Published in: Jewish Studies Quarterly 11 (2004), eds. Leora Batnitzky and Peter Schäfer, pp. 127-193.
The First Tzaddik of Hasidism: The Zlotchover Maggid and His Circle[(]
By
Mor Altshuler
Introduction
The mystery enveloping the origin of the concept of the Hasidic “Tzaddik” (Righteous Man) has never been thoroughly elucidated. Gershom Scholem has pointed out that Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht), the mythic founder of Hasidism, was not called “Tzaddik” either during his lifetime or after his death.[1] The hagiographic description of the community he ostensibly led is a mere anachronism relying on the gap in time that elapsed between his death in 1760 and the appearance of the first manifesto of excommunication of a group of persons pretending to be “righteous men (Hasidim) and sublime holy men,”[2] which were published in 1772. The Besht, then, did not found or led a Hasidic court, yet this fact in itself is insufficient to decipher the mystery that surrounds the identity of the first Tzaddik of Hasidism, and when a Hasidic court was established under his authority.
The mystery concerning the first Tzaddik of Hasidism becomes even more complex when we examine the life and deeds of R. Dov Ber, the maggid [preacher] of Mezeritch, who was crowned the Besht’s successor by hagiographic sources. Historian Ada Rappaport-Albert has already noted that the claim to the Besht’s “legacy” is anachronistic, as there was no such legacy, and in any event there was no court for R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch to inherit.[3] The sources that describe a Hasidic court down to the finest detail, supposedly founded by the maggid R. Dov Ber in the town of Mezeritch in the Korez region of the Ukraine, fill in the gaps in historical knowledge with literary fiction. Even ostensible facts such as the removal of the court, if it did exist, from Mezeritch to the town of Rovna, where R. Dov Ber died, have not been researched in depth.[4] Particularly dubious is the testimony concerning a gathering at the court of the maggid in the summer of 1772 in Rovna, when the disciples supposedly convened around the rabbi to confer about the attacks perpetrated against Hasidism by the Mitnagdim [opponents of Hasidism]. The only reference to the meeting is contained in a single paragraph of a letter written by R. Shneur Zalman of Ladi to R. Abraham of Kalisk in 1806, thirty-four years later. The two Hasidic masters supposedly participated in the gathering, and R. Shneur Zalman of Ladi mentions in his letter that their common teacher, R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch, had rebuked R. Abraham of Kalisk concerning his licentious behavior, which had excited the wrath of the opponents of Hasidism against the entire movement. However, at the time the letter was written a sharp disagreement had already emerged between R. Shneur Zalman of Ladi and R. Abraham of Kalisk, and they were not on civil terms. Historian Raya Haran has proven that the letters the two exchanged were rewritten by R. Shneur Zalman’s supporters, with paragraphs denigrating R. Abraham being interpolated into them.[5] It is fair to assume, then, that the paragraph about the meeting in Rovna was inserted into the letter for the purpose of discrediting R. Abraham of Kalisk. Otherwise it is hard to understand how no reference to such a major conference would be found in the writings of other disciples who were allegedly present.
Alongside this source of doubtful authenticity, we have an external testimony concerning the “court” of R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch. The testimony appears in the memoirs of Jewish philosopher Solomon Maimon, The Life of Solomon Maimon. Maimon portrays R. Dov Ber as a callous, cruel man, a charismatic con artist, whose disciples seduced innocent young men into joining Hasidism through his trickery.[6] However, Solomon Maimon’s testimony is so singular and aberrant that it is hard to accept it as solid historical evidence for the existence of a court in Mezeritch or of the customs practiced therein without any corroboration from additional contemporary external testimonies, the likes of which have not been found. Significantly, the book’s narrative takes the form of a bildungsroman, whose axis is the young hero’s journey in quest of the truth. Along the way he falls prey to the ploys of tricksters, who lead him on with false solutions until he succeeds in reaching his goal—the discovery of the hidden light of education and philosophy. The Hasidic episode in this narrative evidently serves as an example of a false stopping point in the arduous journey towards the truth. This analysis bolsters the conclusion reached by Fishel Lahover, whereby Maimon’s work is not wholly autobiographical, but that certain passages are fictional in character.[7] This is where things stand for now, as a critical biography of the maggid R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch has yet to be written, and in any event the credibility of the various sources has never been examined.
In the twelve years that elapsed between the Ba’al Shem Tov’s death in 1760 and the first testimonies about Hasidism, then, nothing is known of the formation of any group that could be considered the first Hasidic court. In effect, such a group took shape only in 1772, for the purpose of implementing a messianic program that was originally slated to be carried out in 1740, had been shelved in 1746, and was revived in the decade preceding the month of Iyyar of the year 1781. The leader of this court was R. Yehiel Mikhal, the maggid of Zlotchov and the first Tzaddik of Hasidism.
The Season of Redemption in Hasidism
The establishment of the first Hasidic court was closely linked with the season of redemption, which was expected to transpire between 1740-1781. One of the well-known 18th century calculators of the redemption, R. Isaac Hayyim Cohen of the Hazanim, fixed the date for the redemption in the year ה'ת"ק (1740).[8] Another calculator, Immanuel Hai Ricchi,[9] asserted in his book Yosher Levav that signs of the redemption would begin to appear in ה'ת"ק (1740), and that the final date of the redemption would be in the eighth month, the month of Iyyar of the year ה'תקמ"א (April-May 1781), 5,541 years after the creation of the world.[10] In his book Darchei Noam, R. Samuel ben Eliezer of Klavira reiterates Hai Ricchi’s assertion “that it will be in the year 1781 and eight months as noted, for our righteous Messiah will not delay his coming then.”[11] Other years in the same period which evoked messianic hopes were ה'תק"ח (1748), whose numeration is equivalent to that of the Hebrew word for dawn (,(השח"ר[12] and ה'תקל"ז (1777), the centennial of the death of Shabbatai Tzvi, when rumors abounded that “the King Messiah has come.”[13] According to David Assaf, the rumors may have originated in Sabbatean circles that looked forward to a renewed revelation of their Messiah.
It is in the nature of calculations of the redemption and messianic dates to attract the attention of persons and circles who in any case live in an atmosphere suffused with messianic tension, and who expect the calculations to confirm their hopes. One of these was the Ba’al Shem Tov himself, whose life history indicates a connection between his deeds and the messianic expectations so prevalent in his times. The process of his revelation, his seclusion for seven years in preparation for a special mission, his adjuration not to delve into secrets until the age of thirty-six and his failed attempt to immigrate to the Land of Israel in 1740 were all influenced by prophecies of the redemption destined to transpire in that year.[14] Evidently the Besht ascribed the failure of his attempt to immigrate to the Land of Israel and the delay in the coming of the Messiah in 1740 to the fact that the correcting of the sinners’ souls was not complete. Accordingly, he dedicated the years 1742-1746 to the labor of mending these souls, termed “raising the sparks” in the kabbalistic tradition.[15] He concentrated primarily on mending the soul of the false Messiah, Shabbatai Tzvi, “who had a spark of holiness in him, but that Satan caught him in his snare, God forbid.”[16]
Evidently the Besht hoped that mending the soul of the false Messiah would smooth the way for the true Messiah. However, in the ascent of the soul that he undertook on New Year’s Day 5507 (September 1746), he met the Messiah and found out that he would not have the privilege of welcoming the redeemer in his lifetime.[17] The Besht therefore wrote his brother-in-law, R. Gershon of Kutov, who was already stationed in Jerusalem in anticipation of the Messiah’s coming around the year 1748: “For the Lord knows that I would not despair of traveling to the Land of Israel and joining you if it were God’s will, but the time is not in accord with it.”[18]
The Besht’s messianic hopes dwindled with the debacle of 1746, and failed to revive before his death in 1760. These hopes were reawakened by his disciple, R. Yehiel Mikhal, the Zlotchover maggid. The group of men who gathered in the prayer house he established in the town of Brody in eastern Galicia functioned as a circle of messianic kabbalists. Their messianic program was launched in the year 1772, the 200th anniversary of the death of R. Isaac Luria, ending in the month of Iyyar of the year 1781, which was designated as the date of redemption. The Zlotchover maggid was accorded a central role in the process of redemption: His soul was called נשמת שדי (“the soul of Shaddai” - one of God’s names(, and his disciples believed that it embodied the Sefira of Yesod, that of the Tzaddik, from which the soul of the Messiah is hewn. His sobriquet, “the Tzaddikim of the generation,” was also unique: This was the first time in Hasidism that the appellation Tzaddik was used to refer to someone with a messianic mission, which indicates the Divine status that the first Tzaddik of Hasidism enjoyed.
The Zlotchover Maggid
The Zlotchover maggid was the scion of an illustrious family of rabbis and kabbalists from Galicia[19] who lived and operated in the town of Brody and its environs; the maggid’s great-grandfather was R. Moshe of Zvirsh, who died as a martyr without suffering at all by virtue of his communion with God.[20] His son, R. Joseph Spravidliver, was called a “man of truth,” and his wife, “Yenta the Prophet.”[21] Their son, R. Isaac of Derhovitch, the father of the Zlotchover maggid, was one of the scholars at the Beit Midrash (study hall) of R. Yozfa in Ostrog [22] and a maggid in the community of Horhov. Traditions preserved in In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov portray him as a man of intimidating wizardry, endowed with a prophetic spirit and expertise in the Divine names, who did not flinch from a head-on confrontation with R. Isaac Hamburger and his associate, R. Ezekiel Landa, author of Noda Bi-Yehuda.[23] And despite the fact that such traditions do not always clearly distinguish between historical facts and hagiographic embellishments, these particular ones were not creations after the fact; already during the lifetime of the Zlotchover maggid his origins gained special notice, and one of his most prominent disciple, R. Meshullam Feibush Heller, referred to him as the “son of holy ones, a Tzaddik the son of a Tzaddik.”[24]
Like his forefathers, the Zlotchover maggid was also gifted with extraordinary spiritual abilities. According to his disciple, R. Abraham Joshua of Apta, he was capable of conducting ascents of the soul at will or when so directed from Heaven: “For his Holy Rabbi our Rabbi Yehiel Mikhal of Zlotchov would sleep... either when he wanted to ascend to Heaven, or when Heaven called him to ascend.”[25] Such ability was ascribed to only two people at the outset of Hasidism, the Ba’al Shem Tov and the Zlotchover maggid.[26] Similarly, two of his sons - the first-born, R. Joseph of Yampela and the second, Isaac of Radvil - were also blessed with spiritual powers, and their ascents of the soul were widely recognized. R. Joseph of Yampela is quoted to the effect that the Divine spirit had been present in their forefathers’ line for 72 generations.[27] Admittedly, of the Zlotchover maggid’s five sons, whom he termed the five books of the Torah, only the fourth son, R. Moshe of Zweihil, established a Hasidic court. However, the rabbis of the Zweihil dynasty, who live in Jerusalem, are known to this day as the “preservers of the holy covenant,”[28] meaning those who preserve the sanctity of the covenantal organ. This sobriquet is a reminder of the tradition whereby the Tzaddikim of the Zlotchov dynasty have the capacity to correct the sexual transgressions of their fellows, such as the spilling of seed. In Lurianic kabbalah this sin is deemed to delay the redemption, a misdeed which only the Messiah can correct.[29] The appellation of the rabbis of the house of Zweihil, therefore, alludes to the special supernatural status ascribed for over two hundred years to descendants of the house of Zlotchov.
The Zlotchover maggid was born in Brody in around the year 1726.[30] The first position he held was that of maggid in the town of Kluk, and according to In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov during this period he was a disciple of the Besht.[31] From Kluk he accepted the nomination of maggid in the town of Zlotchov, where he grew famous. At the end of his life he was “received” in Yampela, a small town in the Ukraine, which surely did not befit his intellectual prowess or stature in the view of his disciples.[32] The reasons for this descent have never been completely clarified, but his son, R. Isaac of Radvil, hints that his father was so embittered that he sought to take leave of the world.[33]
Throughout the years of his wandering the Zlotchover maggid’s activity was centered in Brody, the town of his birth, in eastern Galicia on the Ukrainian border. Brody was a major Jewish hub in economic and cultural terms, and won repute as a town of Talmudic scholars and Jewish legal experts. It was also known as a center of kabbalistic study by virtue of the members in its “Kloize”, who adopted kabbalistic customs.[34] The reputation garnered by the Kloize reflected the considerable interest in kabbalah among all the towns of Eastern Galicia and the Ukraine, where ascetic circles, including remnants of Sabbatean followers, were active in the early eighteenth century.