The Gaon vs. the Hasidim

The Gaon of Vilna and His Messianic Vision. By Arie Morgenstern, Translated by Naftali Greenwood. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2012, Pp. xiii + 446; plates. Cloth, $29.95. I would give this book 4 stars!

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — When I received Morgenstern’s book, The Gaon of Vilna and His Messianic Vision  to read and write a review, I was excited. However, I must admit I was more interested in the book’s information dealing with the Gaon’s relationship with the nascent Hassidic movement. The Gaon’s Messianic vision proved to be a most pleasant surprise. In this short article, we shall examine some of claims Morgenstern makes about the Hassidic movement, and why he wanted to have nothing to do with it.  Material on this subject can be found in Morgenstern’s chapter entitled, “The 1772 Excommunication of the Hasidim in Vilna” (pp.  231-288).

In straightforward terms, the Hassidic movement placed far greater stress on the devotional life of the worshiper. The Baal Shem Tov taught that the heart of the simple and ordinary Jew is more important to God than the intellectual mastery of the Talmud. In one famous passage pertaining to the imagery of the Burning Bush, the Baal Shem Tov explained that the burning bush represented the burning heart of the simple Jew. Although he lacked traditional Talmudic learning and the spiritual achievement of the “fruit-bearing trees,” the devotion of the simple served as a locus for God’s revelation to Moses.

Of course, such teachings extolling the simple and pious Jew threatened to undermine the authority of the traditional Torah scholar.  As Morgenstern observes, the Hasidim challenged the hegemony of the Gaon’s scholastic approach to Jewish learning. The real issue centered on the relevant question: How should a person worship God? Is prayer more important than Torah study?

However, there was a distinctively social aspect to this great debate between the Hasidim and the Vilna Gaon. Hasidim had developed a cultish devotion to the tsadik (charismatic Hassidic leader, a.k.a, the “Rebbe,”) that the Vilna Gaon felt was unhealthy and pathological.

Two of the greatest students of the Hassidic movement, R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady and R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebesk sought an audience with the Gaon to bridge their differences. Unfortunately, such a meeting never took place. Perhaps this was one of the Gaon’s personal weaknesses: he tended to rely too much on his followers, who slammed the Hasidim because of their antinomian attitudes that undermined the practice of Halacha.

R. Shneur Zalman himself admitted that one of the main culprits who scandalized the Hassidic movement was R. Abraham of Kalisk (1741–1810). In Nissan Mindel’s excellent biography of  R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the author describes the raucous behavior of this once former student of the Vilna Gaon who embraced Hasidism.

• By nature a highly temperamental individual, he was carried away by some of the teachings of the Maggid. Rabbi Abraham Kalisker gathered around him a group of brilliant young men, whom he inspired to ecstatic states of Divine worship, which, as he taught, was attainable only under extreme self-effacement. For about two years he taught this group a rigorous discipline of austerity, self-mortification and saintliness. Their mode of prayer was ecstatic and rapturous, often giving way to frenzy. During prayer, they were prone to paroxysms of dancing, gesticulation and boisterousness. They were impatient of the opponents of Chasidut, particularly the type of dispassionate Talmudists, who carried about them an air of staidness and gravity, which, to these passionate mystics, betrayed insensibility and arrogance. They took upon themselves the task of exposing them to ridicule, in order to rouse them out of their complacency, as they thought.[1]

Morgenstern also mentions this strange Dionysian personality of the Hassidic movement:

• Shneur Zalman of Liadi himself complained about R. Abraham of Kalisk, accusing him of bizarre conduct, debauchery, mocking and derision of Torah scholars, doing handstands in the markets and streets, causing God’s Name to be desecrated in Gentile eyes, and carrying out various frivolous and ridiculous acts in the streets of Kalisk. Such unbridled behavior is contemptible in itself but especially at a time like this because (among other things), it induced the Gaon of Vilna to proclaim the Hasidim apikosrim (heretics). (p. 235).

Both Morgenstern and Mindel failed to realize that Abraham of Kalisk was not the only the Hassidic leader who resembled a refugee from an insane asylum. Rebbe Aaron HaGadol (The Great) of Karlin (1736–1772) was certainly another charismatic leader whose theology about the relationship of God and the Rebbe strongly resembled the incarnational theology of Christianity!  Nissan Mindel describes this strange personality:

• 5. In the same book, it is stated that if a person craves a certain thing, it means that that thing is necessary to him for the edification of his soul, inasmuch as in all things there is vitality. This is contradictory to our religion, for sometimes a person may crave a sinful thing.

• 6. In some passages of the book of the Karlinists the terms “thought,” “speech,” and “vitality” are used to personify the Creator. This is contrary to the Jewish faith. Moreover, they write that a person may sometimes be in unity with the Creator, hence they call their rabbis “G-d.”

Mindel also notes that R. Aaron HaGadol of Karlin was a very close friend of Abraham of Kalisk, and even sent him considerable monies to help settle him in Palestine. This allegation was actually made against R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who was arrested on grounds of treason for supporting an enemy of Russia—the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Palestine at that time. Fortunately, he emerged unscathed and the Hasidim celebrate the 19th of Kislev as a special Hassidic holiday to this day.

Although R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi was a class act and undeserving of much of the criticism lavished upon him by his enemies, none of these personal attacks would have occurred had it not been for the crazy antics of some of the early Hassidic leaders who pursued a more Dionysian form of Judaism (as articulated by Nietzsche in his famous “Birth of Tragedy”). The Apollonian approach of rational Judaism did not find the ecstatic approach of the Hasidim amusing–especially in light of the Shabbatai Tzvi scandal, for he too championed a Dionysian approach to Judaism and Jewish mysticism.  The slavish devotion of Hassidim to their Rebbe was a source of concern to the Vilna Gaon, who justifiably regarded their behavior as dangerously cultic and idolatrous.

Morgenstern adds that despite the Gaon’s desire to excommunicate the Hasidim, Lithuanian Jewry for the most part refused to join the Gaon in excommunicating all the Hasidim of their region (see pp. 240-242). That does not mean that the Lithuanians liked the Hasidim. If anything, they were ambivalent. Many of them believed the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague that decimated much of Vilna and territories in the Ukraine from 1770-1771 was due to the Hasidim’s wayward ways. Morgenstern adds, “Among all the Jews of Vilna, they found only the Hasidim guilty of causing the epidemic. The sin of that the Hasidim committed, they felt, was so grave as to warrant excommunication” (p. 256).

As I read the book, I raised a speculative question: If the Vilna Gaon were alive today, what would he say about the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Hasidim’s veneration of the Rebbe—many of whom believe that the Rebbe is going to come back from the dead and redeem the world? After reading Morgenstern’s remarkable book, I believe the Vilna Gaon would tell the contemporary Torah world, “See, I was right, the Hasidim are a dangerous cult, as are any groups that make their Rebbe into a cultic personality.” In fact, one of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s followers started a blog called, “Rebbe-God.”[2]

In fairness to Chabad, I believe that the Vilna Gaon would probably save his sharpest criticism for the Neturei Karta, who literally stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hamas and Hezbollah. Although the Chabad may be overly obsessed with their deceased leader, at least they do enlist in the Israeli Reserves. At least they fight for the survival of Israel and defend its borders. I would also add that many Chabad rabbis I personally know do outstanding work in promoting Judaism around the world in places where Jewish life is weak. However, their refusal and inability to come to terms with the reality of the Rebbe’s death cannot bode well for the movement as a whole. Unfortunately, many of its leaders have chosen to take the insane path of Rabbis Aharon of Karlin and Abraham of Kalisk.

On a much more serious note, it is most unfortunate that the Haredi-Hassidic axis of religious fanaticism has devolved into something far worse than the original “cult” the Vilna Gaon dared to criticize in his times. For me, I will always remember the Vilna Gaon as one of the earliest and most important advocates of Religious Zionism.