Hasidism and Modern Man

Martin Buber, Maurice Friedman

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781400874095
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

Hasidism, a controversial, mystical-religious movement of Eastern European origin, has posed a serious challenge to mainstream Judaism from its earliest beginnings in the middle of the eighteenth century. Decimated by the Holocaust, it has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and has reconstituted itself as a major force in the world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Philosopher Martin Buber found inspiration in its original tenets and devoted much of his career to making its insights known to a wide readership.First published in 1958, Hasidism and Modern Man examines the life and religious experiences of Hasidic Jews, as well as Buber's personal response to them. From the autobiographical "My Way to Hasidism, " to "Hasidism and Modern Man, " and "Love of God and Love of Neighbor, " the essays span nearly half a century and reflect the evolution of Buber's religious philosophy in relation to the Hasidic movement. Hasidism and Modern Man remains prescient in its portrayal of a spiritual movement that brings God down to earth and makes possible a modern philosophy in which the human being becomes sacred.

Book V

THE BAAL-SHEM-TOV’S INSTRUCTION IN INTERCOURSE WITH GOD

INTRODUCTION

This text (completed many years ago) consists of a selection of fragments, transmitted as citations in books of disciples and disciples’ disciples, from the speech of a man who himself wrote no book.

This man is one of the leading figures in the spiritual history of Judaism, the leader of that powerful Jewish movement called Hasidut—a word that can be translated into English still far less than the Latin pietas that corresponds to it; its meaning might most easily be rendered through a verbal paraphrase: to love the world in God. Furthermore, this man is one of the central figures in the religious history of the eighteenth century, the greater counterpart of Zinzendorf (in the same year as whom he was probably born and in the same died, and of whom he certainly knew nothing). Through both the rediscovery of “standing over against,” the real mutuality, was accomplished—the German discovered it in the detachment of feelings, the Polish Jew in the inclusion of the whole of world life. (The German philosophical sequel ended with the young Schleiermacher, the Jewish has begun with the work of Hermann Cohen’s old age.)

In a time that has learned to give attention to the contribution of Judaism to human work, the Baal-Shem will probably be extolled as the founder of a realistic and active mysticism, i.e., a mysticism for which the world is not an illusion, from which man must turn away in order to reach true being, but the reality between God and him in which reciprocity manifests itself, the subject of the message of creation to him, the subject of his answering service of creation, destined to be redeemed through the meeting of divine and human need; a mysticism, hence, without the intermixture of principles and without the weakening of the lived multiplicity of all for the sake of a unity of all that is to be experienced (Yihud, unio, means not the unification of the soul with God, but unification of God with His glory that dwells in the world). A “mysticism” that may be called such because it preserves the immediacy of the relation, guards the concreteness of the absolute and demands the involvement of the whole being; one can, to be sure, also call it religion for just the same reason. Its true English name is perhaps: presentness.

But if one really wishes to receive the words of the Baal-Shem assembled in this text, one will do well to forget all that one knows of history and all that one imagines one knows of mysticism and, while reading listen to a human voice that speaks today, here, to those who today and here read.

OF KNOWLEDGE

Would that they had forsaken me, says God, and kept my teaching!

That is to be explained thus:

The ultimate apprehension of knowing is that we cannot know. But there are two types of not knowing. The one is the immediate: there one does not even begin to search and to know because it is indeed impossible to know. But another man searches and seeks until he knows that one cannot know. And the difference between the two—to whom can they be compared? To two who wish to get to know the king. The one enters all the rooms of the king, he rejoices in the king’s treasury and halls of splendor, and then he learns that he cannot come to know the king. The other says to himself: Since it is not possible to come to know the king, we shall not enter at all but resign ourselves to not knowing.

From this is to be understood what that word of God’s signifies: They have forsaken me—that is, they have abandoned knowing me because it is not possible; but would they had forsaken me then out of searching and knowing through keeping my teaching!

Why do we say: “Our God and God of our fathers”?

There are two kinds of men who believe in God. The one believes because it is handed down to him by his fathers; and his belief is strong. The other has come to his belief through searching. And this is the difference between them: the superiority of the first lies in the fact that his faith cannot be shattered no matter how many arguments one may bring against it, for his faith is firm because he has taken it over from his fathers; but it has a defect: that his faith is only a human command, learned without meaning and understanding. The superiority of the second lies in the fact that because he has found God through searching, he has arrived at his own faith; but for him too there remains a defect: that it is easy to shake his faith through proof to the contrary. To him who unites both, however, none is superior. Therefore we say: “Our God,” because of our searching, and “God of our fathers,” for the sake of our tradition.

And thus also it is explained that we say: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob,” but we do not say: “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”—by this is said: Isaac and Jacob could not rest on Abraham’s tradition alone, but themselves sought the divine.

OF FERVOR AND OF WORK

He takes unto himself the quality of fervor.^1* He arises from sleep with fervor, for he is hallowed and become another man and is worthy to create and is become like the Holy One, blessed be He, when He created His world.

All that you are able to do, do it with your strength! That is, bind the deed to the strength of thought. As it is told of Enoch, that he was a cobbler and with every stitch of his awl, which sewed the upper leather to the sole, bound the holy God with the indwelling Glory.²

Our sages say: “Micah came and based it on three things”³; that is, he fortified the law through the three pillars on which the world rests: ‘Do justly,’ that is righteousness, ‘and love mercy,’ that is good deeds, ‘and walk humbly with thy God,’ that is the middle pillar, the order of truth: that your mouth and your heart be one and be directed to no distracting aim, to none of the evil powers that are called ‘the dead.’” Therefore our sages say: “Walk humbly, that is funeral procession and receiving the bride”; first the dead, the evil powers, are led forth, and then the bride enters: for he who unites his mouth and his heart, he unites the bridegroom with the bride—the Holy God with the Indwelling Glory.

Through a perverted humility one can remove himself from the service of God: if through self-abasement he does not believe that man through praying and teaching brings down the fullness over all worlds and even the angels nourish themselves from his learning and praying. If he believed in this, how he would then serve God in greater fear and joy, and take care with every movement and every word to speak and to act in the right way!

Man should think of himself as a ladder, placed upon the earth and touching heaven with its head, and all his gestures and affairs and speaking leave traces in the higher world.

OF THE HOLY SPARKS AND THEIR REDEMPTION

The holy sparks that fell when God built and destroyed worlds,⁴ man shall raise and purify upward from stone to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to speaking being, purify the holy sparks that are imprisoned in the world of shells. That is the basic meaning of the service of each one in Israel.

It is known that each spark that dwells in a stone or plant or another creature has a complete figure with the full number of limbs and sinews and, when it dwells in the stone or plant, it is in prison, cannot stretch out its hands and feet and cannot speak, but its head lies on its knees. And who with the good strength of his spirit is able to raise the holy spark from stone to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to speaking being, he leads it into freedom, and no setting free of captives is greater than this. It is as when a king’s son is rescued from captivity and brought to his father.

All that man has, his servant, his animals, his tools, all conceal sparks that belong to the roots of his soul and wish to be raised by him to their origin.

All things of this world that belong to him desire with all their might to draw near him in order that the sparks of holiness that are in them should be raised by him.

Man eats them, man drinks them, man uses them; these are the sparks that dwell in the things. Therefore, one should have mercy on his tools and all his possessions for the sake of the sparks that are in them; one should have mercy on the holy sparks.

Take care that all that you do for God’s sake be itself service of God. Thus eating: do not say that the intention of eating shall be that you gain strength for the service of God. This is also a good intention, of course; but the true perfection only exists where the deed itself happens to heaven, that is where the holy sparks are raised.

In all that is in the world dwell holy sparks, no thing is empty of them. In the actions of men also, indeed even in the sins that a man does, dwell holy sparks⁵ of the glory of God. And what is it that the sparks await that dwell in the sins? It is the turning. In the hour where you turn on account of sin, you raise to the higher world the sparks that were in it.

HOW ONE SHOULD SERVE

Man should serve God with his whole strength, for all is needed. For God wills that one serve Him in all ways.

And this means: when one at times goes about and talks with people, and at that time he cannot learn, then he shall cleave to God and unite with his soul the names of God;⁶ and when one sets out on a trip and cannot then pray according to his custom, then he shall serve God in other ways. And he should not grieve himself over it; for God wills that one serve Him in all ways, at times in this, at other times in that way, and for this reason He had appointed that he should go on a trip or talk with people, in order that he may also perform this service.

This is the mystery of the oneness of God, that at whatever place I, a tiny bit, lay hold of it, I lay hold of the whole. And since the teaching and all commandments are radiations of His being, so he who fulfills a command in love to its very ground, and in this command lays hold of a tiny bit of the oneness of God, holds the whole in his hand as though he had fulfilled all.

When we do not believe⁷ that God renews each day the work of creation, then our prayer and fulfillment of the commands becomes old and routine and bored. As it says in the Psalm, “Do not cast me off when I am old,” that is, do not let my world become old. And in Lamentations it says, “New each morning, great is Thy faithfulness”—that the world becomes new for us each morning, that is Thy great faithfulness.

OF DISTANCE AND NEARNESS

At times man must realize that there are infinitely many firmaments and spheres, and he stands on a speck of the little earth, but the whole of the universe is as nothing before God who is the boundless and who limited Himself and set a place in Himself ⁸ in which to create the world. And although man can grasp this with his insight, he cannot ascend to the higher worlds; and this is what is written: “Appears out of the distance with the Lord”—he beholds God out of the distance. But if he serves God with all his might, then he encompasses great power within himself and exalts himself in his spirit and at once breaks through all firmaments and ascends over angels and heavenly cycles and seraphim and thrones: and that is the perfect service.

He who does the right or applies himself to the teaching in the fervor of cleaving to God, he makes his body the throne of the life-soul and the life-soul the throne of the heart and the heart the throne of the spirit and the spirit the throne of the light of the indwelling glory, and he sits in the midst of the light and trembles and rejoices. As a token of this,⁹ heaven appears at each place as a hemisphere.

“Noah went with God.” Noah adhered so closely to God that each step that he took seemed to be guided by God as though God stood over against him and set his feet right and led him as a fat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the 2016 Edition
• Editor’s Introduction
• Book I: Hasidism and Modern Man
• Book II: My Way to Hasidism
• Book III: The Life of the Hasidim
• Book IV: The Way Of Man, According to the Teachings of Hasidism
• Book V: The Baal-Shem-Tov’s Instruction in Intercourse with God
• Book VI: Love of God and Love of Neighbor