Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T00:56:58.449Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

11 - A Person of His Time

from PART III - IMAGES

Rosman Moshe
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Get access

Summary

Until recently, the Polish sources were not available to biographers of the Ba'al Shem Tov. They emphasized hearsay and traditional Hebrew material that is full of colorful detail. They paid little attention to, or ignored altogether, some of the written sources from the Besht, as well as some of the testimonies. The largely prosaic nature, limited scope, and sparse detail of these sources seem to have relegated them to second place. Furthermore, the unsystematic, even arbitrary, way in which many scholars set about interpreting the Hebrew sources they were willing to use led to an often-confusing portrayal of the Besht. Scholars have been preoccupied with the Besht's “message” and “way,” to the exclusion of serious consideration of the physical, social, economic, and cultural parameters of his existence. As a result of this unbalanced and unsystematic use of the sources, the points scholars most commonly agreed on were largely based on the most legendary sources. Moreover, there remain fundamental contradictions with regard to the nature of the Besht's character and activities.

Within these limitations, however, some specialized scholarship on Hasidism over the past two generations has seen the gestation of a tendency to regard early Hasidism as evolving out of the past, rather than rebelling against it. In the late 19605, Shmuel Ettinger, basing his findings in part on the work of Israel Halpern and Yishai Shahar, declared that early Hasidism was not a movement of social radicalism but that it actually worked to strengthen traditional social structures. A decade later, Mendel Piekarz demonstrated that Hasidism was not theologically innovative; virtually all of its religious doctrines were anticipated or expounded by non-Hasidim. As elaborated in chapters 1 and 2., other scholars found earlier precedents for such essentials of Hasidism as the use of the title “Ba'al Shem Tov” and the existence of organized, Kabbalistically inclined groups. With regard to the Besht himself, Gershom Scholem, Avraham Rubinstein, Immanuel Etkes, and Ada Rapoport- Albert all showed various aspects of his connection to traditional concepts and institutions.

In essence, the preceding ten chapters have articulated and consummated this trend, at least insofar as it applies to Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. The primary thesis of this book is that the Besht was much more a representative and perpetuator of existing religious, social, political, and even economic realities than he was an innovator.

Type
Chapter
Information
Founder of Hasidism
A Quest for the Historical Ba'al Shem Tov
, pp. 173 - 186
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×