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Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc. more...

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, from the Hebrew: חסידות , Chassidus, meaning "piety", from the Hebrew root word חסד chesed meaning "lovingkindness") is a Haredi Jewish religious movement. Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective chasidic / hasidic (or in Yiddish חסידיש khsidish) applies. The movement originated in Eastern Europe (what is now Belarus and Ukraine) in the 18th century.

Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov , founded Hasidic Judaism. It originated in an age of persecution of the Jewish people, when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too "academic" and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. The Ba'al Shem Tov set out to improve the situation. In its initial stages, Hasidism met with opposition from several contemporary leaders, most notably the Vilna Gaon, leader of the Lithuanian Jews, united as the misnagdim—literally meaning "those who oppose".

History

Prelude

In Poland, where the bulk of Jewry had established itself since the 13th century, two branches of Rabbinic Judaism emerged: those who opposed the study of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and those who supported it. This schism became particularly acute after the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi in the 17th century. Leanings to mystical doctrines and sectarianism showed themselves prominently among the Jews of the south-eastern provinces of Poland, while in the Lithuanian provinces, anti-kabbalist orthodox leaders held sway. In part, this division in modes of thought reflected social differences between the northern (Lithuanian) Jews and the southern Jews of Ukraine. In Lithuania the Jewish masses mainly lived in densely-populated towns where anti-kabbalistic rabbinical academic culture (in the yeshivos) flourished, while in Ukraine the Jews tended to live scattered in villages far removed from intellectual centers where the influence of the anti-kabbalists prevailed.

Pessimism in the south became more intense after the Cossacks' Uprising (1648–1654) under Chmielnicki and the turbulent times in Poland (1648–1660), which completely ruined the Jewry of Ukraine, but left comparatively untouched that of Lithuania. The general population of Ukraine itself declined and economic chaos reigned, especially due to these events and the subsequent Turkish Invasion which left this region depopulated and barren. After the Polish magnates regained control of southern Ukraine in the last decade of the 17th century, an economic renaissance ensued. The magnates began a massive rebuilding and repopulation effort while being generally welcoming and benevolent towards the Jews. A type of frontier environment pursued where new people and new ideas were encouraged. The state of the Jews of what would later become southern Russia created a favorable field for mystical movements and religious sectarianism, which spread in the area from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century.

Read more at Wikipedia.org