Season 2: Episode 12 - Movement and Controversy

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Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker, says Thomas J. Watson. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind, and fear less the label of crackpot than the stigma of conformity. I'm Rav Mike Feuer, and this is The Jewish Story. Episode 12, Movement and Controversy Our brethren, sons of Israel, as you know, new people have appeared, unimagined by our forefathers, and they associate amongst themselves and their ways are different from other children of Israel. In their liturgy, they behave in a crazed manner and say that their thoughts wander in all worlds. And they belittle the study of Torah and repeatedly claim that one should not study much, nor deeply regret one's transgression.

Therefore we have come to inform you, children of Israel from near and far, and to sound to them the voice of excommunication and banishment, until they themselves repent completely. That's not just a ban. That's a declaration of war. And we're going to need to understand why it was that the teachings of the Holy Vol Shem Tov and the behavior of his followers aroused such ire. Now, since the time the Bash left the world in 1760 on our last episode, groups of Hasidim began to pop up all throughout eastern Poland and the Ukraine. It's impossible at this point to estimate their numbers, but the anti-Hasidic literature of the mid to late 18th century is filled with descriptions of Hasidim who, quote, are quite ignorant of any knowledge, having studied neither the mysteries, nor Gemara or legal codes, stripped bare and wailing aloud, prancing upon the hilltops.

It's clear they weren't beloved, and it's also clear that what had been an idea was becoming a movement, and that the movement was spreading. Now, a few things occurred in the wake of the Besh death, which really contributed to the rise of a Hasidic movement, as opposed to simply an idea, or even just groups of Hasidim, which had existed, as we noted in the last episode, for many centuries in Europe. The first was the final end of the Council of the Four Lands. This overarching communal body had ruled over the affairs of Polish Jewry for nearly 200 years, collecting taxes, upholding religious standards, and maintaining intercommunal economic and social relations. We've spoken about it at length. But, despite being a pillar of medieval Jewish life, it was not destined to be part of the modern era.

because, as we'll see further along, the modern state is on the rise. And unlike the medieval kingdoms, which have been more than happy to allow the Jews to administer their own affairs, so long as the taxes were paid on time, modern states are opposed to any autonomous body which stands between the state and the citizen. And the existence of the Jews as what we call a religious corporation, which was the hallmark of their communal life in the Middle Ages, will be seen as a state within a state in the modern era, and thus as a threat to both liberty and state power. That will be a lot of the story in coming episodes on the Enlightenment and the Emancipation. And for now, though Poland won't actually make it into modernity as an independent kingdom, it will make its last best effort to do so by reforming itself in the 1760s And as part of that effort to modernize and centralize power in the hands of the state, the Polish National Assembly nullified the Council of the Four Lands in the decision adopted on June 1, 1764.

And one could really say, there with a stroke of a pen, the Middle Ages ended for Polish Jewry. And it was just the largest act in a general breakdown of autonomous Jewish life in Europe. The partition of Poland itself lies not so far ahead in our story, and with it will come the dissolution of most formal structures of communal government, what we've known up to now as the Kahal system, the community system. This was the communal infrastructure run by the economic elite, assisted by the rabbinic class, which has dominated both internal Jewish affairs and their relationship with the non-Jewish governments for hundreds of years. And we've touched on it in many places, from Amsterdam to Krakow, down into Italy.

And just as the Cahal system is dissolving under the pressure of modern states, which see it as an encroachment on their aspiration for absolute power, the informal system of Hasidic communities, what were called courts, which center on the tzaddik, on the righteous leader, are on the rise. And it's their very outsider status which gives these communities the ability to play a key role in the survival of traditional authority in its conflict with modernity. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Suffice it to say for now that one driver for the rapid spread of Hasidut will be the steady elimination of the medieval communal structures in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Another was simply a question of leadership.

With the death of the Holy Baal Shem Tov in 1760, of course the question of succession arose. And there were those who looked to his son as an inheritor, but this was not a medieval monarchy. Spiritual pedigree is going to trump lineage. There were those who assumed that the mantle of leadership would fall to the man who had been closest to Baal Shem Tov while he was alive, and truthfully one of his oldest followers and had been the first to popularize his teaching in print with Todos Yaakov Yosef. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polinoya was already an accomplished scholar in his own right when he became a disciple of the best in the mid-18th century. And his knowledge lent weight to his teacher's new vision.

And because of his communal status, he was the rabbi of Shogorod at the time, he was the subject of much controversy. But his book, The Todas Yaakov Yosef, published in 1780, was the first collection of the best teaching ever published. And he went on to publish several more books, gaining eternal fame as the first Hasidic author. Nevertheless, he was not destined to inherit his rabbi's leadership. That role belonged to one of the best newer disciples. Rav Dovber ben Avraham of Mezrish was a master of both the hidden and revealed Torah and he served as a Magid one of the itinerant preachers that we spoke about throughout Vohania that Jew-filled territory that straddled Poland, Ukraine and Belarus he was actually known as a great scholar and as a severe ascetic whose soul was pure but whose body broken by years of self-affliction and melancholy.

He was the inheritor in that sense of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, that 13th century movement of pietists that we spoke about gave some of the push to the rise of the new Hasidim. He was also, in the beginning, a skeptic in regard to the rumors of the wonder-working healer who claimed to have brought a new Torah into the world. So there are endless conflicting stories of how the holy Baal Shem Tov attracted Rav Dov Ber and transformed his doubt into love and loyalty. But one thing actually is clear. It was the Besht that provided the Magid with an escape from his pessimistic worldview and punishing asceticism into a life of joyful communion with God, into a world suffused by love and spiritual enthusiasm.

And in return for such a gift, The Baal Shem Tov received a critical asset in the struggle to establish his path in Torah. And not just his personal path. Don't forget the vision from last episode, in which the Messiah revealed to him that nothing less than redemption hinged on the Besh spreading his light throughout the world. And Rav Dabberb had become known to the Hasidim as the Great Magid of Mezrich, and he was perfectly positioned to recruit a large following for the teachings of his master. First of all, he was grounded in all branches of traditional rabbinic thought, he furthermore had a respectable reputation amongst the rabbinic class, and of course, he was an accomplished preacher. Now, there is some question around whether the Besh anointed his successor before his death, or whether after his death the Magid simply arose and gathered the students to him.

But there's no doubt about what occurred after he was gone. When the holy Baal Shem Tov left the world, the Hasidim say that the same fountains of wisdom who had gone to the Baal Shem Tov went to the Magid. Practically speaking, this meant that the center of gravity of Hasidut shifted from Mezvol, where we last left the Beth, down in Podolia, to Mesricht in Lohania. And this shift northward brought Lithuania and White Russia, and with them the elite centers of Torah study amongst Polish Jewry, into the orbit of Hasidut. Now remember, or no, intellectual ferment was the hallmark of the late 18th century. That's true everywhere, and all the more so amongst Jews. And we'll see in coming episodes how many young scholars began to seek their satisfaction outside of the realms of traditional learning.

But such a radical state of affairs had not yet struck the Polish heartland. Nevertheless, the Torah which they inherited left some of these young seekers feeling a lack. And they were the young man who began to gravitate to mezrich and to find a seat around the magit's table. And before too long, many of them would find fame as founders of their own branches of Hasidut. Rav Levi Yitzchak of Bereshev the Kedush's Levi Rav Nachum of Chernobyl Rav Elimelech of Ljensk Rav Aaron of Karlin Rav Menachem Mendel of the Betsk and of course Rav Schnur Zalman of Liadi who though the youngest ultimately would be known as the Altar Rebbe the Elder Rebbe and famously as the founder of Chabad Chassidut the Magi gathered a powerful core of disciples and placed himself at the geographic center of Polish Jewry and despite what is described by historians as a downright authoritarian leadership style he began to decentralize as his pupils reached a certain stage of knowledge and spiritual maturity he sent them out to set up Hasidic courts of their own the model of a Rebbe or Tzadik a righteous leader who gathered around him a court and a broader community soon became a fixture throughout Polish Jewry these charismatic leaders were successful in negotiating attention where it appears to me traditional rabbinic leadership had failed.

On one hand, like the communal rabbis, they maintained an elevated status through their learning, personal authority and presence. On the other, they strove to embody the Torah of the Baal Shem Tov as it was taught by a student the Todot Yaakov Yosef When the tzaddik is isolated on the highest rung he has no point of contact with the commonality of the people Only when he stands upon the lowest rung is he able to help them rise up. In other words, in order to breathe life and spirit into the people, the Baal Shem Tov taught that the tzaddik must remain at one with them and not stand above. However, in order to truly play intermediary between the people and God, he also required time to be alone and commune with his Master in Heaven, and thus the tzaddik needed to be supported by his followers in order to free him from the yoke of material life.

Now, as the generations passed, and the doctrine of what became known as practical tzaddikism by the Enlightenment Jews who were not so fond of it, that developed, the Rebbe's became more and more a source of fulfillment for all of the Hasid's needs, be they spiritual or material, and he became what was often an autocratic absolute ruler over his community. And eventually, the institution of the Tzadik would become a source of serious intra-Jewish polemics. Some criticized the very idea of such a spiritual intermediary between God and a Jew on religious grounds. Others claimed that these charismatic men were nothing more than charlatans exploiting the gullible, the superstitious masses by promising them material and spiritual salvation in return for their own economic benefit.

But in the wake of the great Magid's death in 1772, only 12 years after his master left the world, the critical third generation arose. a true movement began to take shape and spread and it seems that by raising up many students and placing them throughout Eastern Europe the Magid ensured that his master's Torah would live beyond both their lifetimes and I for one am grateful for the rich diversity of their thought that we find in so many holy books they began to write in the light of the teachings of their master and the holy Baal Shem Tov And, despite the angry words we might find in anti-Hasidic literature, the charismatic leadership of these tzaddikim often worked in parallel with the formal leadership of the communities.

In fact, we'll see time and again, Hasidic leadership, with its deeply traditional stance, will be critical in preserving the communal power at a time when the state was actively looking to erode it. Nevertheless, we spoke last episode about the entrenched powers of Jewish communal life and the deterioration of faith and communal leadership, which were bound up with the rise of Hasidut. Now that there are tzaddikim in their courts springing up all over Poland, conflict is inevitable. And we could descend into the details and particular challenges, especially how the charismatic nature of Hasidic leadership was often far more successful in enforcing law than the bureaucratic approach of the communities.

Or, have it said, you can gradually gain control over the backbone of Jewish economic life that was the leaseholding from Polish noblemen through their devoted followers. But rather than attempt to tell it all, I want to pick one issue which in many ways encapsulates all the dimensions of the conflict between the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim, The opposers, as their opponents, became known in Hebrew. And that's the issue of shechita, ritual slaughter. One of the earliest bans recorded against the Hasidim came from the leadership of the community of Brody. Anyone who from this day forward goes out in white clothing will be stripped in the middle of the street and become subject to public scorn and derision If a guest arrives in our community who refuses to eat meat slaughtered by the regular slaughters, or practices some new custom, his host must inform the community leader so that he may cast him out and expel that man from the city.

There's a lot in those few words. The white clothing is a detail that refers to some of the mystic customs that were popularized by the Hasidim, like wearing white on Shabbat, something which today is widespread. read. The very idea that it was problematic to practice new customs speaks to the deeply conservative side of traditional society. But for our purposes, the critical element was the refusal to eat meat slaughtered by the regular slaughterers. One of the earliest identifying customs of the Baal Shem Tov and his followers was their strict stance on the sharpness of the knife used for ritual slaughter. Now you may or may not know that Jewish law mandates that the act of slaughter be as painless as possible and therefore the knife used to cut an animal's throat must be razor sharp.

However, too sharp a blade is delicate and may be nicked by the very flesh it's cutting and such a nick in the blade will actually invalidate the slaughter altogether. because it tears the flesh of the throat rather than slicing it. And anyone who eats meat slaughtered with such a nicked blade is in violation of a Torah-level prohibition. Now the early Hasidim insisted that their slaughters pass their stone-sharpened blades over a leather strop after using the grindstone in order to produce the sharpest possible blade, despite the risk of such a blade being nicked by the animal's flesh. And their insistence was based on the teaching of their master that certain souls were reincarnated in the bodies of cows and chickens in order to achieve some tikkun, some spiritual fixing through their slaughter and their consumption by the righteous.

The super sharp blade was necessary in order that the slaughterer helped the soul achieve this tikkun, this fixing without causing any undue suffering. Now, the communal rabbinate may or may not have shared the Hasidic belief in reincarnation. But, even if they did, they were far more concerned with the chances that such a blade would actually invalidate the animal rather than making it permissible to eat, making it kosher. And thus, a class of Hasidic slaughterers was born. The followers of the Besh often refused to eat the meat of the communal slaughterhouses, and therefore they began to train and employ and pay their own slaughters. Now, lest you think this is just a question of legal hair-splitting, because indeed, if you look into the legal literature, there were many reasons to say that at least after the fact, such a blade was completely permissible, or of some strange mystic sensitivity.

I don't know about your opinions on reincarnation into animals, But you have to know, actually, the socioeconomic side of the story. Because the tax on the supply of kosher meat was one of the most important sources of income for the autonomous Jewish communities of Poland at the time of the rise of Hasidut. Therefore, the creation of a separate class of Hasidic slaughters was not only religiously offensive, never undervalued the power of that stance of holier-than-thou. it was actually potentially economically devastating. And, at least indirectly, these slaughterers amounted to a challenge to the authority of the Kahal. Because they suddenly became an extra-communal group, intervening in a question that had always been completely in the hands of the communal leadership.

Now eventually, the social reality created by the rapid spread of Hasidut will lead to the recognition of their slaughters and their incorporation into the communal infrastructure. But we're not there yet. These are the days of conflict. And in addition to this type of nexus of ritual and socioeconomic power, there were more fundamental, and I would even say existential, differences between the worldview of the Hasidim and the Mithnagdim that opposed them. And it seems that these were the differences that motivated their greatest opponent to take his first public stand. Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomozaman was better known to the world as the genius of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon, or simply as the Grau. Now, Vilna is the capital of Lithuania, which until 1772 was an integral part of the Polish kingdom and home to one of its largest Jewish communities.

And not just any old large community. Vilna was at the heart of the Lithuanian way of life, of the absolute dedication to tradition as embodied in the way in which Torah had been learned and practiced for generations by Ashkenazi Jewry. this was an intensely intellectual culture the heights of Torah were reached through the application of the mind and the deeper implications of that we're going to have to explore in coming episodes on the Enlightenment and the birth of Orthodoxy but for now, suffice it to say that early Hasidim with their popular mysticism and innovative ways with their devotion to prolonged prayer even at the expense of time spent learning Torah found very little welcome in Lithuania.

And the Vilna Gaon was recognized as a genius from his earliest days. Legend has it that he'd memorized the entire Hebrew Bible by each four and had begun mastering whole tractates of the Talmud by age seven. And by the time he was 20, whether you believe the legends or not, the greatest rabbis of Europe were submitting their most difficult questions to him. he is well known for rejecting the Shuchan Aruch the great set table work that we spoke about published in 1564 he rejected it as an absolutely binding legal quote it's not that he didn't respect it but he insisted that if his understanding of the sources differed from that of Rabbi Yosef Karo then he was bound to uphold his own opinion something which the vast majority of contemporaries did not see to be true.

Nevertheless, lest you think he disparaged the work of the earlier minds, he wrote a gloss on the entire Shulchan Aruch, every single section, which together with his comments on the Babylonian Talmud, the Mishnahh, and many other works, placed him at the head of the rabbinic scholars of his day, and has given him a shining spot in the history of the Jewish soul and mind. Now, the Grah was also an intellect of his day. He employed the most modern grammatical tools to the study and analysis of texts, and he even encouraged his students to study math and the natural sciences as a means for grasping the wholeness of the Torah. And if you think that's all, the Graal was also deeply devoted to the mystical path in Torah, and was a severe ascetic.

Many Kabbalistic manuscripts were published by his students after his death. And despite his greatness or perhaps because of his absolute devotion to the Torah which made him great the Lil Nagon held no formal position in his community He wasn't a teacher or a communal rabbi. In fact, he carefully avoided public life and all controversy, except for one. You recall that with the death of Baal Shem Tov, the center of Chassidut, I said, moved north, from Mezboz in Podolia to Mezrich, which was far closer to Lithuania. And in the early 1770s, a group of Hasidim actually emerged in Vilna itself, deep in enemy territory as it were. When the word of their activities reached the Grah, he decided he could no longer remain silent.

And he lent his voice and his authority to the band that I opened the episode with, and made sure that letters were sent to all the large communities of Polish Jewry urging them to follow in the footsteps of Vilna. And I think at this point we have almost all the information we need to understand what drove such a drastic action, what amounted to the excommunication of a large portion of the Jewish world. First, the fear of Sabbatean heresy is far from gone. Don't forget, the story of the Frankists, which we told last episode, had ended only a few years before this. And despite the fact that today the popular mysticism of Hasidut is seen as most of its appeal, and in fact is part of the mainstream of Torah Jewry, in the late 18th century, it was a little bit too close to Sabbatianism for comfort.

And then, there's the general resistance of traditional societies to change. We may find that strange, but that's because the belief in progress is a hallmark of modernity. And by calling the coming age an enlightenment, we're directly implying that the past is a place of darkness. But traditional Judaism sees our past as glorious. What could be greater than hearing the voice of God at Sinai or seeing his presence in the Holy Temple? Now it's true, as we've discussed, that we are progressive in the sense that the world is moving toward redemption, that we're waiting for the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple. But in the 18th century, the Sabbatean explosion had cast a decidedly unhealthy light on anything overly enthusiastic and messianic.

So there's also the threat which the knowledge elite, the rabbinic elite, felt from the popularization of these Kabbalistic teachings, which until now had been the province of the elect. I am sure that the Vilna Gon thought of himself as a Hasid, in the sense that the Mishnahh uses the term, meaning the early, pious ones. But did he really see these dabblers in mysticism who jumped up and down and clapped while they prayed, as pious? And there also was the threat that the communal leadership felt from the competition of the Tzaddikim and their Hasidic courts, along with the socioeconomic side that we touched on through slaughter. Truth is, there's no knowing for sure what finally moved the Grah to issue his ban.

But there is a story that adds one last piece of conflict between the Hasidim and the Menagdim that we have not yet addressed. The great Magid, Rav Dovber Mezrich, died, as we said, in 1772 and therefore was not alive to combat this disastrous turn of events when the Graal lent his weight to the band. Not only was the Magi gone, but as I said, he left no successor. Nevertheless, he did have one student who sought to stand in the breach, and if not heal the rift between the Hasidim and the Meknadim, at least uphold his Rebbe's teaching. And I already mentioned him, Rav Schnur Zalman of Liadi, and I described him as the youngest of the Magi's disciples, and as his best known, because in the Jewish world today, it's a rare person who has not heard the name of Chabad, the particular stream of Hasidut which emerged from his teachings.

Rav Schnurl Zalman was the author of one of the most powerful texts ever produced by the Hasidim, the Tanya. And in it, he contends that the intellect consists of three interrelated elements, of Chochma, which is wisdom, Bina, understanding, and Daat, knowledge. together they make Chabad and it's the Alter Rabbi the Elder Rabbi who brings the full force and rigor of the Jewish intellect to bear on the depths of the teachings of the Baal Shemdo and the Magid and the Tanya was the fruit of this labor so who better could there be to approach the Vilna Gaon the master of the Jewish mind in order to repeal the ban and try and reunite Polish Jewry and who better could understand the Grah's real concern.

Hopefully you remember from the last episode that core teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. Quote, This is an important rule. Everything in the universe contains holy sparks. Nothing is devoid of these sparks, even wood and stones. There are sparks from the breaking of the vessels, even in all of man's deeds, even in a sin he commits. Now before the Baal Shem Tov, such a radical theory of what we call God's imminence, the notion that God truly fills the whole world, had been unknown in Jewish thought, not in Kabbalah, not in general philosophy, unless you count the pantheism of Spinoza. And of course, the Besh did not agree with Spinoza. He saw God as both imminent and transcendent, as filling and surrounding the world, while Spinoza said there was only God or nature, no transcendent divine at all.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and re-listen to the end of episode 10. But the Baal Shem Tov went further in his approach to imminence than even Spinoza in his own way. He taught that there is no real distance between man and God. Any experience of distance is merely an illusion which God created for the purpose of teaching us to strive to overcome the gap. The Holy Paul Shem Tov loved to tell a story about a king who surrounded himself with walls and gates that were only an illusion and who promised a greater reward to anyone who would reach him despite all the obstacles. Some reached the first gate, others proceeded deeper, but only the king's son with great effort made it all the way to the king.

And then he saw that there was really no barrier separating from his father, for it was all an illusion. God surrounds himself with many barriers which at first glance we cannot breach but the truth is, as the Baal Shem Tov says, the whole world is full of his glory and that every motion and thought, everything comes from him. By means of this knowledge, there is no longer any barrier separating between man and God and with this, all the workers of iniquity are scattered. it sounds powerful to me but the Grah was deeply alarmed by these teachings seeing in them not only the shared roots of Sabbateanism but of downright idolatry in order to see why we have to go back to a thought from episode 7 if you recall, the holy Arizal in Sfat taught us that the first act of creation was Tzim Sum, was a contraction.

That when God desired that there be creation, he first made a space of emptiness into which he then projected the light of creation. In essence, the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim were arguing about whether the Ari meant this literally. Was Tzim Sum real? Is the context for creation the absence of God? as the Mitnagdim held? And therefore, the only way to bridge the gap between creation and creator is through the revealed divine grace of the Torah and the mitzvot, that there is actually an absolute distance between us and God? Or, was Simpsum just a necessary illusion, as the best insisted? Of course, the Torah and mitzvot are an act of divine grace, but nevertheless one can meet the Creator everywhere we seek Him.

The whole world is filled with His glory. Now in a letter written toward the end of his life in 1797, in response to rumors that he'd softened his opposition to Chassidut, the Grodd described the followers of the Baal Shem Tov as a generation that has raised its eyes and spoken words against the Most High. This is your God Israel, in every tree and every stone. They pervert the verse, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place. And the verse, and you give life to all of them. Alas, the evil shepherds who have invented a new judgment and a new teaching, which their students that came after them imbibed, and thus the name of God is desecrated by them. to the Grah the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov weren't just heresy they were the road to idolatry now the Hasidim tell the story that Rav Schnur Zalman the Alter Rebbe, the founder of Chabad whose followers were concentrated in Lithuania and therefore suffered the most from the Grah's ban tried to approach the Grah in order to discuss their theological differences but apparently the Grah refused to meet and some even say he fled town to avoid the discussion.

And though there are plenty of other versions of the story, what is unquestionable is that a divide remained between the Mitnagdim and the Hasidim, one which appeared as unbridgeable as that which the Grah saw between man and God. So before we can close out the episode, we need to return to the big picture. because while the Jews are embroiled in our intracommunal and theological struggles, fully convinced, of course, that this is all that matters in creation, there are larger forces at play around them. In 1772, the same year that the Great Magid dies, the Polish kingdom was dangling like a fat roast in the middle of Europe. It occupied a vast territory from the North Sea all the way down to the Black Sea, basically straddling the continent.

Territorially it was dominant, but politically and militarily it was paper thin, because the decentralized nature of the state kept the power of military and economic decision-making in the hands of the vast number of nobles. And we traced a bit of the consequences of this situation in past episodes through the nobles' relationship with the Jews, who served as the primary leaseholders and managers of the means productions throughout eastern Poland and Ukraine. But we haven't discussed how this very same system made Poland easy prey for the absolutist states taking form on her borders. And finally, in the year 1772, the temptation became too much and the carving knives came out In the preceding decades of struggle against the advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe Russia had grown from a barbaric backwater into an empire which threatened the stability and territorial integrity of the states emerging in Central Europe.

By putting Poland on the chopping block, Frederick the Great of Prussia was making an attempt to maintain a balance of power and prevent war between Austria and the Russian Empire. Now the details of the emergence of the concept of the balance of power between European states and the role that it will play in world politics all the way through World War II is beyond the scope of our discussion at the moment. Just note that it has its first powerful expression in the three partitions of Poland which took place between 1772 and 1795. Austria, Prussia, and Russia all took a piece, though the Russians got the lion's share or I guess the bear's share as the case may be and the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom which had dominated Central Europe and been such a great home to the Jews disappeared as an independent entity for more than a hundred years.

And more importantly for our story the great body of Polish Jewry which since its rise in the 15th century had become the majority of world Jewry was now divided in three. this was more than a territorial division because overnight the Jews in the annexed territories passed from living under the rule of a feudal society run by the nobility to residing in centralized absolutist states and this will involve some serious changes in the century to come because even though in many ways Polish Jewry remain united despite their division amongst the three there are borders now and very different contexts so I'll just close our episode by touching on Russia because in many ways this is where the transition was most profound and that's because the Russian Empire unlike Prussia and the Austrian Empire had no Jews before the partition of Poland when asked in the early 18th century about admitting Jews into the Empire Peter the Great had replied I prefer to see in our midst nations professing Mohammedism and paganism rather than the Jews.

They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor to eradicate evil, not multiply it. But, in 1772, with the stroke of a pen on the map, the Russian Empire was transformed from a place where Jews had no legal residence into the ruler over hundreds of thousands of them. Nevertheless, despite the fear which the words of Peter the Great might evoke at such a situation, when the Jews arrived at Shul for high holiday services in the fall of 1772, they found an official proclamation nailed to the door with an entirely different tone. It is understood that the Jewish communities dwelling in the towns and the lands joined to the Russian Empire retain and preserve those freedoms that they now enjoy by law, because the humanness of her imperial majesty will not permit anyone to be excluded from her all-encompassing generosity, as long as they, for their part, live and pursue their present trades and business according to their callings.

The Her Imperial Majesty referred to here is Catherine II, also known as the Great, who ruled the empire from 1762 to 1796 and was the one who ushered Russia into the modern era. And this proclamation sounds downright friendly because Catherine the Great was the paragon of the enlightened absolutists. The theory of enlightened absolutism was actually articulated in an essay by her companion, or at least contemporary, Frederick the Great, the ruler of Prussia, who engineered the partition of Poland. And we'll speak about the Enlightenment at length in a coming episode. But for now, a word on Frederick's theory of enlightened despotism. he saw royal power as emanating not from the divine right of the Middle Ages but from a social contract that foundational concept of the Enlightenment in essence to Frederick the despot was entrusted with the power to govern and return was responsible for improving the lives of their subject they codified laws along rational lines limited the traditional power of the nobility and the church reformed peasants' legal and tax burden promoted trade, sponsored culture, it was great.

And critical for the Jewish story will be that in order to do all these enlightened things, the ruler aimed to remove any class, any autonomous body or legal structure which stood between the citizen and the centralized government administration. Because the enlightened absolutists believed that the sovereign knew the interests of his or her subjects better than they themselves did. and so the Jews received the good news that they were now part of the Russian Empire and as such, welcome to join in its march toward modernity and in point of fact, the Jews of Catherine the Great State were quickly integrated into the legal status of the urban class and actually given the right to participate in urban government which means that it was actually Russia that was the first state in Europe to grant the Jews some limited form of emancipation But Catherine the Great wasn't just an Enlightenment despot.

As Tsar, she was also the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. And in that capacity, she would have to struggle with the other side of the story of these newly minted Russian Jews. Because the traditional Jew hatred of the Russian Orthodox culture will be largely impervious to the thoughts of the Enlightenment. It was the clergy that had led the drive to keep the infidel out of Holy Mother Russia for centuries after all. And the Church will join with entrenched interests of the Russian merchant class, who are in no way excited about empowering the Jews as economic competitors, no matter how many Enlightenment economists try to teach them that competition is good for everyone. And these two poles, the desire to integrate the Jews into society, and the rejection of Jews as religious and economic foreign competitors will drive the Russian government's policy toward the Jews until the Tsar is deposed by the revolution in another 140 years.

And in a more immediate move, Catherine will try to resolve the tension in 1791 by creating the Pale of Settlement, that massive Jewish ghetto stretching from the North Sea to the Black Sea where traditional Jewish life, and in particular Hasidut, will maintain much of its momentum. And we will return to the pale. It will hold a central point in the story of the Jews going forward. But for now, just note that the parts of Polish Jewry that wind up in Prussia and Austria will have a very different trajectory as the forces of intellectual and cultural enlightenment begin to work away at the structures of traditional society that were already weakened by the struggles of the 18th century. But in all cases, the Hasidim will remain a bulwark of traditional life, standing up with the Torahs of their Rebbe against the encroachment of the state and modern culture.

So, just to close things out, When the Besh died in 1760, he'd managed to transform his personal experiences of the divine into profound Torah thoughts. And his successor, the great Magid, Rav Dovbear, succeeded in crafting a mass movement out of his teacher's vision, though at the cost of great controversy. And furthermore, the late 18th century was a time of transformation for the Jews as a whole, not just the individuals, but the community itself. In 1764, don't forget, the absolutist spirit of the day nullified the Council of the Four Lands, that bastion of Jewish communal autonomy. The social-religious corporate status that the Jews had enjoyed was a holdover from the Middle Ages, and infringing on the authority of the ruler, and as such, had no place in the modern state.

Then Poland itself lands on the chopping block in 1772, and the old communal system of local rule began to totter, though Hasidut will help uphold traditional communal authority in the face of modernity. But for now, I just want you to appreciate that the religious and political infrastructure that held the largest segment of world Jewry together for the last thousand years is collapsing. And we haven't even addressed the intellectual challenges on the horizon. There are many trials ahead for European Jewry, and the coming century will offer essentially three paths to overcome them. One will be socio-cultural. The Enlightenment and its handmaiden emancipation are coming. These are complex movements, and we're going to have to give them a full treatment.

But in essence, they will offer assimilation of one sort or another as the solution to overcoming the suffering of the Jews. Another path ahead will be political. Zionism is soon to appear on the horizon, and its visionaries will offer the path of national rebirth as the key to a future free from pain and fear. The third way which Amn Israel takes is not to overcome or alleviate their suffering, but rather to transform it into a source of positive identity through mythic living. The Baal Shem Tov and his disciples didn't just speak to what hurt the people or even offer them solutions which could ease their pain and heal the wounds of exile. The Hasidim created a world in which redemption could play out within the psycho-spiritual life of the individual and where I could live in a redeemed state even while still in exile.

They bridged the gap between heaven and earth and make God present wherever we are, even in the darkest and most ignorant corners of exile. And I know that may sound like a fantasy, but oftentimes, myth has a staying power which can outlast reality itself. I just want to thank a few people. I want to thank the people who give their hard-earned money and help make this show possible. And I want you to know, here in the last hours of the Hanukkah holiday, I'm looking for 36 new supporters I want you to go right now to www.patreon.com slash mfoyer and you can find my mfoyer page and hit the donate become a patron button now and you can put your money where your ears are or you can go to my Rav Mike Foyer Facebook page or you can send me an email at robmikefoyer at gmail.com and join in helping me make history I want to thank the Land of Israel Network for providing a platform to reach so many wonderful people.

I want to thank the Pardes Institute, that's P-A-R-D-E-S dot org dot I-L for giving me the opportunity to teach so many wonderful Jews. I want to thank Suomiako because it's my home. And I want to thank you for listening. I'm Rav Mike Boyer, and this is The Jewish Story.