The study house of the Ba'al Shem Tov, in Mezhibuzh.

There are probably more tales and legends told about Rabbi Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov than about any figure in Jewish history, and many of these stretch the imagination to the breaking point. Stories of miraculous rescues of Jewish communities on the brink of disaster, and of wild rides through the forest to save Jews in distress, have been told and retold to Jewish children and adults around the world. They cannot all be factual. But they do give us a glimpse of the imprint made by the Ba'al Shem Tov on the Jewish world.

Chassidic Doctrine and G-d's Presence in Our Lives The Ba'al Shem Tov disseminated numerous philosophic concepts that raised the ire of non-chassidic Jewry. So deep was the division between chassidim and their opponents, the misnagdim, that Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Ba'al HaTanya, was imprisoned by the Russian czar after a misnaged, Avigdor ben-Chaim, submitted a list of nineteen charges against him. Writing from prison, Rav Shneur Zalman responded point by point to the charges; these responses elucidate some aspects of chassidic doctrine. As an example, a basic difference between chassidic and misnagdic thought revolves around how man should view G-d's relationship with the world. Is G-d so beyond the physical world that it in no way can we become attached to Him? Or, as chassidus declares, is G-d in everything at all times? Avigdor charged that the Ba'al Shem Tov claimed erroneously that a man has nothing to fear from any person or animal; rather, he should fear only G-d, since, if he is threatened, it can only be because G-d willed this. Furthermore, we find that the great Biblical personalities did fear their natural and human enemies. In response, Rav Shneur Zalman explained that G-d is ever-present in running the world, and that nothing on earth happens unless it is by the Creator's ever-present will. All material existence devolves from G-d through the sefiros, a series of progressive descents from the spiritual to the material, and therefore every creation is, in a sense, part of G-d. If a lion threatens a man, the man has to consider that the animal functions only because of the power it receives from G-d at that very moment in time. Thus, the ultimate cause of the fear the man feels is not the lion, but the Creator. The man now has the choice of fearing the lion — a fear that is certainly real, but is nonetheless a shell — or of reaching beyond that fear to find the true fear he must have, the fear of G-d. Rather than being consumed by the physical fear that is somewhat a "false front," a man should cleave to the deeper reality of fear of G-d, who is the ultimate mover of the lion. This does not mean that the man should not take defensive action. G-d implanted the power within the lion to threaten us, and the power within us to defend ourselves against the threat. In fact, G-d wants us to fear the lion since if we were not afraid, we would not react. But it is up to the man to comprehend the ultimate power behind his attacker and to focus his reaction towards G-d. In this way everything on earth expresses G-d's ongoing presence and involvement in our lives.

These legends also reflect the deep level of emunah, faith, that our great-grandparents possessed. In their eyes, nothing, even the most fantastic deed, is beyond the pale for G-d and His loyal servants, the tzaddikim. Whether a particular episode actually occurred is of lesser importance than the fact that it could have happened.

This year we celebrate the 300th anniversary of Rav Yisrael's birth, which occurred on the eighteenth of Elul 5458 (August 25, 1698) in the village of Okup (in the Podolia region of Ukraine), to his parents, Eliezer and Sarah. Swiety Trojcy, to give Okup its Polish name, had been founded as a military outpost close to the Polish-Turkish border six years earlier; his parents had settled there, among the trenches and fortifications, before a civilian settlement had even been established.

In Jewish history, great men often come from relatively obscure families, and this was true of Rav Yisrael. We are told that Eliezer had two special deeds to his credit that merited his fathering Yisrael. One was his generosity to wayfarers, to the point where Eliyahu the Prophet came, disguised as a poor and non-observant beggar, to attempt to provoke him to anger, and failed. The second concerned his captivity in a foreign country, when he was given a noble non-Jewish woman as his wife and successfully refrained from touching her until he was able to return to his hometown.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Ba'al HaTanya, was a leading disciple of Rabbi Dov Ber of Miedzyrzec (Mezhirech), chief talmid of the Ba'al Shem Tov. Rav Shneur Zalman records a tradition that Sarah, like her Biblical namesake, was ninety when her son was born, and her husband, like Avraham Avinu, was 100. This is evidently meant to equate the Ba'al Shem Tov's birth with that of Yitzchak Avinu. The sources unanimously relate that the child lost both parents at a young age, and so it is likely that they were old at his birth, at least by 17th-century life-expectancy standards.

After Yisrael's parents died, the Okup Jews undertook his upbringing. Already at a young age he was a non-conformist, preferring the solitude of the woods around his hometown, where he could freely commune with G-d. (Asked whether he was not afraid of the wild animals inhabiting the forests, he would quote his father's deathbed command: "Do not fear anything other than G-d Himself.") At about eight, Yisrael left Okup for good, and some years later we find him in Galicia (southern Poland).

The Jewish communities of Poland, Galicia, and the Ukraine had not fully recovered from the Cossack massacres of 1648–49, in which half a million Jews were killed and the economic base of the region was destroyed.

Seventy years later, the Jews were crowded in the larger cities, which offered a measure of protection but where the cost of living was high and the economic opportunities few. On top of this, the appearance of the false messiah Shabbetai Tzvi, in 1665–66, and his subsequent conversion to Islam destabilized the Jewish spiritual world. Scholars became a rarity, and few of them had any sympathy for the largely ignorant masses.

During this period, groups of "hidden tzaddikim" formed. These were holy men (many of them ascetics, all of them students of the Kabbalah) who circulated among the Eastern European Jewish communities in the guise of tradesmen and beggars. Their mission was to rebuild these communities from the inside. They wished to capitalize on the faith of the simple Jew and use it to raise his or her spirits and level of Jewish knowledge. Twenty years later, when Rav Yisrael revealed himself, these men would form the nucleus of the chassidic movement.

Yisrael joined one of these groups before the age of ten, and he wandered with them over a good part of the Polish kingdom. In his fourteenth year he proposed that they focus on revitalizing the economic base of the Jewish communities by promoting farming, inn-keeping, and other rural businesses. He reasoned that freed from the crushing burden of eking out a livelihood in the overcrowded cities, the Jews would be able to absorb the message of Torah brought to them by the hidden tzaddikim. The proposal was accepted, and Yisrael soon became the unofficial leader of his circle. (The concept of the importance of a Jew's physical livelihood and activities would later form one of the core concepts of the Ba'al Shem Tov's teachings.)

To some extent, though, the idea backfired: the children of those Jews who left the towns to live in isolated villages often grew up with no Jewish education at all. We thus hear that a boy from such a family once came to the Ba'al Shem Tov's synagogue on Yom Kippur and knew no other way to speak to G-d than to crow loudly like a rooster! As it turned out, though, the boy's intense desire to relate to G-d "saved the day," since the Ba'al Shem Tov himself had just then come under severe Divine judgment for unwittingly causing this crisis of ignorance to develop.

In his teens Yisrael settled in the town of Tluste, Galicia, where he took a job as a bahelfer (assistant teacher). Later his disciple and successor Rabbi Dov Ber of Miedzyrzec would say, "If only I could kiss the Torah scroll with the same degree of love with which the Ba'al Shem Tov kissed the children under his care!" During the next twenty years, Yisrael would try his hand at a variety of occupations, including shamash of a synagogue, shochet, and lime digger.

According to Sefer HaTolados, a compilation of traditions concerning the Ba'al Shem Tov, Rav Yisrael said that as a child, after learning in cheder, he would retreat to the fields for further study. The structure of Yisrael's educational upbringing is not clear. Yet there is no doubt that over the years, on his own and through Heavenly aid — chassidic tradition says he studied Torah with the Prophet Eliyahu and with the latter's own teacher, the prophet Achiyah of Shiloh — he acquired a good deal of Torah knowledge. When he later developed a following of disciples, the Ba'al Shem Tov taught them a daily lecture in the Talmud with advanced commentaries. His specialty, however, was the Kabbalah.

Sometime around 1720 he married Leah Rachel, the daughter of Avraham (another version has the name Ephraim) of Kutow (Kitov). Rav Yisrael and Leah Rachel had two children: Rav Tzvi Hirsch, who briefly succeeded his father as the leader of the chassidic movement before voluntarily resigning it in favor of Rabbi Dov Ber of Miedzyrzec, and Adel, whose son Rabbi Baruch of Miedzyboz (Mezhibuzh) and grandson Rabbi Nachman of Braclaw (Breslov) were prominent chassidic rebbes.

Rav Yisrael's father-in-law passed away shortly thereafter, and the position of household head passed to Leah Rachel's brother, Gershon, who viewed his brother-in-law as an impractical ignoramus and a blot on the family name. Rav Yisrael and his wife were forced to leave the area, and they settled in a remote region of the Carpathian Mountains. In due time, Rav Gershon would discover Rav Yisrael's hidden greatness and become a devoted follower.

Rav Yisrael had never met the leader of the hidden tzaddikim, Rabbi Adam (an acronym for his full name, Avraham David Moshe), the Ba'al Shem of Ropszycze (Ropshitz). Rav Adam had inherited the position from his teacher, Rav Yoel Ba'al Shem of Zamosc (Zamoshtch), who in turn was a disciple of the famed Rav Eliyahu Ba'al Shem, a colleague of the Maharal of Prague (1512–1609). There had been passed down, through this chain of leadership, a volume of Kabbalistic writings that went back to antiquity. Sometime around 1728, Rav Adam sent his son to deliver the volume to Rav Yisrael, his evident successor.

Rav Adam tried to convince Rav Yisrael to reveal his true nature publicly and assume the leadership of the movement. (Poor copies of some of their correspondence have been preserved as part of the collection known as the Kherson Archive.* ) At one point, Rav Adam even warned his younger colleague that Heaven-sent death awaited him if he continued to refuse. (In fact, Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi later stated that the Ba'al Shem Tov's life was shortened by six years as Divine punishment for his six years of failure to reveal his new teachings.) Rav Yisrael finally announced himself as a Ba'al Shem on his thirty-sixth birthday, the 18th of Elul 5494 (September 16, 1734), which marks the official birth of the chassidic movement.

Nor was the role of Ba'al Shem itself new. The term, denoting a person who studies Kabbalah and uses this knowledge to perform miraculous acts, goes back at least to the period of Rav Hai Gaon (939–1038). During the 16th and 17th centuries, many bearers of the title lived in Poland and its environs, some assuming the fuller name "Ba'al Shem Tov."

As a Ba'al Shem, Rav Yisrael dispensed kemi'os (amulets) and other Kabbalah-based devices. He exorcised demons and performed other activities to aid people in distress.

To broaden the sphere of his activities, the Ba'al Shem Tov moved (around 1740) from Tluste to the relatively large Miedzyboz in the Ukraine, the land of his birth.

In Miedzyboz he was received cordially by the Jewish and non-Jewish authorities. Tax documents and census lists tell us that a community-owned house near the synagogue was occupied by "Balszam" from at least 1742 to 1760 (the year of the Ba'al Shem Tov's passing), and that he and his family were exempted from taxation. The Ba'al Shem Tov's descendants remained in that house for several generations.

Already in Tluste, before his revelation, the Ba'al Shem Tov had begun to attract a following of recognized Torah scholars, such as the brothers

A letter sent by the Ba'al Shem Tov to his brother-in-law, Rav Gershon. Photo courtesy Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad.

Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yitzchak, who were the sons of Rabbi Tzvi Margolios of Jazlowiec (Yazlovitch). When Rav Yisrael arrived in Miedzyboz, two of the city's most prominent scholars, Rabbi Wolf Kitzes and Rabbi David Purkes, initially opposed him because they felt it beneath the dignity of a Torah scholar to engage in practical Kabbalah, especially for the sake of the masses. Both, however, were eventually won over.

Rav Yisrael later attracted such distinguished former opponents as Rabbi Yaakov Yosef HaKohen of Polonne (who compiled the first collections of Rav Yisrael's teachings, Toldos Yaakov Yosef and Ben Poras Yosef), Rabbi Pinchas HaLevi Shapira of Korzec (Koretz), and his own eventual successor, Rabbi Dov Ber of Miedzyrzec. Others in the group included Rabbi Leib Sarahs and Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zoloczew (Zlotchov). These men and others formed the group known as the Chevraya Kadisha (Holy Brotherhood).

During the 26 years of his leadership, Rav Yisrael recast the principles of classical chassidus and formulated new ones. Some of the cornerstones of the new movement were:

• that every Jew is beloved by G-d, even if he or she is unable to relate to Him on an intellectual level;

• that a Jew can reach spiritual heights even if he does not possess Torah knowledge. One can elevate himself through prayer, joy, and love and fear of G-d;

• that Divine Providence extends to every minute detail of every occurrence. One consequence is that anything a Jew sees or hears must be a lesson in serving G-d;

• that the physical is as much a tool for serving G-d as the spiritual, and the body is not to be afflicted in an effort to become a more spiritual person.

These ideas had roots in Torah tradition, yet were viewed as revolutionary and troubling. Even the old-style chassidim found it difficult to accept the fourth principle, since fasting and other ascetic behavior to achieve a higher spiritual plane had long been accepted.

During the Ba'al Shem Tov's lifetime, opposition to his ideas was relatively muted. It tended to focus more on the social aspect of the movement than on the philosophical, and was mostly confined to literary works that did not enjoy wide circulation. A typical criticism was that Rav Yisrael and his followers were ignorant, arrogant, and generally disregarding of the established order. (By contrast, in the following generation, when Chassidism would provoke fears of Shabbetai Tzvi-like heresy, there resulted a quarter-century of vicious polemics and bans against the movement.)

There was one brief, though serious, break in this tranquility. In 1757, the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba HaAratzos), the self-governing body of Polish Jewry, placed a cherem (excommunication decree) on the Ba'al Shem Tov and his followers for their "heretical" ways. The previous year the council had excommunicated the false messiah Yaakov Frank, a self-proclaimed successor to Shabbetai Tzvi, and it is likely that they felt Rav Yisrael was of the same ilk.

A Warning Not Heeded Sefer HaTolados relates that the death of Archbishop Dembowski came about through the miraculous intervention of the Ba'al Shem Tov. One of the hidden tzaddikim, Rabbi Chaim Yisrael, was instructed by Rav Yisrael to warn Dembowski that if he did not revoke the decree to burn the Talmud, he would meet an untimely end. Dembowski was also told to revoke his order that the Jews of Kamenitz pay to refurbish his church building. Dembowski did not heed the warning, and instead intensified his effort, calling on the citizens of the towns surrounding Kamenitz to witness the book-burning. Thousands of people gathered in the city center, thrilled at the opportunity to participate in the destruction of the hated texts. But as Dembowski walked toward the site where the pyre had been erected, he fell dead. Among Dembowski's underlings was a Bishop Mikolski. Some time later, Mikolski decreed that the Jews of Lvov were to cease saying Aleinu as part of their thrice-daily prayers. (The likely offending passage was "for they (the nations) prostrate themselves to vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god who will not save," which was censored centuries ago and to this day is missing in many siddurim.) The same Chaim Yisrael warned Mikolski that if he did not revoke the Aleinu decree, he would suffer severe punishment. Mikolski dismissed the threat offhand. Speaking in the church the following Sunday, Mikolski fell as he walked down the steps of the podium and broke his leg and hand. He then realized that Chaim Yisrael was the same man who had warned Dembowski. Remembering the Archbishop's fate, Mikolski revoked the Aleinu decree.

In an anguished letter to the council, the Ba'al Shem Tov protested, noting that they had not invited him to explain the chassidic position, and pleading with them to reconsider. Whether because of this letter or because just then Frank's movement took a dangerous turn, the cherem was never enforced. In late 1757, Frank converted to Christianity and denounced the Talmud to the Polish authorities. After a forced "debate" between the Frankists and the rabbis, the outcome of which was a foregone conclusion, Archbishop Dembowski of Kamieniec-Podolski (Kamenitz) confiscated a large number of Jewish books for burning in the city square. However, he suffered a stroke and died after only a few volumes had been destroyed. (See sidebar.)

The Frankists demanded a new debate, with the understanding that if they lost, they would immediately convert to Catholicism. The debate was held in the summer of 1759; among the participating rabbis was Chaim HaKohen Rapoport, a disciple of the Ba'al Shem Tov. This time the debate was conducted relatively fairly; the rabbis emerged victorious, and the Frankists immediately left to be baptized. The Ba'al Shem Tov joined with the rest of Torah-true Jewry in celebrating the victory, and a document survives in which he and his disciples declared the date of the debate's conclusion, the 26th of Tammuz, an annual holiday.

Yet Rav Yisrael was deeply distressed that the Frankists, still a limb of the Jewish body even though incurably diseased, had needed to be amputated in this fashion. This affected the Ba'al Shem Tov's own health, and he contracted his final illness soon after.

Rav Yisrael passed away on Shavuos of the year 5520 (May 22 or 23, 1760). There are varying traditions as to which day of the holiday it was.

Rav Yisrael left no written will. His legacy is an Eastern European Jewry that was fortified to withstand the winds of change that would soon blow in from Western Europe. Many Jews, from both chassidic and non-chassidic backgrounds, succumbed to the Enlightenment.

But until today, chassidim have constituted an indispensable part of our nation.

In a letter dated 5512 (1752), addressed to his brother-in-law Gershon, who had moved to the Land of Israel, the Ba'al Shem Tov describes a Heavenly encounter with the Messiah. "I asked Mashiach, ‘When will the master come?' And he responded to me, ‘Once your wellsprings have spread outwards.' " In the 250 years since, unimaginable strides have been made in this direction, and today there is hardly a corner of the Jewish world in which Rav Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov and his teachings are not known.

Rabbi Alexander Heppenheimer, a history scholar, makes his first appearance in these pages. He lives in Atlanta, GA.