418 A History of Judaism
The personality of the Baal Shem Tov thus became famous far beyond
Podolia and Volhynia where he was active, and he is portrayed in the
stories as travelling widely to meet with people of all kinds in small
groups or individually. But he did not preach in synagogues, or build an
institution, and on his death in 1760 it was unclear how his influence
would continue. It is testimony to his extraordinary reputation and
charisma that Dov Ber of Mezeritch, who is said to have met the Baal
Shem Tov only twice, devoted the rest of his life to promulgating the teach-
ings of his master, who had preached against just the sort of extreme
asceticism that Dov Ber had practised for much of his life.
Succession to the aura of the Baal Shem Tov was not immediate, nor
without problems. The selection of Dov Ber in 1766 after a hiatus was
opposed by Yaakov Yosef of Polonnoye, who had known the master for
much longer and could claim to preserve his teachings more accurately.
Many who had known the Baal Shem Tov closely declined to join what
rapidly became a mass movement, with emissaries sent from Dov Ber’s
headquarters in Mezeritch to attract others to his teachings. Some of
these emissaries were themselves charismatic leaders who developed,
over the last quarter of the eighteenth century, distinctive forms of
hasidic thought and life, each validated by the reverence accorded to the
tsaddik at its head. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, who became the
leading hasidic figure in Belorussia and Lithuania after the death of
Dov Ber in 1772, led a large group to the land of Israel in 1777, retain-
ing authority over his followers back home by correspondence.^58
Shneur Zalman of Lyady established a distinctive form of Hasidism
in the north- eastern provinces of Russia. Already known, according to
later hasidic hagiography, as a brilliant talmudist before he joined Dov
Ber in Mezeritch, he had composed a revision of the Shulhan Arukh by
the age of twenty- five in 1770. He developed a distinctive mystical
theology which incorporated intellectual effort, unlike the intuitive
approach to mysticism of the Baal Shem Tov. The Habad system he
devised stressed the importance of Hochma, Binah and Da’at, three
types of knowledge distinguished in kabbalist thought as ‘germinal,
developmental and conclusive’; the name ‘Habad’ is the acronym
formed from the three Hebrew words. Through spiritual exercises,
meditation and regular study, any man could strive to become a beinoni,
‘average man’. Such an average man cannot change the world, as the
exceptional individuals chosen from birth to be tsaddikim can, but they
can and should strive towards perfection by controlling evil in the world
and thus bringing the divine presence towards harmony and the soul to