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Keys to the Kabbalah
The Dance of the Hasadim and Gevurot
Lesson 2 of 7
The Mystery of the
Hasidim and Mitnagdim
Joel David Bakst © All rights reserved 2002
Before we further develop the dynamics of HuG let us review the five axioms that we have so far learned. This is going to be a “hands on” experience because we are going to apply these axioms to actually help solve a great historical puzzle. This puzzling episode was the most volatile internal event in modern Jewish history: the emergence in the 18th century of two major currents in Torah thought and practice till this day -- the Hasidim and their opponents the Mitnagdim.
The evolution of the Hasidic movement is an intriguing period in Jewish history and it comprises an entire field of study. There have been dozens of works attempting to analyze this phenomenon. What were the central themes that fueled Hasidism and its leaders? Why was there such animosity – hitnagdoot – to this movement? [1] This is especially difficult to understand now, 200 years later, because for the most part many aspects of hasidism have been accepted and even incorporated into mainstream Judaism. Yet, there still are embers of the battles burning in the Lithuanian yeshiva world and ills feelings and triumphal attitudes harbored in some hasidic communities. Both for its historical value as well as for its aid to understand contemporary Judaism it is important to analyze the inner mechanisms of this phenomenon.
What can we achieve in a few pages? Amazingly, quite a lot. With even the few dance steps we have learned so far you have a powerful yet simple model to gain an overview of what was generating the volatile conflict of the Hasidim and Mitnagdim. Although it will seem obvious to you by now, yet a kabbalistic HuG perspective has never been presented to illuminate this crucial controversy. To set the context for this approach we will begin with a quote from one of the few true renaissance men of the modern Torah world -- the talmudist and mystic, poet and ardent religious Zionist Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.
Rav Kook (1865-1935), the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, writes,
"The Hasidic movement also arose from this claim for spiritual inspiration that had become dormant. ...after all this there was the great peril that the nation might spurn altogether every vestige left it from the treasure of living spiritual inspiration. The result would have been sole dependence on a study of texts and the zealous performance of actions, the mitzvot and the customs. The people would have become bowed in body and crushed in spirit. In the end they would have been unable to survive from a lack of vitality and uplifting of spirit” [2].
R. Hayyim Volozhin (1749-1821) the outstanding disciple of the Vilna Gaon made a similar observation [3] where he sharply criticized previous generations for their neglect at inculcating the awesomeness of God among their contemporaries.
"Earlier generations were preoccupied all their days with the Torah and its logic. They were entrenched in the houses of learning, with the Talmud, Rashi, and Tosafot; the love of Torah learning burned brightly in their hearts like a flaming fire, in their pure love and fear of God....With the passage of time, the evil inclination, true to its nature to be envious of these, the people of God, when they properly tread the path of God, injected its venom into them, with the result that some of the students began to devote all their time and attention in the pilpul (exegetical dialectics) of the Torah and nothing else. The Mishna teaches however that, 'if there is no fear [of Heaven] there is no wisdom’. On this account, many of the great authorities, the 'eyes of the congregation' - whose holy function it was to watch over the interests of all of our brothers, the house of Israel - took upon themselves to strengthen its adornments and to shore up any breaches, to remove all obstacles from the path of the people of God, and appointed themselves to address reproofs in matters of ethics and virtue. They compiled works for the cultivation of the Fear of God to set straight the heart of the people, that they engage in the study of the holy Torah and the efforts to attain the pure fear of God".
The Rosh Yeshiva of the famous Yeshiva of Volozhin and leader of non-Hassidic (Mitnaged) Jewry is recognizing, as has Rav Kook, that the grassroots reaction of Hasidism was rooted in the same ground as that of the reaction of the “Eyes of the congregation” who emphasized the significance of classical piety and ethics which also in his view went to far. In fact, each of these movements was a natural outcome due to the Torah community veering too far to one extreme. In this case it was in large part the power of analysis and linear thinking -- an aspect of the gevurot -- that had become overemphasized and which, in accordance with the principles of Chug theory, now demanded a re-balancing of the scales. Thus, there was now created an entire school of Torah emphasizing the opposite quality that that of the model of Lithuanian Jewry – this is the form of: inner contemplation, ecstatic prayer and direct experience of the Divine.
These qualities, relative to the gevurot, are manifestations of the hasadim. However, this too, for all the good that was affected, also went to an extreme. We should then expect a similar counter-revolution -- the healthy, controlling and delineating forces of the gevurot. The Hasidim called their antagonistic and sometimes even violent foes (e.g., excommunication, book banning and burning, imprisonment by the non-Jewish governments via libelous charges by Jewish informants) the "Mitnagdim", i.e., those who are opposed (neged = against, in opposition) which is precisely one of the manifesting qualities of the gevurot. After the fact this was also recognized.
Rav Kook continues,
"Future generations might well have lost the blessings of revival in Hasidism had it not been purified by suffering as a result of the fiery opposition from the shinning light of Israel’s tradition of talmudic learning centering in the practical disciplines of life. He himself felt the living force of inspiration but for him this was peripheral to his primary concern, textual study. I am referring to the school of thought of Rabbi Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna. He fought the spread of the divine inspiration of the teachings of the Ba'al Shem Tov, which had not been sufficiently grounded in textual study, thus creating the danger that it might become estranged from its roots in the Jewish tradition in the course of time."
The same justification of the strong hostility and opposition to the emergence of the Hassidic movement in its early days is voiced by one of the greatest of the Hasidic leaders himself - R. Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch known as the Tzemach Tzedek (after the halachic work he wrote by the same name) and third in the lineage of HaBaD Rebbes. He writes [4], "Our wholly devoted people (the Hasidim) do not know and are unable to appreciate the very great benefit and immense kindness in what the Vilna Gaon did for us by quarreling with us. They are not on a level [of spiritual development] to attain a proper conception of the tremendous gratitude we owe him and those who waged the battle - we, our children, and the generations after us. For if not for that fierce controversy, there would really have been a basis and a reason to worry and suspect that the new doctrine we developed for us, or rather that our fathers developed for us, in storm and stress, would slowly, slowly lead us, step by step, gradually further and further away from the limits set for the authentic tradition of Torah and religious observance. And there would have been a great anxiety not without foundation, that according to the force of the enthusiasm, exaltation and elevation of the spirit in the progress of the new doctrine that captured by storm the hearts of its creators and makers, originators and founders, in the end Talmudic learning would be charred by the fire of Kabbalah; that the hidden Torah of mysticism would diminish most of the stature and eminence of the overt, visible Torah; and the actual mitzvot to be observed in deeds would come to be held in low esteem in the face of the blazing emotions evoked by the mystic intentions in one's religious devotions....
"Had all this come true, we would have been lost on our road, Heaven forbid. The controversy was therefore like a barrier against catastrophe for us, like a cast-iron fence against a raging sea. Moreover, the halachic compendium (known as the Shulchan Aruch HaRav) written by my grandfather [R. Shneur Zalman of Liady], the author of the Tanya - I know with certainty that it was created only on account of the controversy - in order to draw the hearts of our faithful people closer to a way of life according to the doctrine of halacha and thus to increase and magnify the prestige and honor of the overt [non-mystic] Torah; to influence them to devote their time and energy to a preoccupation with the laws of the Torah, with proper attention and concentration, with an attitude of reverence and appreciation. To this controversy we must give thanks for the revelation of this treasure of illumination. If the controversy came only so that we should be granted these volumes, it would have been beneficence enough for us...."
The Ba'al Shem Tov and his disciples did not purposely choose the name Hasidim because it comes from the same root as hasadim and, in fact, sounds almost identical. The Hasidim were labeled as such by the “Mitnagdim” (rabbinical opponents) in mockery for their intense -- and for many virtual exclusive -- devotion to piety and prayer as opposed to the study of sacred texts. Moreover, certainly the Mitnagdim did not choose their title, the "opposers" [5]. Yet, from a cosmological perspective it is apparent in this epic making episode of Torah history that once again the dance of HuG was moving to the hidden rhythm of the collective Jewish soul. In this example the spiritual aesthetics at play easily reveal all five axioms of HuG.
1. Everything is HuG: This is exemplified in the historical division between the two Torah paths of the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim.
2. HuG splits into HuG: Reacting to what they considered to be dangerous straying from the original intentions of its founder bitter antagonism sprang up among some of the branches of Hassidism to other Hasidim and thus, relatively becoming opposing "Mitnagdim" to each other (and even paralleling some of the same arguments).
3. HuG create and define each other: This is the case with the Mitnagdim whose descriptive title was quite literally created for them by the Hasidim. The Hasidim, in turn, were indirectly created by the Mitnagdim as a reaction to an over constriction of the spirit.
4. HuG balance each other: The Hasidim were generated as a healing response to the state of the over constricting gevurot of the Mitnagdim. The over expanding hasadim of the Hasidim, in turn, then had to receive a "readjustment" from the response of the Mitnagdim.
5. HuG convert into each other: There were a significant number of Talmudic scholars from the Mitnagdim camp who actually went from one extreme to the other and "converted" into Hasidic masters. The Ba'al haTanya’s famous legal compendium (Shulchan Aruch HaRav) mentioned above is an example of a near rupture over the ecstatic energy of the hasadim that was converted into its opposing highly condensed energy of the gevurot. The conversion of HuG within these two historical movements is simply one pulsating current within the inner dialectics of the collective Jewish mind itself. After over expressing itself to one extreme it, itself, ruptures its own self and appears to be transforming into an opposing quality, but which in truth is always just its own other side to begin with. It is our mistake to imagine that one thing is actually becoming another thing. Rather, Torah cosmology maintains that it is an eternal dynamic of two aspects of one unified whole -- the eternal dance of HuG that together proclaim in unison the ineffable Oneness of creation.
[These are the first two lessons of the Keys to the Kabbalah lecture series, to be released separately in book form later on].
Notes:
[1] The deeper mystery is what was behind the bitter and almost unimaginable extreme opposition of the Gaon of Vilna. Although attempts have been made to explain his writs of excommunication and uncompromising position -- even to the consternation of some of his own closest disciples -- this question has never been sufficiently answered. Although it is outside of the scope of the present introductory material on HuG I propose a unique solution to this unsolved mystery. I base this conclusion upon 1) a deep understanding of the paradoxical nature of the gevurot, as elaborated in the following lessons, 2) the kabalistic mission of the Gaon of Vilna as outlined in his disciples’ secret document Kol HaTor, and 3) the dispute between the hasidic masters and the Gaon of Vilna over the nature of the tzimtzum – the primordial constriction or “concealment” of Divinity in the world. The sod od the tzimtzum itself can only be fathomed with a solid grasp of Hug principles.
[2] Derech HaTechiya – the Path To Renewal. A translation of the entire essay into English can be found in The Classics of Western Spirituality Abraham Isaac Kook,, Ben Zion Bokser 1978, p287.
[3] Nefesh haHayyim (Gate 4 chapter1)
[4] As recorded in Mekor Baruch by R. Baruch Epstein (the "Torah Temima") in the name of his father R. Yechiel Michael haLevi Epstein, author of the renown and authoritative Aruch haShulchan
[5] They have always called themselves the P'rushim, which means to separate or transcend, i.e., from the material impure aspects of the world. The title of P’rushim was especially applied to the disciples and family members of the Vilna Gaon who resettled Jerusalem in the beginning of the 19th century. This ancient name goes back to Temple times and is known, although with very derogatory connotations, in the Christian Bible as "Pharisees".
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