โIt should be noted that Hasidism had started its โformalโ public life in 1772, when harsh excommunications against its followers, who were perceived as Sabbatian heretics, were enacted in Poland, Lithuania, Galicia and the Ukraine.โ
โIn order to better understand the emergence and propagation of two significant mystical movements โ Sabbatianism and Hassidism โ one needs to remember that the helpless Jewish community in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered from accumulative tragedies.โ
โThose persecuted were the Sabbatian believers, who chose to follow the new Messianic beliefs expressed in Kabbalah and which were reflected in charismatic leadership that offered a new messianic world, as well as the followers of Israel Baโal Shem Tov.โ
โMost of the believers who disseminated Sabbatianism were rabbis and kabbalists. Some of their students formed small Sabbatian circles within the Ukrainian Jewish community in the first half of the 18th century under the leadership of individuals such as Jacob Frank.โ
โThe only Jewish leader in the mid-18th century who expressed strong resentment towards the rabbinical persecutions of the Sabbatians in 1756โ1759 was Israel Baโal Shem Tov.โ
โHe [Israel Baโal Shem Tov] taught a new mystical world view which was based, in part, on previous autobiographical Jewish mystical literature that had been written in the 16th century following the expulsion from Spain.โ
![โHe [Israel Baโal Shem Tov] taught a new mystical world view which was based, in part, on previous a...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrKvY6eWAAEeEHt.jpg)
โHe taught that the invisible divine presence concealed behind the revealed world as a soul in a body is constantly creating the world and preconditions the very existence of every moment of reality.โ
โIsrael Baโal Shem Tov stated that the whole earth is universally filled with infinite divine glory, that all places are equally filled with divine sparks.โ
โHe further claimed that all things exist within a unity of opposites: every material manifestation is animated by an invisible divine source and possesses a tangible manifestation which may reveal the divine root and thus the divinity is transformed into a perceivable entity.โ
โMan is connected to the divine reality โ variously conceived as sparks, letters, Shekhinah (divine presence), Sefirot (divine spheres) and lights โ in a number of ways, thereby obscuring the distinction between the human and the divine.โ
โBy virtue of its divine source, human thought is able to overcome the limits of physical perception and recognize the essential infinite nothingness in being. โBy thought man can attain great limitless conceptions, for thought too is infinite.โ
โThe essence of the soul is intellect. For the essence of the divine soul is intellectual, and it is constantly contemplating and perceiving the light of the blessed Infinite; it has no other perception. The attributes of love and fear are born of the intellect.โ
โThe Baโal Shem Tov maintained that the infinity of language in general and every letter of the holy tongue in particular are the most obvious location of the divine presence.โ
โOlam hadibur medaber badam (lit. โThe world of speech [= Shekhinah = divine presence, representing the eternal community of Israel, and the oral law] is speaking through the mouth of a human beingโ).โ
โBelievers live according to the twofold human response described as Devekut (total devotion to God and the Shekhinah to the extent of renouncing the realities of the material world) with the divine presence on one side.โ
โThe only way to hasten redemption and overcome the powers of evil is by complete detachment from this evil world ruled by Samael = the Other Side = side of impurity, through equanimity, asceticism, divestment of corporeality and self-abnegation.โ
โOn these accusations [Sabbatian Heresy] R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady [Founder of Chabad], a disciple of the Maggid who was a rabbi in White Russia, a celebrated halakhic scholar and a Hassidic leader immersed in Kabbalah, wrote: โWhoever hears this cannot help but laugh.โ
![โOn these accusations [Sabbatian Heresy] R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady [Founder of Chabad], a disciple o...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrLsH8QWwAI7xti.jpg)
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