a part of his adherents felt it their duty to abandon him. The more credulous rank and file remained steadfast in their loyalty, hoping for further miracles, to be performed by the mysterious savior of Judaism, who had "put on the turban" temporarily in order to gain the confidence of the Sultan and afterwards to dethrone him. When Sabbatai died, Poland witnessed the same transformation of political into mystical Messianism which was taking place at the time in Western Europe.

The proximity to Turkey and to the city of Saloniki, the headquarters of the Sabbatian sect, lent particular intensity to the sectarian movement in Poland, fomenting a spiritual agitation in the Jewish masses from the end of the seventeenth down to the end of the eighteenth century. The main center of the movement came to be in Podolia, part of which had been annexed by Turkey, after the Polish-Turkish War of 1672, and was returned to Poland only in 1699 by the Peace Treaty of Carlowitz.

The agitators and originators of these sects were recruited partly from among the obscure masses, partly from among the Cabalists whose minds were befogged. At the end of the seventeenth century, a Lithuanian Jew by the name of Zadok, a plain, ignorant man, who had been an innkeeper, began to prophesy that the Messiah would appear in 1695. About the same time a more serious propagandist of the Messianic idea appeared in the person of the Cabalist Hayyim Malakh. Having resided in Turkey, where he had been in contact with the Sabbatian circle in Saloniki, Malakh returned to Poland and began to muddle the heads of the Jews. He secretly preached that Sabbatai Zevi was the Messiah, and that, like Moses, who had kept the Israelites in the desert for forty years before bringing them to the borders of the Promised Land, he would rise from the dead and redeem the Jewish people in 1706, forty years after his conversion.

Malakh's propaganda proved successful, particularly among the ignorant masses of Podolia and Galicia. Malakh was soon joined by another agitator, Judah Hasid, from Shidlovitz or Shedletz.[191] Having studied Practical Cabala in Italy, Judah Hasid returned to his native land and began to initiate the studious Polish youths into this hidden wisdom. The circle of his pupils and adherents grew larger and larger, and became consolidated in a special sect, which called itself "the Pious," or Hasidim. The members of this sect engaged in ascetic exercises; in anticipation of the Messiah, they made public confession of their sins and inserted mystical prayers in their liturgy. Hayyim Malakh joined the circle of Judah Hasid, and brought over to it his Sabbatian followers. The number of "the Pious" grew so large that the Orthodox rabbis became alarmed and began to persecute them. Under the effect of these persecutions the leaders of the sect started a propaganda for a mass-emigration to Palestine, there to welcome in triumph the approaching Messiah.

Many Jews were carried away by this propaganda. In the beginning of 1700, a troop of one hundred and twenty pilgrims started on their way, under the joint leadership of Judah Hasid and Hayyim Malakh. The emigrants traveled in groups, by way of Germany, Austria, and Italy, stopping in various cities, where their leaders, dressed, after the manner of penitent sinners, in white shrouds, delivered fiery exhortations, in which they announced the speedy arrival of the Messiah. The lower classes and the women were particularly impressed by the speeches of the rigorously ascetic Judah Hasid. On the road the Polish wanderers were joined by other groups of Jews desirous of visiting the Holy Land, so that the number of the travelers reached 1300 souls. One party of emigrants, led by Hayyim Malakh, was dispatched, with the help of charitable Jews of Vienna, from that city to Constantinople. Another party, headed by Judah Hasid, traveled to Palestine by way of Venice.

After much suffering and many losses on the journey, during which several hundred died or remained behind, one thousand reached Jerusalem. On arriving at their destination the new-comers experienced severe disappointment. One of the leaders, Judah Hasid, died shortly after their arrival in the Holy City. His adherents were cooped up in some courtyard, and depended on the gifts of charitable Jews. The destitute inhabitants of Jerusalem, themselves living on the charity of their European brethren, were not in a position to support the pilgrims, who soon found themselves without means of subsistence. Disillusioned and discouraged, the sectarians rapidly dispersed in all directions. Some joined the ranks of the Turkish Sabbatians, who posed as Mohammedans. 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, assembled 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 superstition 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, participating 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 rôle 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" (God, the Messiah, and a female hypostasis of God, 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 assemblies 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 assembled 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 assembly, 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 chastity. The women admitted that they had violated their conjugal fidelity, and told of the sexual 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 manuscript 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 God 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 participate 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 hit 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 principal associates 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 asserted 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 nobility acting as sponsors. The neophytes assumed the family names and titles of their godfathers, and in this way received admission into the ranks of the Polish nobility. 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 petitioned King Augustus III. to act as his godfather. 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 assumed the name Joseph.

However, the attitude 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 attitude 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 repetition 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 partition 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 Brünn, in Moravia (1773).

The further exploits of this adventurer were performed in a new field, in Western Europe. In Catholic Austria, Frank assumed the rôle 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 title of "Baron of Offenbach." In his new place of residence, Frank, assisted 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 noblest 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 masses. 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.

Matters, however, were different in Podolia, Galicia, Volhynia, and in the whole southwestern region in general. Here the Jewish masses were much further removed from the sources of rabbinic learning, having emancipated themselves from the influence of the Talmudic scholar. While in Lithuania dry book-learning was inseparable from a godly 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 masses. 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 assistant 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 manuscripts," 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 principal 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 Tlusta, 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 masses 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 masses. 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 God, 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 God, cheering the human soul by the belief in the goodness of God, encouraging and comforting the poor, the persecuted, and the suffering. Besht preached that the plain man, imbued with naïve faith, and able to pray fervently and whole-heartedly, was dearer and nearer to God 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 masses 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 rôle 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 God, and the idea of the interaction of the lower and upper worlds. The former may be approximately defined by the following utterances of Besht:

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 God is and must be the principal endeavor of every truly religious man. This communion may be attained by concentrating one's thoughts upon God, 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 God. Prayer is the most important medium through which man can attain communion with God. 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 God. 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 God 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 God, 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 God than any one else. The function of the Tzaddik is to serve as mediator between God 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 God'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 associates 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 asserted 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 petition of Besht, "Let me know, my Master, when thou wilt appear on earth," the Messiah said:

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 illustrated, 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 participate in the Frankist disputation in Lemberg, in 1759. In the spring of the following year, Besht breathed his last, surrounded by his disciples.

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 assumed 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 surpassed him in erudition. His scholarship insured the success of the Hasidic propaganda among the learned class, 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 title 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 assails the arrogant Talmudists, or "pseudo-scholars," whose whole religion is limited to book-learning, and whose attitude towards the masses 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 masses 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 assemblies, 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 principal 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 Chernobyl, 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 God." Through his intercession God 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 God 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, passing 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 assumed 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 principal 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 superstitions, robbing it at the same time of the childlike naïveté 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 superstition of the masses, rapidly gained their confidence. The lower Jewish classes 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 title 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 participated 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 masses 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 pronounced, 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 "godless 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 Saturdays and holidays,[205] and in general participating 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, assembling 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 competitor who contested its own spiritual monopoly, Hasidism opposed it passively, 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 passed 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 Königsberg, 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.