Studies in Judaism 6

Studies in Judaism 6

This is the doctrine of universality in Chassidism. God, the father of

Israel, God the Merciful, God the All-powerful, the God of Love, not only

created everything but is embodied in everything. The necessity of

believing this doctrine is the cardinal Dogma. But as creation is

continuous so also is revelation. This revelation is only to be grasped by

faith. Faith, therefore, is more efficacious than learning. Thus it is

that in times of persecution, the wise and the foolish, the sinner and the

saint, are wont alike to give up their life for their faith. They who

could render no answer to the questions of the casuist are yet willing to

die the most cruel of deaths rather than deny their faith in the One and

Supreme God. Their strength to face danger and death is owing to that

divine illumination of the soul which is more exalted than knowledge.

 

We should thus regard all things in the light of so many manifestations of

the Divinity. God is present in all things; therefore there is good,

actual or potential, in all things. It is our duty everywhere to seek out

and to honour the good, and not to arrogate to ourselves the right to

judge that which may seem to be evil. In thinking therefore of a fellow-

man, we should above all things realise in him the presence of the spirit

of good. Whence we have the Doctrine that each of us, while thinking

humbly of himself, should always be ready to think well, and always slow

to think evil, of another. This explains the Chassidic attitude towards

erring humanity. Baalshem viewed human sin and infirmity in a very

different light from that of the ordinary Rabbi. Ever conscious of the

Divine side of Humanity, he vigorously combated the gratuitous assumption

of sinfulness in man which was a fertile subject with contemporary

preachers. They, among the Roumanian Jews as in other communities,

delighted chiefly to dwell on the dark side of things, and found their

favourite theme in elaborate descriptions of the infernal punishments that

were awaiting the sinner after death. It is related how on one occasion

Baalshem rebuked one of these. The preacher had been denouncing woe to an

audience of whom he knew nothing whether for evil or for good. Baalshem,

indignant at this indiscriminative abuse and conceited arrogation of the

divine office of judgment, turned on him in the following words: "Woe upon

thee who darest to speak evil of Israel! Dost not know that every Jew,

when he utters ever so short a prayer at the close of day, is performing a

great work before which the angels in heaven bow down?" Great, as it would

seem, was the value set by Baalshem upon the smallest evidence of the

higher nature in man, and few there were, as he believed, who, if their

spirit was not darkened by pride, did not now and again give proof of the

divine stamp in which God had created them. No sin so separates us from

God that we need despair of return. From every rung of the moral ladder,

no matter how low, let man seek God. If he but fully believe that nothing

is void of God, and that God is concealed in the midst of apparent ruin

and degradation, he will not fear lest God be far from him. God is

regained in a moment of repentance, for repentance "transcends the limits

of space and time." And he who leads the sinner to repentance causes a

divine joy; it is as though a king's son had been in captivity and were

now brought back to his father's gaze.

 

Baalshem refused to regard any one as wholly irredeemable. His was an

optimistic faith. God was to be praised in gladness by the dwellers in

this glorious world. The true believer, recognising the reflection of God

in every man, should hopefully strive, when that reflection was obscured

by sin, to restore the likeness of God in man. The peculiar detestability

of sin lies in this, that man rejects the earthly manifestations of the

Divinity and pollutes them. One of Baalshem's disciples delighted in the

saying that the most hardened sinners were not to be despaired of, but

prayed for. None knows the heart of man, and none should judge his

neighbour. Let him who burns with zeal for God's sake, exercise his zeal

on himself, not others. Baalshem said, "Let no one think himself better

than his neighbour, for all serve God; each according to the measure of

understanding which God has given him."

 

From this position it is a natural step to Baalshem's view of prayer. He

is reputed to have said that all the greatness he had achieved was the

issue not of study but of prayer. But true prayer "must move," as Baalshem

phrased it, "in the realms above," and not be concerned with affairs

sublunary. Your prayer should not be taken up with your wishes and needs,

but should be the means to bring you nigh to God. In prayer man must lay

aside his own individuality, and not even be conscious of his existence;

for if, when he prays, Self is not absolutely quiescent, the object of

prayer is unattainable. Indeed it is only through God's grace that after

true prayer man is yet alive; to such a point has the annihilation of self

proceeded.

 

It may be necessary to caution the reader against ascribing to Baalshem

any modern rationalistic notions on the subject of prayer. The power of

prayer, in the old-fashioned sense, to produce an answer from God was

never doubted by Baalshem for a moment. Baalshem's deity is not restricted

towards any side by any philosophic considerations. All Baalshem meant was

that any reference or regard to earthly requirements was unworthy and

destructive of this communion of man with God. The wise man, says

Baalshem, does not trouble the king with innumerable petitions about

trifles. His desire is merely to gain admission into the king's presence

and to speak with him without a go-between. To be with the king whom he

loves so dearly is for him the highest good. But his love for the king has

its reward; for the king loves him.

 

It has already been implied that, with regard to our duty towards our

fellow-man, we must not only honour him for the good, and abstain from

judging the evil that may be in him, but must pray for him. Furthermore we

must work for his spiritual and moral reclamation. In giving practical

effect in his own life to this doctrine, Baalshem's conduct was in

striking contrast to that of his contemporaries. He habitually consorted

with outcasts and sinners, with the poor and uneducated of both sexes,

whom the other teachers ignored. He thus won for his doctrines a way to

the heart of the people by adapting his life and language to their

understanding and sympathies. In illustration of this, as well as of his

hatred of vanity and display, it is told how, on the occasion of his being

accorded a public reception by the Jews on his arrival at Brody, instead

of addressing to them in the conventional fashion some subtle discourse

upon a Talmudical difficulty, he contented himself with conversing upon

trivial topics in the local dialect with some of the less important

persons in the crowd.

 

This incident is perhaps the more noteworthy because it occurred in Brody,

which was at that time a seat of learning and Rabbinic culture,--a place

where, for that very reason, Chassidism was never able to gain a foothold.

It is probable enough that Baalshem in his visits to this town kept aloof

from the learned and the wise, and sought to gather round him the

neglected and humbler elements of Jewish society. It is well known that

Baalshem consorted a good deal with the innkeepers of the district, who

were held in very low repute among their brethren. The following remark by

one of his followers is very suggestive in this respect. Just as only

superficial minds attach a certain holiness to special places, whilst with

the deeper ones all places are alike holy, so that to them it makes no

difference whether prayers be said in the synagogue or in the forest; so

the latter believe that not only prophecies and visions come from heaven,

but that every utterance of man, if properly understood, contains a

message of God. Those who are absorbed in God will easily find the divine

element in everything which they hear, even though the speaker himself be

quite ignorant of it.

 

This line of conduct gave a fair opening for attack to his opponents, an

opportunity of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Baalshem was

pointed at as the associate of the lowest classes. They avenged themselves

for his neglect of and hostility to the learned by imputing the worst

motives to his indifference to appearances. He was accused of idling about

the streets with disreputable characters, and one polemical treatise draws

the vilest inferences from his apparent familiarity with women. To this

charge Baalshem's conduct, innocent in itself, gave some colour; for his

views and habits in relation to women marked a strong divergence from

current customs. The position of women in contemporary circles was neither

debased nor inevitably unhappy, but it was distinctly subordinate. Their

education was almost entirely neglected, and their very existence was

practically ignored. According to the Chassidic doctrine of Universality,

woman was necessarily to be honoured. "All Jews," says one Chassid, "even

the uneducated and the women, believe in God." Baalshem frequently

associated with women, assigning to them not only social equality, but a

high degree of religious importance.

 

His own wife he reverenced as a saint; when she died he abandoned the hope

of rising to heaven while yet alive, like Elijah of old, saying mournfully

that undivided such translation might have happened, but for him alone it

was impossible. Then again in a form of religion utilising so largely the

emotions of Faith and Love there was a strong appeal to the female mind.

The effect of this was soon evident, and Baalshem did not neglect to

profit by it. Among the most devoted of his early adherents were women.

One of them was the heroine of a favourite anecdote concerning Baalshem's

work of Love and Rescue. It is related that in a certain village there

dwelt a woman whose life was so disgraceful that her brothers at last

determined to kill her. With this object they enticed her into a

neighbouring wood, but guided by the Holy Spirit Baalshem intervened at

the critical moment, and dissuading the men from their purpose rescued the

sinner. The woman afterwards became a sort of Magdalen in the new

community.

 

Above I have endeavoured to throw together in some order of sequence the

doctrines and practical rules of conduct which Baalshem and his early

disciples seem to have deduced from their central idea of the omnipresence

of God. This was necessary in order to give a connected idea of their

creed, but it is right to say that nowhere in Chassidic literature have

these deductions been logically co-ordinated. Perhaps their solitary

attempt to formulate and condense their distinctive views is confined to a

statement of their idea of piety or service of God, and an examination of

three cardinal virtues, Humility, Cheerfulness, and Enthusiasm. What the

Chassidim held as to true service brings into relief Baalshem's

characteristic manner of regarding the Law.

 

By the service of God was generally understood a life which fulfilled the

precepts of the written and oral law. Baalshem understood by it a certain

attitude towards life as a whole. For, as God is realised in life, each

activity of life when rightly conceived and executed is at once a

manifestation and a service of the Divine. All things have been created

for the glory and service of God. The smallest worm serves Him with all

its power. Thus, while eating, drinking, sleeping, and the other ordinary

functions of the body are regarded by the old Jewish moralists as mere

means to an end, to Baalshem they are already a service of God in

themselves. All pleasures are manifestations of God's attribute of love;

and, so regarded, they are at once spiritualised and ennobled. Man should

seek to reach a higher level of purity and holiness before partaking of

food and drink, than even before the study of the Law. For when the Torah

had once been given by God the whole world became instinct with its grace.

He who speaks of worldly matters and religious matters as if they were separate and distinct, is a heretic.