• where did the Hasidic movement emerge?
• what were the main characteristics that made this a new movement in the Jewish community?
• what is the difference between Hasidic Jews
(from 17th-19th century) and today's ultraorthodox, or haredi, Jews, who are descendants of Hasids but are actually ultra-orthodox?
• how do haredi Jews practice Judaism today?
• what is a yeshivah? what do they study there? how is it different than how we are studying
Judaism in academic circles?

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

Dates
Political System
Manufacture
Spirit of the Age
Philosophy
Events
Medieval
400 – 1600 CE
Feudal monarchy, urbanization
Economic System feudalism handcraft
Catholic church
One God, one church; regional variations caused problems
Fall of Roman
Empire; Crusades; urbanization
Modern
1500 - 1900
Democracy, nation states capitalism industrial
Secular/rational
Humanist/unifying/
Enlightenment/Has kalah
Protestant
Reformation,
Post Modern
1900 - present
Globalization, corporations
International capitalism service-based
Distrust of collectivization deconstruction
Fascism, WWII,
Holocaust

Dates
Some defining events
Medieval
400 – 1600 CE
Disputations; Islam harbored Jews expelled from other countries; Sicut
Judaeis (forbade forced conversion, theft of property, disruption of ritual
& desecration of cemeteries on pain of excomncat’n. )
Modern
1500 - 1900
Shabbtai Tsvi
1626-76
Chmielnitsky massacre
(Ukraine)[1]
Pogroms 1881-84
Post Modern
1900 - present
Holocaust 1933-45
[1] Stories about massacre victims who had been buried alive, cut to pieces, or forced to kill one another spread throughout Europe and beyond. These stories filled many with despair, and resulted in a revival of the ideas of Isaac Luria , and the identification of Sabbatai Zevi as the
Messiah.
[17]

Dates
Some defining events
Medieval
400 – 1600 CE
Disputations; Islam harbored Jews expelled from other countries; Sicut
Judaeis (forbade forced conversion, theft of property, disruption of ritual
& desecration of cemeteries on pain of excomncat’n. )
Modern
1500 - 1900
Shabbtai Tsvi
1626-76
Chmielnitsky massacre 1648
(Ukraine)[1]
Hasidism 1730
Pogroms 1881-84
Post Modern
1900 - present
Holocaust 1933-45
[1] Stories about massacre victims who had been buried alive, cut to pieces, or forced to kill one another spread throughout
Europe and beyond. These stories filled many with despair, and resulted in a revival of the ideas of Isaac Luria , and the identification of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah.
[17]

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

Born 1698 in village of Okopy [@various times a Polish/Ukrainian/Russian] 70 miles W of
Warsaw

• Orphan
• Daycare worker
• Shammes
• Married – wife died
• Teacher/arbitrator
• Ephraim of Brody/Chana
• Secret studies of mystical texts
• Mysterious stranger
• Laborer clay and lime -
Carpathian Mountains – peasants and plant lore
• Shochet, innkeeper

• Talmud
– Honi the Circle Drawer (Rain)
– Hanina ben Dosa (Prayer)
• Middle ages and into early modern period
– Miracle workers by the hundreds
– Healing the sick, casting out demons.
– Journeying from lower realm (where we live) to upper realm to intercede with heavenly powers
(courts, God as King)

• THE Master of the Good Name BeSHT
• Kabbalists use the names of God, the names of the angels, and significant passages of
Torah for practical magic: to protect women during childbirth, or to drive away demons that cause illness.

• Home-base Brody; a healer & preacher, wandering from town to town
• Moved to ‘urban’ medzribozh
• Change in tactics
• “court,” disciples, scribes

• To the rural populations of Poland, the BeSHT preached a story-based Torah, rather than a study based-Torah:
– God is in everything
– Duty to Cleave to God (Dveikut)
– Ecstatic (Hitlahavut) prayer
– Union with God; ever growing recognition of God
– Joy

• Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, so will be the image you perceive. But should you look upon your fellow and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.

• Cleave with devotion to your words. Slander murders 3: the person slandered, the teller, and the listener. This is all in spiritual terms, which is more severe than physical murder.

• Every single thing that a person sees or hears, is an instruction to him in his conduct in the service of G-d.

• Niggunim (wordless melodies)
– Niggun of the Alter Rebbe
• Magical tales and mystical stories with simple morals that showed the spiritual value of simple lives filled with God
• Ecstatic (Hitlahavut) prayer, filled with joy, characterized by shockling
• Focused Kavannah (intention)

• Journey with the BeSHT (Chabad.org)

Died 1760 in the Ukranian city of Medzabizh
[also var. Rus/Polish/Uke]

• Spiritual revolution - Democratization of Jewish spirituality (contrast with traditional Kabbalah study)
• Folk magic, a spiritual economy more satisfying than prayer alone and more accessible than study
• Simple revelation of mystical truths in the form of parables
• A Jew is joyful and loving in the midst of hardship because all is God.

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

• Mitnagdim [“the opponents”]
– Vilna Gaon, leader of Lithuanian Jews
– Urban populations, yeshivas, more affluence
– Divinity emanates from God to us – a filtration or trickle down theory
– Rote piety, precision in prayer, asceticism
– Talmud study as a way to God

Hasidism spread across Poland to the Ukraine and on to Russia, Romania, and Hungary.

• A lineage of powerful Rabbis who carried on his work, wrote down his words, and built up the numbers of Hasidim
– R Dov Bear of Mezriz
• CHANGES:
– Tzaddik - Charismatic Rebbe became central, rather than the theological innovations of
Hasidism
– Dynasties (and corruption …)

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

• 15% of all Polish Jews survived, and an even smaller number of Hasidim.
• Yaffa Eliach, in Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, tells the story of the arrival in New York of Rabbi Israel Spira, the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov, in 1946. An
American G.I. translated for him into Yiddish the lines on the Statue of
Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
• The rabbi listened intently and wiped a tear from his eye. There he was, the lone survivor of his family; his beard was burnt off, his head and body still covered with open wounds from beatings... He placed his hand on the
G.I.'s shoulder and said, 'My friend, the words you have just translated to me are indeed beautiful. We, the few survivors coming to these shores, are indeed poor, tired, and yearning for freedom. But we are no longer masses. We are remnants, a trickle of broken individuals who search for moments of peace in this world, who hope to find a few relatives on these shores.

Williamsburg -
• Satmar
• Klausenberg
Crown Heights-
• Lubavitch
Boro Park
• Bobover
• Munkach
• Ger
• Belz
• Stoliner

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

• Modern Hasidism, also known as Ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jews?
– A present day Hasidic wedding
– Exclusionary, very rigid and legalistic, honoring of study, but also capable of joy, cutting loose and celebrating
• Pluralistic Modern Orthodoxy?
– Adheres to Orthodox doctrine but allows Jews of all denominations to study in their yeshiva , with men and women together; not so much on the ‘joy’ side. Also legalistic.
– Yeshiva Jewish studies vs academic Jewish studies
• Jewish Renewal movement?
– Cross-denominational.
– Chabad outreach to students by Shlomo Carlebach and Zalman
Shachter-Shlomi
– Shlomo reacts to the Holocaust

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day “Hasidim”
• Controversy II

• Gender segregated prayer, learning and ritual space
• Unequal educational opportunities for women; secular education for all is limited
• In Israel, on Ultra Orthodox bus lines, women sit at the back of the bus
• Birth rate is high, population is growing

th

The boxes contain …
… verses of Torah.

Ashkenazi Wrap

The Tefillin Booth

• Unaffiliated, undisciplined, appeals to old hippies and young activists
• Not at all ‘observant’ in a traditional sense, but you’ll see more renewal-niks wearing tefillin than Conservative Jews.
• Zalman Shachter-Shalomi on the difference between a movement and a denomination

• FRAME: Medieval vs Modern vs Post Modern
• Origins of Hasidism
• Controversy I
• Effects of the Holocaust
• Hasidic Diaspora and Renewal
• Present-day Hasidim
• Controversy II

• Gay marriage and ordination
• Women’s ordination
• Israel’s treatment of Palestinian population
• Ethics
– Madoff ponzii scheme
– Agriprocessors (Kosher meat debacle)
– Sexual misconduct of rabbis; no training as counselors or pastoral caregivers

• where did the Hasidic movement emerge?
• what were the main characteristics that made this a new movement in the Jewish community?
• what is the difference between Hasidic Jews (from
17th-19th century) and today's ultra-orthodox, or haredi, Jews, who are descendants of Hasids but are not "hasids" but are ultra-orthodox?
• how do haredi Jews practice Judaism today?
• what is a yeshivah? what do they study there? how is it different than how we are studying Judaism in academic circles?