Indeed, the Besht did not insist on following the complicated qabbalistic system of kavvanot (intentions) in prayers and in the performance of the Jewish religious commandments, but substituted instead the mystical devotion of devequt as the primary means of uplifting the soul to the divine world. In his view, there is no barrier between the holy and the profane, and worship of God can be the inner content of any deed, even the most mundane one. He saw the supreme goal of religious life as devequt (cleaving), or spiritual communion with God this state can be achieved not only during prayers but also in the course of everyday activities. As Gershom Scholem has suggested, the Besht should be regarded as the founder of the great eastern European Hasidic movement, even though our knowledge of his organizational work is scanty, and even though the first Hasidic center was established only after his death by Dov Ber, who became the leader of the movement.Īlthough he was not a scholar in Jewish law, the Besht was well versed in Qabbalah and in popular Jewish ethical tradition, on which he relied when delivering his sermons and formulating his theories. In some cases he was criticized by the rabbis, but his powers as a preacher and magician attracted disciples, including masters of Jewish law and Qabbalah such as Ya ʿaqov Yosef of Polonnoye (d. In his wandering around many Jewish communities, the Besht came into contact with various circles of pietists.
According to other accounts, he served throughout his life as a popular healer, writer of amulets, and exorcist of demons from houses and bodies, which were the traditional roles of a ba ʿal shem (master of the name) or ba ʿal shem tov (master of the good name) -in other words, the master of the name that empowered him to perform what he wished.
There are few historically authentic sources that describe the life of the Besht most information must be gleaned from nineteenth-century hagiography, especially the collection of more than three hundred stories about him, known as Shivhei ha-Besht ( In Praise of the Besht first printed in 1815), and the works of later Hasidic writers.īorn in the small town of Okopy in the southern Ukraine, Yisra ʾel ben Eli ʿezer is said to have begun preaching around 1738, after a long period of seclusion in the Carpathian Mountains with his wife. 1700 –1760), the founder of the Hasidic movement in eastern Europe, who is also known by the acronym BeSHT (commonly written "Besht"). BA ʿAL SHEM TOV (master of the good name), popular designation for Yisra ʾel ben Eli ʿezer (c.
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