Article Outline
Hasidism or Chasidim, movement of Jewish religious renewal founded in the mid-18th century in Eastern Europe and having ongoing influence in the Jewish world. Hasidism developed from a Jewish mystical movement of the Middle Ages known as Kabbalah. The two movements, Hasidism and Kabbalah, share the goal of bringing believers closer to God, but Hasidism has sought to reach a far wider audience. A follower of Hasidism is called a Hasid; the plural is Hasidim.
Hasidism’s influence continues today in dozens of Hasidic communities around the world. Some communities consist of only a few hundred members in isolated Jewish neighborhoods of New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. Other Hasidic groups, such as the Satmar Hasidim and the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim, have an international membership numbering in the tens of thousands. All of these communities trace their origins to a single individual, 18th-century rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, better known to the Jewish world as the Baal Shem Tov (Hebrew for “Master of the Divine Name”). Through his use of the name of God, the Baal Shem Tov was believed to perform miraculous cures.
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Maintaining Old Traditions
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All Hasidic communities consciously preserve the lifestyles and folkways of their Eastern European ancestors of the 18th and 19th centuries. Yet each community has its own theology, traditions, and practices, including a distinctive style of dress for men and women. For the most part, Hasidism resists incorporating modern ideas and lifestyles. It cultivates strict observance of traditional Jewish law, or halakhah, as interpreted by each community’s leading legal authorities. In addition it retains the Yiddish language, the common language of Eastern European Jews, as the language used in daily life. Nearly all Eastern European Jews once spoke Yiddish, giving rise to a large nonreligious literature. But today Yiddish is read and spoken primarily by Hasidim.
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Experiencing God’s Presence
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As a religious path Hasidism emphasizes consciousness of the closeness of God’s presence, despite the rival challenges for attention posed by suffering, physical desire, and psychological distraction. In keeping with its origins in Kabbalah, Hasidism believes that with proper cultivation of awareness it is possible to discern in the material world evidence of God’s activity and the unfolding of God’s inner life. In every commandment of God, every moment of studying Torah (Hebrew scripture)—indeed every act of daily life—an opportunity exists for creating powerful personal connections to the divine world of God. These connections make it possible to serve God in a state of inner joy, a task that forms the spiritual way of life of Hasidim.
From its origins Hasidism has tended to focus upon the individual’s relationship to God. There is, however, a messianic dimension in Hasidism (see Messiah). Like most forms of Judaism from the Second Temple period (520 bc-ad 70) until the beginning of modern times, Hasidism holds that the world is ultimately to be redeemed by a descendant of King David whose leadership would inaugurate an end to Jewish exile from the land of Israel, the restoration of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, and the establishment of a divine kingdom on Earth. Some Hasidic communities have believed that their founder or a later spiritual leader might be the appointed Messiah of God. This view has become prominent within the Chabad-Lubavitch community.
Some members of the Chabad community maintain that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, was destined for a messianic role. Rabbi Schneerson neither confirmed nor denied this destiny. Since his death, however, a group of Chabad Hasidim has claimed that the rabbi’s death is merely a prelude to his eventual resurrection and return as the Messiah. This claim has aroused controversy within Chabad and has drawn responses ranging from skepticism to outraged condemnation from other Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jewish communities.
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