ר׳ ישראל בן אליעזר בעל שם טוב

ר׳ ישראל בן אליעזר בעל שם טוב (traditionally 1698–1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov or Besht, was a healer, religious mystic and charismatic leader in Polish Podolia, regarded as the founder of modern Hasidism. Tradition locates his birth at Okopy, but nearly all accounts of his childhood and early adulthood come from later Hasidic hagiography; contemporary evidence becomes substantial only during his mature career. He worked in Podolian towns, reportedly as a teacher, ritual slaughterer and circumciser, learned rabbinic literature and practical and contemplative Kabbalah, and became known during the 1730s as a baal shem—one who healed and mediated spiritual or personal difficulties. His wife Chana was the sister of ר׳ אברהם גרשון מקיטוב; their children were Tzvi Hirsh and Udl, whose descendants became important Hasidic leaders. In 1740 he settled at Medzhybizh, where estate records document a tax-exempt communal house and identify its occupant successively as a kabbalist, baal shem and “baal shem doctor.” He led a circle of scholarly mystics that included ר׳ יעקב יוסף מפולנאה, ר׳ דב בער ממזריטש, ר׳ פנחס מקוריץ and ר׳ נחמן מהורודנקה. His teachings emphasized divine presence throughout existence, prayer with attachment and intention, joy, humility and service through ordinary material life. He authored no systematic book. His sayings survive chiefly through students’ writings, later anthologies and a small, textually disputed body of letters. He died and was buried in Medzhybizh in 1760; his disciples transformed his circle into a durable movement after his death.