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Updated: May 21, 2025
Rabbi Israel settled in Ruzhin, a townlet in the government of Kiev, about 1815, and rapidly gained fame as a saint and miracle-worker. His magnificent "court" at Ruzhin was always crowded with throngs of Hasidim.
"Our children," he complains, "have no longer our beliefs; they do not say our prayers, nor have they your beliefs; no more do they say your prayers; they do not pray at all, and they believe in nothing." The struggle between Hasidim and Mitnaggedim ended with the conversionist policy of Nicholas I, which united them against the Maskilim.
Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore. Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind.
In the young neo-Hebrew literature, mysticism found a foeman far more powerful than ever logic and rationalism had been. The Hebrew language was cultivated with zeal by the educated classes, and even by the young Rabbis. It was the epoch of the Melizah, and the Melizah was to supplement the jejuneness of Rabbinism and oppose the Hasidim with good results.
With all his admiration for the Gaon, but for whom, he claimed, the Torah would have been forgotten, he also had points of sympathy with the Hasidim, for whose leader, Shneor Zalman of Ladi, he had the highest respect. Like many of his contemporaries, he determined to go to Berlin.
Tears mingle with his laugh, and if he castigates, it is in order to chasten. More original and more poetic than Borne, he thinks clearly and to the point, and the effect of his thought is in no way impaired by his stilted mannerisms. Without bias or passion, and with fine irony, he rallies the Hasidim on their baneful superstitions, their worship of angels and demons.
Thereupon the administration of the Kingdom threw itself with special zest upon the important task of eradicating "the ugly costumes and earlocks" of the Hasidim. Shortly afterwards the question of Jewish separatism was the subject of discussion before the Council of State.
It could not become a popular movement. Neither the depth of thinkers like Rapoport and Krochmal, nor the biting satire of an Erter, nor the Zionistic lyricism of a Letteris, had force enough to cry a halt to the Hasidim and impede their dark work. In point of fact, the newer ideas all but failed to make an impression on the most independent of the young Rabbis.
In his literary works Levinsohn was fond of emphasizing his relations with high Government officials. This probably saved him from a great deal of unpleasantness on the part of the fanatic Hasidim, but it also had the effect of increasing his unpopularity among the orthodox.
Brandstatter is the painter of the customs and manners of the Galician Hasidim, whom he rallies with kindliness that yet has a keen edge, and with perfect artistic taste. Almost he is the only humorist of the time. His style is classic without going to extremes.
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