Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer (the Baal Shem Tov)

An orphan in Okup

Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer was born, according to Chassidic tradition, on 18 Elul 5458 (1698) in the small town of Okup in Podolia, then part of Poland. His parents, Rabbi Eliezer and Sarah, were elderly and poor, and tradition counts his father among the hidden tzaddikim. Both parents passed away when Yisroel was a young child. Before his passing, it is told, his father charged him to fear nothing but Hashem and to love every Jew with all his heart, whoever he might be. These words became the core of the Baal Shem Tov's life.

The community took the orphan in and sent him to cheder, but he often slipped away to the forests and fields, where he would daven and meditate alone. As a youth he worked as a melamed's assistant, walking the small children to cheder while singing and saying Amen and Yehei Shmei Rabba with them, and later as a shammes in the beis medrash, where he learned secretly through the night while appearing simple by day.

Hidden years

Chassidic tradition relates that the young Yisroel joined the society of hidden tzaddikim, holy men who wandered among Jewish villages disguised as simple workers, strengthening and helping the people. Their leader is identified as Rabbi Adam Baal Shem. Tradition also holds that from the age of about twenty-six he was taught the secrets of Torah by the soul of Achiyah HaShiloni, the prophet who had been the teacher of Eliyahu HaNavi.

After a first marriage that ended with his young wife's passing, he married Chana, the sister of the respected scholar Rabbi Avraham Gershon of Kitov. Rabbi Gershon at first saw his brother-in-law as an unlearned peasant and was embarrassed by the match. The couple lived for some years in deep poverty in the Carpathian mountains, where he dug clay and lime which Chana would sell in town. He spent the week in the mountains in solitude, prayer and study, and later called those years the happiest of his life. He also worked as a shochet, ran a small inn, and served as a teacher.

Revelation

According to Chabad tradition, on his thirty-sixth birthday, 18 Elul 5494 (1734), he was instructed from Above to reveal himself. He became known as a "Baal Shem," a healer who used herbs, amulets and prayer, but his true work was spiritual. He travelled among the villages and spoke to farmers, innkeepers and craftsmen, assuring them that Hashem loves the sincere prayer and Tehillim of a simple Jew as much as the learning of a great scholar.

Around 1740 he settled in Mezhibuzh, which became the center of the young movement. Polish tax records of the town from the 1740s and 1750s list him living in a house owned by the community, an important independent confirmation of his historical presence.

The teaching of the Baal Shem Tov

The Baal Shem Tov taught that Hashem's life-giving word is constantly present in every creature, so that nothing exists apart from Him. From this flow the pillars of his path: detailed Divine providence over every leaf and grain of sand; serving Hashem with joy rather than sadness; heartfelt, passionate davening (avodah); finding holiness in eating, working and conversation; and an unconditional love for every Jew, including the sinner and the unlearned.

He did not write books. His teachings were recorded by his disciples, above all Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonne, whose Toldos Yaakov Yosef (1780) was the first printed Chassidic work, and later gathered in collections such as Keser Shem Tov and Tzava'as HaRivash. A letter he wrote to Rabbi Gershon of Kitov describes a soul-ascent on Rosh Hashanah 5507 (1746), in which he asked Moshiach when he would come and was told: when your teachings spread and your wellsprings flow outward.

Disciples and the spread of Chassidus

Some of the greatest scholars of the generation, who had initially been skeptical, became his disciples. Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch, the Maggid, came to test him and stayed to become his successor; Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, rav of Polonne, became his foremost scribe; Rabbi Pinchas of Koritz, Rabbi Menachem Nochum of Chernobyl and many others carried his light across Ukraine and Poland. Through the Maggid's students, Chassidus would spread within a few decades to a large part of Eastern European Jewry.

His family also continued his path. His daughter Udel was revered in her own right; her sons were Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov, author of Degel Machaneh Ephraim, and Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibuzh, and her granddaughter Feiga was the mother of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

Passing on Shavuos

In the spring of 5520 (1760) the Baal Shem Tov fell ill. On the first day of Shavuos, surrounded by his disciples, he taught them, davened and returned his soul to its Maker; his disciples recorded that he said he could now see the gate through which his soul would leave. He was buried in Mezhibuzh, and his kever, rebuilt after the destruction of the Holocaust and Soviet eras, is again a place of pilgrimage for Chassidim from every court.