There was once a king whose only son was a source of enormous pride and joy. Then disaster struck. The young man contracted a mysterious illness, collapsed into a deathly coma, and none of the royal doctors could revive him.
In desperation, a professor of herbal medicine was summoned to the palace. The specialist examined the boy and prescribed an unconventional remedy.
“Grind a twenty-eight karat ruby gem-stone to a pulp, and then mix it with several common herbs and mineral water and feed it to the boy.”
Many of the king’s attendants heard the professor’s words as quackery. The rare and precious stone he had requested was the centerpiece of the setting on the king’s crown. These skeptics felt that the king’s crown should not be destroyed on the directives of a charlatan. Other officials contended that their king certainly wanted his court to attempt every possible cure, regardless of cost or plausibility. The professor did not wait for the two groups to resolve their fight. He seized the crown, tore out the jewel that was its heart, and crushed the stone into granules. After feeding the potion to the prince, the boy immediately opened his eyes, and recovered fully.1This parable was related by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1813), one of the greatest thinkers of the Chasidic movement. His book, called the Tanya or Likkutei Amarim, is the essential handbook of Chasidic thought. He related the story to explain the timing of the appearance of the Chasidic movement.
The King in the parable is God, the Ultimate Sovereign. The Jewish nation is the crown prince, as we are called in the Torah, “children of God.” The Torah refers to our relationship with God in paternal terms (see Deut. 8:5). The wise professor who saved the prince was Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov,2He was born circa 1698 and passed away in 1760. The phrase Baal Shem Tov lit-erally means “master of the good name.” He had a good name for he always judged the deeds of others favorably, and his prayers for others brought about miracles. known by the abbreviation “Besht,” who started a movement of ecstatic Jewish observance, Chasidus.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the Jewish nation in Europe underwent a momentous change. After centuries of discrimination and suffering, sounds of civic, economic, and political emancipation began to resonate in small towns throughout Eastern Europe. Yet this emancipation engendered a debilitating spiritual infection, which struck the Jewish people and fully emerged once the Jews stepped beyond the strictures of the ghetto and took their place among the ranks of European citizenry. Jews began to forsake the traditions of their ancestors and assimilate into Gentile societies. To ingratiate themselves with newfound Gentile friends, millions of Jews forsook their identity and religious heritage. R. Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chasidic movement, fashioned a unique remedy to this epidemic.
He seized the initiative. He took the Torah, God’s crown, and extracted the wisdom of Sod, Jewish mysticism, the most precious jewel of the Torah. To enable the digestion of the stone, he ground it up; he translated mystical concepts into the realm of the common man; he explicated principles, popularized esoteric imagery, and encouraged spiritual practice for all. He organized the devotees of his lessons into a movement that is still vibrant in our times, Chasidus.
The secrets from the inner meaning of Torah form the soul of the Chasidic movement’s thought. They inspire, revive, and inflame Jewish souls with a passion to constantly increase observance and devotion.3Chasidic thought is an encounter with the depths of Jewish experience. Once your soul has been lit with the spark of Chasidus other sections of Jew-ish knowledge, such as Talmud study (in Hebrew called Gemara), will display similar flames. One usually considers Talmud study to be a cold, intellectual, endeavor. However, Rabbi Aharon Karliner (1736-1772), a contemporary of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, would teach that the word “Gemara” means a “burning ember,” gumra de-isha. “For when someone learns Torah for its own sake, his heart burns with a desire to dedicate his entire being to the Master of the Universe” (Beis Aharon, pg. 5a). Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendelovitz, of blessed memory, the founder of Mesivta Torah Vodaath, taught Chasidic thought to his American born students in Torah Vodaath for he felt that once inspired with the profundity of Chasidus his boys would experience Talmud study and mitzvah observance in a warmer, more passionate, and joy-filled manner (Rav Wolfson). This ecstatic Jewish practice and belief has stood the test of time. For more than two centuries it has inoculated millions against the ravages of secularism and preserved the spiritual life of the Jewish nation.
Chasidus emerged as a protection from the storm winds of modernity. Today’s Jewish community might benefit from a new look at the Chasidic movement’s beginnings and reflections. Intermarriage is rampant, and assimilation into American culture has become the norm. Even those Jews who fulfill their religious obligations frequently perform rituals in a lifeless and superficial way. Were we to discover the depth and soulful vitality that fill Chasidic literature, a renewed passion might flame our faltering Jewish experience with the warmth of Torah. Unfortunately, for many of my contemporary American Jews, access to the gem-stones of the Chasidim has been denied.
Chasidic works are overwhelmingly in Hebrew, and few good translations exist. For the American Jew whose Hebrew is not fluent, these books are welded shut. Even those who can read Rabbinic Hebrew find Chasidic literature challenging for the Chasidic masters assumed that their readers were knowledgeable in basic mystical concepts and terms. Absent an introductory course, many try to absorb the warmth of Chasidic Torah and then give up in frustration when the texts do not seem to explain their basic assumptions.4See Chasidic Masters, Chapter 1. This book is an attempt to fill that void. It attempts to provide an introduction to the basic terms and ideas of Chasidic texts so that once it is mastered the reader will be able to comprehend the works of the Chasidic masters directly.
This book is written for the interested lay reader who may be new to Torah study. That is why I have endeavored to translate all terms into English.5At times this book draws upon the depths of insight that emerge from the Hebrew language. Chasidus discovers inspiration through the etymology of Hebrew words. Many ideas in this book are derived from the meaning of words in different contexts. Further, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet have assigned numeric values. This book draws on the wisdom of “gematria,” calculating the numerical value of a word and phrase and explicating its relationship to other words or phrases that equal the same sum.
Another linguistic device is roshei teivos, different types of abbreviations, such as acronyms and acrostics. Lessons in this book might interpret a word as an acronym for a phrase with each letter representing an entire word that begins with that letter. For instance the Hebrew word shevi (שב"י), “captive,” represents the phrase Shimon (ש) bar (ב) Yochai (י), Simon son of Yochai, one of the Talmudic teachers of Jewish mysticism. Since this book is designed to be understood by someone who is not fluent in Hebrew, I have attempted to explain, in plain English, all Hebrew word interpretations, so that everyone will be able to understand the ideas of this book. It is also directed to the yeshiva student who is knowledgeable about Biblical narratives and Talmudic law but may be new to the world of Chasidus. Hopefully, these introductory lessons will open the door to new dimensions of observance, piety, and study.