Baal Shem Tov

Israel ben Eliezer[a] (c. 1700[1] –1760[2]), known as the Baal Shem Tov (/ˌbɑːl ˈʃɛm ˌtʊv, ˌtʊf/;[3] Hebrew: בעל שם טוב) or BeShT (בעש"ט), was a Jewish mystic and healer who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism.

[6][7] Biographical information about the Baal Shem Tov comes from contemporary Polish documents and from the largely legendary traditions about his life and behavior collected in the Praise of the Besht (Hebrew: שבחי הבעש"ט, romanized: Shivḥei haBesht).

[8] A central tenet of the teachings associated with the Baal Shem Tov is the direct connection with the divine, "dvekut", which is infused in every human activity and every waking hour.

From the honorific "may he live", it seems that this book was composed in Israel's lifetime; this is the only time the Baal Shem Tov was mentioned by name before his death.

This view is derived from a series of titles given to the Besht, attributing various religious achievements to him such as understanding the mysteries of God.

[16] Israel ben Eliezer left no books; the Kabbalistic commentary on Psalm 107, ascribed to him (Zhitomir, 1804), Sefer miRabbi Yisrael Baal Shem-tov, is not genuine.

Mysticism, then, is not the Kabbalah, which everyone may learn, but that sense of true oneness, which is usually as strange, unintelligible, and incomprehensible to mankind as dancing is to a dove.

A second and more important result of the doctrine is that through his oneness with God, man forms a connecting link between the Creator and creation.

[4] On the opposite side of the coin, the Baal Shem Tov is said to have warned the Hasidim: It may be said of Hasidism that there is no other Jewish sect in which the founder is as important as his doctrines.

A Turkish occupation of Podolia occurred within the Besht's lifetime and along with it the influence within this frontier territory of Sabbatai Zevi and his latter-day spiritual descendants such as Malach and Jacob Frank.

The Magnates valued the economic benefits the Jews provided, and encouraged Jewish resettlement to help protect the frontier from future invasions.

These volumes, especially Shivḥei haBesht (1815), are presumed to contain a small historical kernel, but scholars continue to debate which passages are credible.

[36] In 2019, the American funk quartet The Fearless Flyers released an instrumental single named "The Baal Shem Tov" in honor of the rabbi.

[39] The chief source for the Besht's biography is Ber (Dov) ben Shmuel’s Shivchei ha-Besht, Kopys, 1814, and frequently republished, and traditions recorded in the works of various Hasidic dynasties — especially by the leaders of the Chabad movement.

[citation needed] Tzava’at HaRivash and Keter Shem Tov are anthologies and have been reprinted numerous times.