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Hasidic Judaism (also Chassidic, etc., from the Hebrew: Chasidut חסידות, meaning \"piety\", from the Hebrew root word chesed חסד meaning \"loving kindness\") is a Haredi Jewish religious movement. more...

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Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective Chasidic/Hasidic (or in Yiddish Chasidish חסידיש) applies. The movement originated in Eastern Europe (Belarus and Ukraine) in the 18th century.

Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov , founded Hasidic Judaism. It originated in a time of persecution of the Jewish people, when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too \"academic\", and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. The Ba'al Shem Tov set out to improve the situation. In its initial stages, Hasidism met with opposition from several contemporary leaders, most notably the Vilna Gaon, leader of the Lithuanian Jews, united as the misnagdim—literally meaning \"those who stand opposite\".

History

Prelude

In Poland, where the bulk of Jewry had established itself since the sixteenth century, the struggle between traditional Rabbinic Judaism and radical Kabbalah-influenced mysticism became particularly acute after the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi in the 17th century. Leanings toward mystical doctrines and sectarianism showed themselves prominently among the Jews of the south-eastern provinces of Poland, while in the north-eastern provinces, in Lithuania, and in White Russia, rabbinical orthodoxy held sway. Jews who follow this tradition are called Litvish (Lithuanian). In part, this division in modes of thought reflected social differences between the northern (Lithuanian) Jews and the southern Jews of Ukraine. In Lithuania the Jewish masses mainly lived in densely-populated towns where rabbinical academic culture (in the yeshivot) flourished; while in Ukraine the Jews tended to live scattered in villages far removed from intellectual centers.

Pessimism in the south became more intense after the Cossacks' Uprising (1648 - 1654) under Bohdan Chmielnicki and the turbulent times in Poland (1648 - 1660), which completely ruined the Jewry of Ukraine, but left comparatively untouched that of Lithuania. The economic and spiritual decline of the Jews of what became southern Russia created a favorable field for mystical movements and religious sectarianism, which spread in the area from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century.

Besides these influences, deeply-seated causes produced among many Jews a discontent with Rabbinism and a gravitation toward mysticism. Rabbinism, which in Poland had become transformed into a system of religious formalism, no longer provided a satisfactory religious experience to many Jews. Although traditional Judaism had adopted some features of Kabbalah, it adapted them to fit its own system: it added to its own ritualism the asceticism of the \"practical cabalists\" of the East, who saw the essence of earthly existence only in fasting, in penance, and in spiritual sadness. Such a combination of religious practices, suitable for individuals and hermits, did not suit the bulk of the Jews.

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