Very Good Namesake

The founder of the Hasidic movement, his words and his life, are documented in different writings carried along over the generations.

Mostly these are oral traditions that were later penned. They are typically mixed with stories that are somewhat folklorish in style. 

Who can judge exactly what is historical and how so? There are scholars and historians for that. 

The stories are full of sermons, deeds, healing of the sick, and revealing secrets...

The close disciple of the Besht, Ya’akov Yoseph of Polnea documented and released writings mostly of his teacher's teachings - not historical stuff. 

The Besht himself was of course a typical mystic, and did not write at all, almost at all, save a few letters.

One was written to his brother in law, Rabbi Gershon of Kitov: it describes one particularly special experience, very ecstatic, on Rosh ha’Shana, in 1764.

Head in the Clouds

This letter is very messianic. Its significance is monumental. It is important as a messianic text, even if it stood alone, by someone less influential.

It is also important as one of the only texts written by the Ba’al Shem Tov, and it is an autobiographical ecstatic mystical experience. 

It was first published in 1780 in the book Ben Porat Yoseph, by Ya’akov Yoseph of Polnea. And here is an excerpt:

"On Rosh Hashanah of the year 5507 (1746 CE) I performed, by means of an oath, an elevation of soul, as known to you, and saw wondrous things I had never seen before. What I saw and learned there is impossible to convey in words, even face to face… 

I ascended from level to level until I entered the chamber of the Messiah, where the Messiah learns Torah with all the Tanaim and tzadikim (righteous ones) and also with the Seven Shepherds… I asked the Messiah, "When will the Master come?" And he answered, "By this you shall know:

When your teachings will become public and revealed in the world, and your wellsprings burst forth to the farthest extremes–that which I have taught you and you have comprehended–and they also shall be able to perform unifications and elevations as you, then all of the husks  will cease to exist, and there shall be a time of good will and salvation."

I stood in wonder and great distress as to the length of time necessary for this, when could this be? But from what I learned there–three potent practices and three Holy Names, easy to learn and explain–my mind settled and I thought that possibly by means of these, men of my nature will be able to achieve levels similar to mine…

But I was not given permission all my life to reveal this… But this I may inform you and may G-d help you, your way shall ever be in the presence of G-d and never leave your consciousness in the time of your prayer and study. Every word of your lips intends to unite: 

for in every letter there are Worlds, Souls and Divinity, and they ascend and connect and unify with each other, and afterward the letters connect and unify to become a word, and (then) unify in true unification in Divinity.

Include your soul with them in each and every state. And all the Worlds unify as one and ascend to produce an infinitely great joy and pleasure, as you can understand from the joy of groom and bride in miniature and physicality, how much more so in such an exalted level as this.

Surely G-d will be your aid and wherever you turn you will succeed and reach greater awareness. "Give to the wise and he will become ever wiser".

This letter was written perhaps to share secrets and insights of deep spiritual things. The relationship between the Besht and his in-law was complicated - they didn’t agree on everything, and the latter did not always say that they are related.

The brother-in-law was a scholarly rabbi, and a mystic - by way of the Lurianic Kabbalah. (In the end he moved to Israel!)

Motifs Relayd

Some of these main motifs here take us back to that classic trip to Rome in the Talmud by way of Elijah the Prophet - what we saw also in the Zohar as a motif, and we saw it with Abulafiya and others.

Here the Besht also asks Messiah, meeting him in the ascents,  when he will come - same words. Obviously a reference point. He is that, doing that same mystical act. 

It is the same action, but another asker in a different time, and the answer is different, a development of sorts. Not “today, if they heed my voice”, which produces a confused responsive position. Rather, when your ways spread abundantly, your wellsprings burst forth.

This has become the popular key phrase in the ethos of Hasidic religious instruction and activism, particularly the more messianic activistic movements which we will see - Breslev and Chabad.

Note that this was not the end of the message, the teachings will spread, and all these newly instructed persons will also perform those mystical acts, like him, the Besht.

Then he will come. Was there a hint here to all the Jews across the diaspora or to non Jews as well? To the furthest extremes. If so, we could reference some of the early Jesus movement. 

We have here a deeply mystical and deeply messianic incentive. And this became the hearth of Hasidism. Or did it?

Hasidim has or had the intention of becoming very popular, and spreading the mystical lifestyle and philosophy, for the activistic purpose of hastening Messiah. 

This was a monumental experience for the Besht, and is one of the few autobiographical historically more reliant texts from him. 

On top of all that, the mystical experience or theurgical act of elevation takes us also to the Zoharic literature, including the Bird’s Nest midrash, and the Idra Rabba and Zuta. There is a place called Eden, there Messiah is present, in the world of righteous souls, hidden. 

What the Besht saw in this experience was that, roughly. He goes up, he reaches the place with Messiah, the chamber or nest, he is among the righteous souls, a Zoharic style heavenly place of meditation or study. 

We see the Lurianic motif, of the husks, the shells. In other words, implied, by these mystical actions of ascending, access to the messianic redemption is enabled. The husks are released, the sparks go forth. All coinciding with popular spiritual renewal.