Jewish scholars have tended to view the Besht, Hasidism, and the relevant sources as quintessentially internal Jewish phenomena that grew out of a genuinely and exclusively Jewish tradition. They also emphasized the Besht's thought and actions without much reference to the physical, social, and economic framework within which these had to have taken shape.

This approach lacks a dimension. Even if the Besht had been insulated from the human affairs around him, various facts of life in the towns where he lived would have conditioned many of the aspects of his life. It is evident, however, that the Besht was not isolated. By virtue of his being a ba'al shem, he had to be concerned with the personal problems of the people among whom he lived. His own letters and the traditions about him depict the Besht both as involved in issues on the public agenda and as active in helping individuals recover from illness, finance their marriages, exorcise demons, escape from danger, turn away from the path of sinfulness, and so on. He intervened in the controversy over the rabbi's kashrut ruling in Miȩdzybóż, took it upon himself to support the poor, and assumed responsibility to intercede in Heaven (and perhaps on earth) to avert evil decrees that threatened Jewish security in various places. In his letter to his brother-in-law, Gershon of Kutów, the Besht exhibited awareness of the security situation and the vicissitudes of life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, mentioning blood libels and the general treacherousness of the times.

Moreover, the Besht did not relate only to Jews. He lived in a world where Jewish and non-Jewish strands were inextricably intertwined. Miȩdzybóż society, like the heterogeneous Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in general, was made up of a number of sociocultural streams. Christians were aware of and reacted to Jewish communal and religious institutions, while the Jews were expected to be respectful of Christian sensibilities.

The geography and the economy of the town made it inevitable that Christians and Jews would have to come into contact. There was no ghetto in Miȩdzybóż. In 1730, more than a third of the Jewish householders (75 out of zo4) had at least one Christian neighbor. Jews cooperated with Christians in defense of the town, and there were specific issues, such as the problem with Icko Ognisty, on which the Jewish kahal and the Christian municipality worked in tandem.