Many leaders attempted to arise from the occasion as Jewish leaders, but none of the flames could endure; no one could truly captivate the people enough to make his/her movement credible in the mind of the public. Then, in the early 18th Century, enters Israel Ben Eliezer, the man known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, or Besht, the founder of Hasidism. He truly captivated the public as a strong, able leader whose philosophi

In order to truly understand Hasidism, we must attempt to understand the man to whom “more legends have been woven around…than around Moses, father of the Prophets [Rabinowicz, 29]” : Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, and his theological philosophies. Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (abbreviated as Besht) was born circa 1700 as part of a poor Polish family. He was an orphan at a young age, and was sent by benevolent neighbors to a heder, a Jewish day school in which Talmud, the book of commentaries and interpretations of Torah, is studied. He did not like it, and often daydreamed; he was eventually considered a lost hope, and was expelled. Later on, he held numerous minor ecclesiastical posts at synagogues, where he was considered maniacal, due to zealous, incessant prayer, and ignorant, due to his near verbal stillness when not praying. He then, at age 36, decided to show his true colors. He was then called the title Ba’al-Shem Tov, literally meaning Master of the Good Name, or one who produces miracles in the name of G-d. There were other Ba’al-Shems, but Besht received the title Ba’al Shem Tov (Tov means good.) by curing with chants and herbs not only Jews, but faithful, undemanding Gentile peasants. Besht was able to use his newfound favor to preach his theological motives. His key philosophy, which digresses hugely from the Talmudic form of Judaism in Poland at that time, is that true faith is not teaching or learning the Talmud, it is rather unconditional dedication to G-d, by means of persistent, passionate prayer and an unrefined belief in G-d [Dubnow, 221-227].

Common Jews felt disconnected with Judaism, unabl

Some topics in this essay:
Shem Tov, Polish Jews, Christianity Frank, Impoverished Jews, Jews Historians, Ba’al Shem, Talmudic Education, Tov Tov, Age Humanism, Tov Besht, ba’al shem, ba’al shem tov, shem tov, israel ba’al shem, israel ba’al, polish jews, ukrainian uprisings, sabbatai zevi, merchants perceiving, 18th century, jewish merchants, jewish laborers,