Baal Shem Tov

Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name") or the *Besht*, was the founder of Hasidism, the mystical revival movement that swept the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century and remains a major force in Jewish life.

The hidden mystic Little about his early life is known with certainty; the traditions describe an orphan who worked humbly — as a teacher's aide and a clay-digger — while secretly devoted to prayer and the study of Kabbalah, before revealing himself as a healer and spiritual master around 1734. He gathered disciples in Medzhybizh in Podolia and taught largely through stories, parables, and personal example rather than systematic works; his teachings survive mainly as reported by his followers.

The teaching Against a piety he felt had grown cold and elitist, the Besht taught that God's presence fills all things (*divine immanence*), that the sincere prayer and joy of the simplest Jew are as precious as the learning of the scholar, and that one should "serve the LORD with gladness" (Psalm 100:2) — through fervour (*hitlahavut*), attachment to God (*devekut*), and joy even in ordinary acts. This democratic, joyful spirituality gave hope to the poor and unlettered masses.

Controversy and spread Hasidism grew explosively through charismatic *tzaddikim* (rebbes) who led their communities, but it drew fierce opposition from the Mitnagdim led by the Vilna Gaon, who saw its innovations as a threat to Torah study and rabbinic authority. The two movements are presented here as the positions each held, not adjudicated; in time much of the Jewish world made peace between them. The Besht's great-grand-disciples founded the many Hasidic dynasties — Chabad, Breslov, Satmar, Ger and others — that flourish today.

Legacy The Baal Shem Tov transformed Jewish spiritual life. Hasidism, the movement he founded, is one of the most visible and vital streams of traditional Judaism in the modern world.