Other articles from this issue | Version in English | Version in French
Early Beshtian Hasidism and Franciscanism as Forms of Religious Renewal
Neal Rose
What is religion? William James wisely responded to this by characterizing religion as being "the belief that there is an unseen order" to which the religious person attempts to adjust his life. I prefer to modify James' helpful definition by saying that religiousness (for what of a better word, or rather, a true sense of religion) is the awareness of the reality of the Unseen. Religiousness suggests a state of existence, an attitude of mind and heart, while "religion" implies a discipline, a life style, a path. The history of the world's religions indicates that there often is religion without a true sense of it. Religions, the rituals, the prayers, the hierarchy, the values, are at their best when they function as a means to help people live in such a fashion that their existence is permeated with the living reality of the Unseen. The signs and symbols of the various religions should be like windows which open up onto the Greater Reality. Often, in personal existence, and in society, these "windows" become opaque and cease to mediate the reality of the Unseen. Consequently, life becomes secularized, the individual loses the sense of the Divine Presence in his every day prosaic activities. Now that the generalized and all pervasive numinous sense of meaning has been lost, people become anxiety-ridden, they seem to exist in what the Kabbalists call the "world of confusion". At such junctions it is necessary to reopen the "windows" so that an inner reality is returned to religion. When this is accomplished, religious institutions once again become operative and functional, and people once again have contact with the Unseen Reality — with what all men used to call God. In retrospect, the founders of Franciscanism and Hasidism must be seen as people who responded to the crisis of meaning in their respective contexts by helping re-establish the human-Divine contact. In so doing, as we will see, the reality of the Unseen once again began to permeate all aspects of human existence.
At first glance however, my suggestion that there are certain relevant similarities between early Hasidism and early Franciscanism may seem forced and even irreverent. St. Francis' ragged band of Friars Minor was formed early in the thirteenth century and drew its members from Italian Christians. Hasidism came into being among the Jews of Galicia, Poland and the Ukraine at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The latter day Franciscan Order was among those who excelled in punishing the bodies of the ancestors of the Hasidim in order to save their souls and who, for example, incited the blood libel at Trent in 1475. In no way do I wish to deny the differences and the conflicts, yet, despite them, I see certain similarities of a cultural and religious nature. Most of these supposed similarities have to do with the process of religious renewal, the return of the true meaning to "religion" and the re-establishment of man's link with the Unseen Reality.
Historical Setting and Impact
The Jews of Eastern Europe, especially those living in Greater Poland during the middle of the seventeenth century, underwent massive progroms, the impact of which has possibly only been outdone by the twentieth century Holocaust. In the wake of this havoc, many put their hopes for redemption in the false messiah Shabbetai Zevi (1626-1676). His eventual apostasy to Islam in 1666 was almost as traumatic as the pogroms. The Jews of Poland were left culturally, economically and religiously decimated. The end of the seventeenth century found the Polish Jewish communities groping towards some form of restoration. Hasidism was one of the several forces of renewal. The nascent movement began with the work of one itinerant healer and preacher, Israel Baal Shem Tov, often called the Besht (1700-1760), and within three generations it had become a powerful socio-religious force among the masses of Ashkenazi Jews. The hasidic saints, zaddikim, and their followers, the Hasidim, were to be found in the cities and small towns of Eastern Europe up and until the Holocaust. Hasidism has undergone a rebirth since the close of World War II. These post-war communities are not only composed of survivors, but of non-hasidic Jews who have been drawn to this way of life.
St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) and his early followers likewise lived under chaotic circumstances. The turbulence was due to the constant wars between cities and the power struggles within the church. Francis himself had been a prisoner of war in 1202. Upon his release he underwent a profound conversion in which the career of Jesus became the ideal and the blueprint for his life. He soon found others drawn to him. At first, he and his first followers were indistinguishable from other small groups of wandering "poor men of Christ". Much to the surprise and even dismay of this "poor man of Christ" he spawned a very large Order whose influence was eventually to become almost worldwide. The devotees of the "poor man" Francis, like the Hasidic Jews, were drawn to a person who spoke in a warm, simple and direct fashion. They heard a message which spoke of the immediacy of the Divine Presence, that promised joy and peace. They saw a life style that was based on simplicity, prayer, active love and service to others.
Early Hasidism and Franciscanism were popular revivalistic movements whose enthusiasts were more often than not simple people, therefore the "religious language" of the respective movements was largely composed of the lexicon and idiom of the vernacular. Each of the founders did his preaching, teaching and healing primarily in the lingua franca of his people: the Baal Shem in Yiddish, St. Francis in the Umbrian dialect. As a result, hasidic tradition is replete with parables, tales and songs created for and by hasidic masters and their followers. Hasidism is, therefore, regarded as one of the social forces which made for the growth of Yiddish as the linguistic media of Ashkenizi Jews. St. Francis likewise sparked creative religious/poetic expression in the vernacular: "Canticle of Brother Sun" is regarded by some as the first Italian poem. So it was that the vernacular became a vital tool in the renewal of their religious traditions.
The personalities and teachings of both revivalists have gone beyond their immediate spiritual descendants. St. Francis' influence has been felt in European art, poetry and religion. In the nineteenth century there was a renewal of interest in him by scholars and poets, particularly those of a romantic bent, like Matthew Arnold. The Baal Shem likewise became a focus of concern for Jewish scholars and artists who lived at the end of the last century. Martin Buber, partially under the influence of late nineteenth century romanticism, became one of the exponents of neo-Hasidism. Yiddish and Hebrew secular writers have found in Hasidism an invaluable source of inspiration and creativity.
The Charismatic Leader and Popular Religion
The lives of both men are wrapped in legend, myth and poetry. It is beyond the scope of this essay to engage in a source critical study of the extensive Franciscan or Hasidic literature. It is sufficient to say that both men possessed a type of personality which made a great impact on those whose lives were enriched and changed by them. Such people are often "oral-teachers" and do not feel compelled to write books, or even keep diaries. The task of recording their actions and teachings becomes the work of some other members of their group. One thing seems evident: the vast body of legendary materials about each one is possibly the best indication of their powerful leadership.
Both men showed signs of strength and leadership as youngsters. The Besht was orphaned as young child; he became a run-away and a truant who was often found hidden away in the forest. Eventually his guardians were able to find him a job as a teacher's helper. Tradition records that he had a strong influence on his students and at one time fought off an attacking wild wolf. His physical and moral strength, says the legend, endeared him to the children's parents. St. Francis, who came from a well-to-do family, was a leader of his peers; he exhibited a zest for life and a love for fun that led him to be known as the proverbial bad boy. We find that these qualities were later integrated into their adult personalities and put into the service of their respective missions. Interestingly, neither man based his mission on the kind of authority which comes through ascribed leadership — their roles were not based on the power of learning, or the might of ecclesiastical license. Rather, they perceived their calling as coming through the Divine word. This calling triggered their innate charisma and they led by virtue of the power of their personhood.
The teachings, sermons and letters of the two indicate that they were familiar with the liturgy, scripture and traditions of their religious culture and that these were presented by them in a new and creative manner. Each viewed his vision of the way as being the essential reality of his tradition. Yet, as one studies each man, one has the impression that each was a "theodidact" — that is, God-taught, rather than book-taught. They tapped the source from which religious knowledge comes. Tradition has it that the Bath Shem once explained that his proper answer to a student's halakhic question was known to him not from any particular book but from the higher source itself, the place from which the book emanates. Perhaps, in this regard, the best indication of the charismatic power of both men is that their earlier followers were not only the simple people but intellectuals as well. It is therefore fairly clear that what the learned came looking for, was not more learning in the scholastic sense, but spiritual enlightenment. An important aspect of the message gained from the Besht was that there is spiritual necessity to care for people at large.
The popularistic nature of both movements is indicated in the many reports and tales of how the master and student travelled widely among the people and often shared their time, food and problems with those at the lower end of the social hierarchy.
Both of these charismatic leaders had their problems with the orthodox establishment of their day, yet they managed to remain within the confines of the "normative". The Besht and his followers met resistance and opposition from certain rabbinic authorities, but in the end a peace of sorts was established. St. Francis, likewise, seems to have developed an acceptable "marginal" position. He was able to live his unconventional version of Christian life and have papal approval. The tenuous existence of early Franciscanism has led one historian to observe that the contemporary admirers of St. Francis have rarely understood "how close he came to the surrounding flames which consumed some who stood nearest to him, his persecuted friends and brothers". Yet, today both men are regarded as "great men".
Religion as a Strange Dance
Can Hasidism or Franciscanism be classified as mystical? Yes, if one defines a mystic as a person who hungers and thirsts for an immediate and direct experience of the Divine and builds a lifestyle based upon the quest. The Baal Shem distinguished betweenthe religion that comes through the fiat of tradition and religion that emanates from personal experience. The latter is what we are calling mystical religion. He expressed it while interpreting the introduction to a major synagogue prayer which begins, "God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob". Importantly, said the Besht, the shorter form "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob° is not used: the meaning of this, he continued is that "Isaac and Jacob could not rest on Abraham's tradition alone, but themselves sought the divine", and therefore the expression "God of Isaac", and "God of Jacob". In another context, the Besht counseled his followers to combine both approaches. Such an amalgamation, in my terms, means that the forms and language of tradition are renewed through fire, the ecstasy (hidahavut) of experience. Or, put differently, by means of the search for God, religiousness and religion are joined and tradition comes alive. Tradition, in turn, aids in the establishment of a life style appropriate to the mystical search.
The Besht's concern for the patriarchs of Judaism suggestes another vital point, namely, that renewal movements such as these, perceive themselves as returning to the root experiences or illuminations of their founders. In so doing, the renewalists seem to be casting off those things which appear to be the clutter of history, and return to the original experience associated with the founders. So it was that St. Francis attempted to state the Rule of his order in such a way that it was nothing more nor less than the pristine teaching of Jesus. The Besht, in the teaching cited above, likewise directed his people to return to the searching ways of the founders. In other words, he displaced the conventional liturgy in favour of that of the more spiritually elevated prayer form of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Holy Lion (1534-1572); in this way he hoped to have people experience God in the same powerful manner which he assumed was done by Luria. The deeply religious sense espoused by both St. Francis and the Baal Shem evidence a life style that can broadly be called contemplative. The type of "contemplation" intended here is one that calls for a certain type of detachment from the ordinary world, one which helps cultivate an attitude toward things that is different from the conventional view of things. The contemplative feels that he is directly confronting the Unseen Reality. Yet, both saintly teachers ultimately counsel a return to the society of man. The Hasidic tradition sought, for example, to teach people to move in and out of the state of devekut, total attachment to God. In fact, prayer, in part, becomes the fine art of moving in and out of the realms of the sacred and the profane.
For all of their desire to remain in the world, the respective movements stood in tension with the estab. lished society. This sense of alienation arose from the mystic's keen awareness that his/her vocation was different from that of others. This is expressed often in the classical distinction between "this worldliness" and "other worldliness". Often the difference is dealt with by speaking about the "apparent" vs. the °real" meaning of things, or the "overt" vs. the "latent" significance of life. All of these distinctions signify the religious person's sense that there is an inner reality to belief and practice which alludes the outsider. To those on the outside, a "saint" can be a poor cripple, a misguided beggar unworthy of a second look. Yet, to the believer, the "saint" is a rich, whole person. Those who saw St. Francis and his Friars Minor doubtless often saw only the poverty and deformity. The brothers and sisters, however, knew that their external appearance was only °apparent", but, in °reality", they were blessed with the bread of heaven. It is the insider's acute sense of his being different which lies behind the following story about the Baal Shem and the deaf man:
Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Efraim, the Baal Shem's grandson told: "I heard this from my grandfather: Once a fiddler played so sweetly that all who heard him began to dance, and whoever came near enough to hear, joined in the dance. Then a deaf man who knew nothing of music, happened along, and to him all he saw seemed the action of madmen — senseless and in bad taste".
Often, due to different reasons, the mystic insiders, and the non-initiated outsiders, agree that the mystical life style is a strange dance whose participants sometimes appear as madmen, or people of senseless and bad taste.
Mystic and Activist
In the classical categories of religion the role of mystic and activist are regarded as mutually contradictory. Yet, a study of Hasidism and Franciscanism reveal that their founders were both. The mystical path is the way to the cultivation of the individual's inner life. The mystic has sought to develop the ability to cling to God, what the Kabbalists call devekut. On the other hand, the activist seeks to modify his social and physical environment. The two modalities tend to be self contradicting because they fix a person in one or the other dimension. The mystic faces the danger of becoming totally fascinated and consequently fixated on the "inner tremendum"; the activist stands in danger of losing his sense of the inner life and of being totally caught up in the movement engendered by a social process.
Biographically, we know that both men experiencedthis conflict and resolved it. The Baal Shem, according to tradition, spent a long time cultivating the inner life and mastering the Divine mysteries, until there finally came the call to the active life. Legend, however, explains that he did not know how to speak to people since he had been in a state of devekut so long. "Then", the legend continued, "his God-sent teacher Ahijah, the prophet, came and taught him which verses of psalms to say everyday, to gain the ability of talking to people without disrupting his devekut, his clinging to God".
St. Francis had been isolated for several years and then at mass one day the priest read from the Gospel of Matthew 10:7-12. It became St. Francis' call to the active life: ". . . preach the message . . . cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils". Another tradition indicates that St. Francis sought for confirmation of the authenticity of his call by consulting others. The word came back from two close associates that the same message had come to them. These traditional accounts, regarding both the Baal Shem and St. Francis, probably reflect the reality of the inner struggle of both men to resolve the claims of both the mystic and activist life styles. It seems vitally important that the call for activism comes during isolation, and is given in the name of God. The suggestion is that prayer and action are not mutually exclusive but dialectically related. Both men resolved to live and teach a message which called upon people to become mystic activists, to incorporate in themselves the mystical cultivation of the inner life, and the resolve to humanize the social order. Bober has described this type of person as a "realist of the spirit" — one whose spiritual insights and experiences are used to animate and mold human history. Such a person seeks, in Buber's terms, the factual redemption of people and society.
In both cases, these "realists of the spirit" actually attempted to reorganize society. More specifically, this meant that each created brotherhoods, gemeinschaf ten, whose principles of organization were based upon self-help and besed, loving concern for others. In the Jewish context this gave rise to what Buber calls "communal mysticism", a society which at once honors the human and Divine imperatives. In the Christian context, it meant that St. Francis organized his people into an Order based on the °primitive" teachings of Jesus. He even created a peace movement called the "Great Halleluja", the goal of which was to create a non-violent society. St. Francis' sense of hesed lcd to a very important contribution to the concept of monasticism: he conceived of the idea that those living in the hermitage would be "mothered" by their compatriots, who in turn would relinquish the nurturing role and adopt the hermit role. In other words, they would form a mutual support system which allowed every one to take his turn living as a hermit.
Being In the Divine Milieu
The mystical reflections of the Besht and St. Francis place great emphasis on the experience of God's presence as it fills the entire Creation. While neither of them was a pantheist, both related to all of creation as a sacred cosmos filled with the mysterious and awesome power of God which, while other than man, still related directly to man. In such a spiritual orientation, all things animate and inanimate are experienced as being zones or domains of holiness. This view of the world has been expressed in the modern idiom by Teilhard de Chardin in his essay: The Divine Milieu: An Essay on The Interior Life.
Teilhard speaks of the sacred cosmos as a divine culture or milieu, a totally divine environment which is centered in, and based on, God. As he puts it, "God reveals himself everywhere, beneath our grouping efforts, as a universal milieu, only because He is the ultimate point upon which all realities converge". In Hasidism, the world as a divine milieu is spoken of in terms of Creation being filled with divine sparks. Or, alternately, this sense of God's presence in all aspects of the creation is also conveyed through the notion that the Shekhinah, the Divine presence, dwells, or indwells, in the world. The Franciscan formulation which expresses the conviction that man lives in the divine milieu come in their strong affirmation of the doctrine of the Incarnation. The perception of the Creation as a divine milieu in both renewalists' teachings gives rise to pan-sacramentalism, the attitude that all things are filled with the sacred, and must be related to as such.
The most powerful zone of holiness, according to the Hasidic teaching, is man. The biblical commandment "And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is understood to be based upon the presence of the divine energy/light in every man. So what one loves in the other person is just that divine light. Hasidism, therefore, reiterated the Lurianic teaching that all prayer must begin with a re-affirmation, the great commandment —"And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Many of the prayer books printed in the wake of the rise of Hasidism actually printed this injunction at the commencement of the morning service and directed the faithful to begin their devotions by repeating and accepting this commandment.
The attitude I called pan-sacramentalism extends, in the Hasidic teaching, to all things: "All that man has, his servant, his animals, his tools, all conceal sparks that belong to the roots of his soul and wish to he raised by him to their origin". Nothing is devoid of the divine, and all is related to man, and all things call upon man to relate to them, "All things of this world ...desire with all their might to draw him...", the individual, to themselves. So it is, that peoplecan be in dialogue with the other elements which constitute the divine milieu. The sacred in a person can, and should, according to the Besht, relate to the sacred in all things. It is this aspect of the Hasidic world view which Bober describes as allowing for a dialogical, an I-Thou relationship between man and the other aspects of the divine milieu.
The belief that the Divine presence is incarnate in man is found in legends and sermons ascribed to St. Francis. The depth of his dedication to this conviction is reflected in his life-long care and concern for those around him — the poor, the sick and the miserable. When speaking of their suffering he saw in them the suffering of a God who had come into the world through Christ. The wounds of the world were, for him, the wounds of a God who had become man. The great commandment in this regard became for St. Francis, "who so ever does it unto the least of these, it is as if he did unto me". When he urged the brothers to care for the lepers, he told them that they had to do so, "for the love of Christ, who was reputed a poor leper himself".
"Man vs. nature" is a common theme in our modern technological civilization. We often view ourselves as being at war with nature. In the face of this attitude of struggle and conflict, St. Francis presents a radical alternative: "he tried to substitute the idea of the equality of all creatures, including man". In other words, all things in Creation are seen as living within the Divine milieu. Franciscan legend abounds in stories of St. Francis' brotherly and harmonious relationship with all creatures, even those normally regarded as man's mortal enemy. In one such legend the saint is able to tame a wolf such that it became one of his constant companions. Thereafter, says the tale, he always referred to the animal as "Brother Wolf". St. Francis' I-Thou relationship with the creature so affected it, that when it died, legend has it, it died in an odor of holiness since the saint had evoked the Divine within it. One need not rely solely on stories told about him, rather, St. Francis' "Canticle of Brother Sun° clearly portrays his sense of oneness with the other elements in the Divine milieu. This link is, for him, so strong that not only does he feel united with Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire and Sister Earth, but even the process of bodily death becomes a co-creature, it is welcomed as "our sister, Bodily Death".
Among the hasidic legends, we find similar tales regarding masters who had a brotherly relationship with the elements of nature. Rabbi Zusya of Hampol (d. 1800), who is referred to as one of "God's fools", was known to have had great compassion and fellow feeling for animals and birds:
Once Rabbi Zusya travelled cross-crountry collecting money to ransom prisoners. He came to an inn at a time when the inn-keeper was not at home. He went through the rooms, according to custom, and in one saw a large cage with all kinds of birds. And Zusya saw that the caged creatures wanted to fly through the spaces of the world and be free birds again. He burned with pity for them and said to himself: 'Here you are, Zusya, walking your feet off to ransom prisoners. But what greater ransoming of prisoners can there be than to free these birds from their prison?' The he opened the cage, and the birds flew out into freedom.
When Rabbi Zusya was challenged by the birds' "owner", he explained that he was acting as God acts when it is said in the psalms: "His tender mercies are over all His works". The "owner" had no appreciation of Rabbi Zusya's attempts to live a life in imitation of God. Rather, he called him a vagrant and beat him.
Rabbi Nachman, the great grandson of the Besht, was fond of praying in the fields among the trees and grasses. He once reported to a student that as he prayed in the field all the grasses and herbs reached out to him and asked that he articulate their prayers. This report again suggests a perception of a world in which man and nature are seen as living in the same Divine milieu. The attitude exhibited in certain Hasidic sources displays the same attitude towards nature and its creatures. A zaddik once had a student who wanted to learn the language of the birds. The master, in effect, told him that the thing to do was to learn the universal language of all creation. In other words, there is a level at which one can see all of Creation as a unified Divine milieu.
The contemporary listener may view all these stories about holy sparks and the holiness of earth worms as interesting but irrelevant imagery. To do so overlooks the fact that is was these very "images" which helped bring about a renewal of people's sense of living within the Divine milieu. The growth and popularity of these respective legendary traditions indicate that the stories quickened people's desire for, and awareness of, their part in the Divine whole.
Turning toward the Divine Milieu
One of the signs of real genius is the ability to see beyond the complexities of a problem and to achieve a unified or simple undestanding of the matter. The Besht showed such genius when he described the spiritual plight of people who, although they in fact live in the Divine milieu, don't allow themselves to become aware of the Divine around them;
As the hand before the eye conceals the greatest mountain, so the little earthly life hides from the glance the enormous lights and mysteries of which the world is full, and he who can draw it away from before his eyes, as one draws away a hand, beholds the great shining of the inner worlds.
The task which the Besht set out to accomplish was to help people remove their hands from before their eyes so that they could see that the God they sought was all about them. The blockage which the Baal Shem calls the "little earthly life" is composed of all the concerns and woes of daily existence. These things often become the only categories through which we see life. The need is then to transcend them, and this, says the Besht, can come through the cultivation of hitlabavut, "the inner burning", or the ardour of ecstasy. How does one "ignite", enter into the state of hitlahavut? The Besht taught his people that at the base of all real religious life is the need to celebrate our creaturehood, to become excited over the fact that we live in the Divine environment. Consequently, he brought his people together to barbrang, to sing and dance and to celebrate their blessed state of being creatures in God's world. Often in early and later hasidic practice, this meant that the brethren joined together for festive sabbath and holiday meals. They ate and drank together in a celebration that was also sacramental, the food and drink becoming symbols of the abiding presence and goodness of God. The joyous mood engendered by the food and the alcoholic beverages relaxed their worldy inhibitions, and the teachings of the master pointed their consciousness toward the spiritual lights and beauties which surrounded them. Hasidism attributes great spiritual power to singing and dancing because when done as forms of religious practices, they become instruments for achieving hitlahavut.
What becomes of one the morning after such a celebration? Does a person simply return to the spiritually narrow bounds of "the little earthly life?" The Hasidic way teaches the necessity of cultivating the attitude that all of life is intended as avodah, or divine service. For some, avodab means only "religious work", formal prayers and ritual. Not so for the Besht. He saw all of existence as being a Divine milieu, filled with holy sparks. He taught that all life's activity could become avodab, service in a Divine environment, if only people developed the inner attitude necessary to preserve the vision of reality attained in the state of hitlahavut. In order to do so, one must centre oneself and consolidate the inner resources so as to remain relatively free of the mindset dictated by 'the little earthly life". This act of centering oneself is called kavvanah, inner directedness. The art of kavvanah is not acquired through formal learning but is learned by paying careful attention to the workings of the soul and becoming aware of the inner life processes. According to the Hasidic teaching, the only way to acquire this type of awareness is to live for some time within the sphere of a zaddik, a teacher of world meaning. A devotee once explained that he went to his master "not to learn Torah from him, but to see how he unlaces his felt shoes and laces them up again", since even when the master did so prosaic an act he was still aware of living in the Divine milieu.
The simple life demanded by the early Franciscan Rule was intended to strip away the pretensions of "the little earthly life" and thereby to have the person turn his being toward the Divine milieu. St. Francis, like the Besht, taught his people to overcome worldliness by concentrating on celebrating the fact that a person is a being created by God. St. Francis, therefore, utilized singing and instrumental music as an aid to the gaining and retaining of cosmic awareness. He hoped, for example, that the "Canticle of Brother Sun", would spread through the world and increase people's awareness of living in a world permeated with the Divine presence.
* Neal Rose is an ordained rabbi who is Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Prof. Rose has done a great deal of research in Hasidism and is active in inter-religious dialogue.
Rabbi Rose dedicates his article to "my little Sister Marie-Nofille de Baillehache"
who, for the past twenty years, has been in charge of the Centre Mi-Ca.El in Montreal where she worked in the forefront of Jewish-Christian Dialogue. Although she is now living in retirement in her native France, she continues to be active in the dialogue which she loves so much by helping the staff at SIDIC by her valuable advice, her writing and her translation.
