Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T13:12:15.002Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hasidic Halakhah: Reappraising the Interface of Spirit and Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

Maoz Kahana*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
Ariel Evan Mayse*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access

Abstract

This paper offers a novel perspective regarding the interface between law, mysticism, and social reality. The inner turn that characterizes Hasidism is often understood through a binary model defined by the Christian Hebraists, and followed by many academic scholars, in which law and spirit exist in intractable tension. We suggest, however, that in the specific contexts of Hasidism, nomos, eros, and mystical piety often merged in distinctive ways, and that these are visible in novel forms of Jewish legal method and discourse. Our appreciation of the multifaceted Jewish religious and pietistic expressions of modernity should not be made to conform to the generally accepted definition of an era of strict “Orthodox” formulation and monolithic, conservative legal stagnation. Instead, we argue that the spiritual and legal ethos of Hasidism took on new forms in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as local identities became increasingly complex and new cultural fusions led to creative re-expressions of law and theology.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Maciejko, Paweł, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 82 Google Scholar (emphasis added). See also Doktór, Jan, “Frankism and Its Impact on the Mutual Perceptions of Christian and Jews,” Jewish History Quarterly (Kwartalnik Historii Żydów) 4 (2004): 486–91Google Scholar. On the Frankists more broadly, and the historical circumstances of their mass conversion, see Balaban, Meir, Le-toledot ha-tenu‘ah ha-frankit (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1934)Google Scholar, vol. 1.

2. In addition to the work of Stephen G. Burnett cited below, see Carlebach, Elisheva, “Attribution of Secrecy and Perceptions of Jewry,” Jewish Social Studies 2, no. 3 (1996): 115–36Google Scholar; Cohen, Jeremy, “Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom,” The American Historical Review 91, no. 3 (1986): 592613 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Idel, Moshe, “Johannes Reuchlin: Kabbalah, Pythagorean Philosophy and Modern Scholarship,” Studia Judaica 16 (2008): 3055 Google Scholar; Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm, “Political Theology in Renaissance Christian Kabbala: Petrus Galatinus and Guillaume Postel,” Hebraic Political Studies 1, no. 3 (2006): 286309 Google Scholar.

3. On this term, see Maciejko, Mixed Multitude, 63–91.

4. On the historical centrality of Christian Hebraism in the establishment of Jewish studies as an academic field, see Burnett, Stephen G., From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1996)Google Scholar; and see also Idel, Moshe, “Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah in the Early 17th Century,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Twersky, Isadore and Septimus, Bernard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 166–74Google Scholar.

5. On tensions between legal orthodoxy and spirituality in the study of Islamic mysticism, see Massignon, Louis, The Passion of Al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, ed. Mason, H., abridged ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 21 Google Scholar, 61, 340, 359. In a number of Sufi texts the strain between law and spirit is clearly visible, but Schimmel notes that even when Shari‘a is enumerated as a lower rung (or stage) of religious practice, Sufi thinkers often reiterate that religious law is nonetheless essential to the mystic path; see ibid., 16, 98–99. See also Kanarfogel, Ephraim, Peering through the Lattices: Mystical, Magical, and Pietistic Dimensions in the Tosafist Period (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2000), esp. 1931 Google Scholar.

6. Etkes, Immanuel, “The Zaddik: The Interrelationship between Religious Doctrine and Social Organization,” in Hasidism Reappraised, ed. Rapoport-Albert, Ada (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1997), 159–67Google Scholar; Idel, Moshe, “‘The Besht Passed His Hand over His Face’: On the Besht's Influence on His Followers—Some Remarks,” in After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions, ed. Wexler, Philip and Garb, Jonathan (New York: P. Lang, 2012), 79106 Google Scholar; Sharot, Stephen, “Hasidism and the Routinization of Charisma,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19, no. 4 (1980): 325–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Polen, Nehemia, “Charismatic Leader, Charismatic Book: Rabbi Shneur Zalman's Tanya and His Leadership,” in Rabbinic and Lay Communal Authority, ed. Last, Suzanne Stone (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2006), 5364 Google Scholar.

7. Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1974), 345 Google Scholar.

8. Excluding citations from scholarly literature, our transliteration of hasidic names and places follows that of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe as adjusted to fit the stylistic conventions of the present journal.

9. Similar notions of an unbridgeable rift between rabbinic orthodoxy and mystical anomianism, or even antinomianism, is a theme that repeats itself throughout Scholem's Major Trends. See also Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, trans. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 691–92.

10. Buber, Martin, “Interpreting Hasidism,” Commentary 36 (September 1963): 218 Google Scholar; Scholem, Gershom, “Martin Buber's Interpretation of Hasidism,” in The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1995), 228–50Google Scholar. For scholarly appraisals of their debate, see, inter alia, Oppenheim, Michael, “The Meaning of Hasidut: Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem,” The Journal of the American Academy of Religion 49, no. 3 (1981): 409–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedman, Maurice, “Interpreting Hasidism: The Buber-Scholem Controversy,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 33 (1988): 449–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moshe Idel, “Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem on Hasidism: A Critical Appraisal,” in Rapoport-Albert, Hasidism Reappraised, 176–202; Gellman, Jerome, “Buber's Blunder: To Scholem and Schatz-Uffenheimer,” Modern Judaism 20, no. 1 (2000): 2040 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Buber's and Scholem's thinking should be contextualized within broader antinomian trends in the philosophical circles of Weimer Germany; see Lazier, Benjamin, God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), esp. 135–90Google Scholar; and Löwy, Michael, Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity, trans. Heaney, Hope (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 4770 Google Scholar. We should note, however, that Erich Fromm devoted an entire chapter of his 1922 dissertation, entitled “Das jüdische Gesetz: zur Soziologie des Diaspora-Judentums,” to hasidic interpretations of Jewish law and the role of Halakhah in hasidic society. See also Garb, Jonathan, “Derakhim ‘okefot halakhah: ‘Iyyunim rishoni'im be-megamot ’anomiyut be-me'ah ha-‘esrim,” ’Akdamot 14 (2004): 117–30Google Scholar; and Garb, Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 148–68Google Scholar.

12. Buber, Martin, “Jewish Religiosity,” in On Judaism, ed. Glatzer, Nahum N., trans. Jospe, E. (New York: Schocken, 1967), 80 Google Scholar. In an essay from his later period, Buber reflected on the reasons that his enthusiasm for hasidic stories and teachings did not lead him to become a member of a hasidic community: “I could not become a Hasid. It would have been an impermissible masquerading had I taken on the Hasidic manner of life—I who had a wholly other relation to Jewish tradition, since I must distinguish in my innermost being between what is commanded me and what is not commanded me. It was necessary, rather, to take into my own existence as much as I actually could of what had been truly exemplified for me there, that is to say, of the realization of that dialogue with being whose possibility my thought had shown me”; see Buber, Martin, Hasidism and Modern Man, trans. Friedman, Maurice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), 3 Google Scholar. Buber's anomian—and, in many cases, antinomian—interpretation of Hasidism was criticized by many of his colleagues; see the exchange in Rosenzweig, Franz, On Jewish Learning, ed. Glatzer, Nahum N. (New York: Schocken, 1955), 7292 Google ScholarPubMed, 111–18, and see Buber's explanation in a letter to Maurice Friedman in The Letters of Martin Buber, ed. Glatzer, Nahum N. and Mendes-Flohr, Paul, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara and Zohn, Harry (New York: Schocken, 1991), no. 624, pp. 576–77Google Scholar.

13. Weiss, Joseph, “Torah Study in Early Hasidism,” in Studies in East European Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism, ed. Goldstein, David (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1997), 5668 Google Scholar.

14. Schatz-Uffenheimer, Rivka, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, trans. Chipman, Jonathan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), esp. 242–54Google Scholar.

15. Green, Arthur, Devotion and Commandment: The Faith of Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Green, Hasidism: Discovery and Retreat,” in The Other Side of God: A Polarity in World Religions, ed. Berger, Peter L. (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1981), 104–30Google Scholar; and cf. Green, “Early Hasidism: Some Old/New Questions,” in Rapoport-Albert, Hasidism Reappraised,  445. See also Gellman, Jerome, “The Figure of Abraham in Hasidic Literature,” Harvard Theological Review 91, no. 3 (1998): 279300 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Of course, the impulse to serve God beyond the commandments does not necessarily imply that one does so against them. For example, the notion of the Divine Will (reẓon ha-bore’) described by the German Pietists led to supererogatory levels of piety; see Soloveitchik, Haym, “Three Themes in Sefer Hasidim ,” AJS Review 1 (1976): 315–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Scholars have long been attracted to the possible flirtations with antinomianism found in the teachings of Mordecai Joseph of Izhbits (1800–1854); see Joseph Weiss, “A Late Jewish Utopia of Religious Freedom,” in Goldstein, Studies in East European Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism, 209–48; Faierstein, Morris M., All Is in the Hands of Heaven: The Teachings of Rabbi Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica, rev. ed. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2005)Google Scholar; Magid, Shaul, Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and Hefter, Herzl, “‘In God's Hands’: The Religious Phenomenology of R. Mordechai Yosef of Izbica,” Tradition 46 (2013): 4365 Google Scholar.

18. The late Yehoshua Mondshine offers the following very insightful remark: “Hasidism will always examine deeds in the light of the will of God and the instinctive inclination of the individual, both of which change according to the circumstances of time and place.” Yehoshua Mondshine, “The Fluidity of Categories in Hasidism: Averah Lishmah in the Teachings of R. Zevi Elimelekh of Dynow,” in Rapaport-Albert, Hasidism Reappraised, 309–10. See also Loewenthal, Naftali, “The Apotheosis of Action in Early Habad,” Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah 18 (1987)Google Scholar: v–xix. For a few key studies on this subject, in addition to those cited throughout the present article, see Wertheim, Aaron, Law and Custom in Hasidism, trans. Himelstein, Shmuel (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1992)Google Scholar; Brill, Alan, Thinking God: The Mysticism of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin (New York: Michael Scharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva University Press, 2002), 512 Google Scholar, 27–34, 134–62, 309–63; Dresner, Samuel H., Heschel, Hasidism and Halakha (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Magid, Shaul, “The Intolerance of Tolerance: Mahloket (Controversy) and Redemption in Early Hasidism,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 8, no. 4 (2001): 326–68Google Scholar.

19. There is a decidedly Pauline echo in the dichotomy between the spirit and the law in this way of reading Hasidism. Were this to be the case, we might have an interesting example of what Shaul Magid has described as a relative openness in Hasidism to developing theological affinities with Christianity precisely because these religious thinkers lived outside of the immediate gaze of high Christendom; see his Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), 114 Google Scholar. See ibid., 113–36, for Magid's remarks on Buber and the latter's interpretation of the Ba‘al Shem Tov as a spiritual leader who shared much in common with the founder of Christianity; and ibid., 51–80, where the author lays out a case for hasidic ethics as grounded in love for the Divine rather than strict obligation through the practice of Halakhah, which Magid argues neither abrogates the law nor competes with it. The thrust of our article, however, will present a different interpretation of hasidic spirituality and legal discourse, one in which love for God, human agency, charismatic power, communal practice, and legal creativity are constantly engaged with one another.

20. More broadly, see Twersky, Isadore, “Religion and Law,” in Religion in a Religious Age, ed. Goitein, Shlomo Dov (Cambridge, MA: Association for Jewish Studies, 1974), 6982 Google Scholar; Katz, Jacob, “Law, Spirituality and Society,” Jewish Social Studies 2, no. 2 (1996): 8798 Google Scholar, 105–8. For an exploration of the relationship between law and spirit in Jewish mysticism, see Wolfson, Elliot R., Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 187285 Google Scholar.

21. See the summary in Wilensky, Mordecai, “Hasidic-Mitnaggedic Polemics in the Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe: The Hostile Phase,” in Essential Papers on Hasidism, ed. Hundert, Gershon D. (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 244–71Google Scholar; and Gellman, Uriel, Sefer ḥasidim: Ḥibbur ganuz be-genutah shel ha-ḥasidut (Jerusalem: The Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, Hebrew University, 2007), 104–5Google Scholar, and n. 308. See also Green, Arthur, “Hasidism and Its Response to Change,” Jewish History 2–4 (2013): 319–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 328–33.

22. Joseph Weiss, “Torah Study in Early Hasidism,” 66–67.

23. Ariel Evan Mayse, “Beyond the Letters: The Question of Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2015), 421–45; and Mayse, , “The Ever-Changing Path: Visions of Legal Diversity in Hasidic Literature,” Conversations 23 (2015): 84115 Google Scholar.

24. Cooper, Levi, “Rabbanut, halakhah, ve-lamdanut: Zavit nosefet be-toledot R. Levi Yiẓḥak mi-Berditchov,” in ’Assufat ma'amarim ‘al Rabbi Levi Yiẓḥak mi-Berditchov,” ed. Mark, Zvi (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2017), 62130 Google Scholar.

25. Two sections of R. Pinḥas Horowitz's popular Sefer ha-fla'ah are commentaries to talmudic tractates, but his pietistic (and perhaps mystical) practices are best attested in the writings of his famed student Moshe Sofer.

26. The fact that the Horowitz brothers were very important rabbinic figures who were called upon to lead communities in central Europe was an important moment in the spread of Hasidism beyond the small circle of disciples around Dov Ber in Mezritsh.

27. In addition to Yisrael ben Shabetai's many homiletical and mystical works, see the controversial ‘Agunat Yisra'el (Warsaw: 1880).

28. Cooper, Levi, “Towards a Judicial Biography of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady,” Journal of Law and Religion 30, no. 1 (2015): 107–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, , “Mysteries of the Paratext: Why Did Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady Never Publish His Code of Law?,” Diné Israel 31 (2017): 43*84* Google Scholar; Rosenak, Avinoam, “Theory and Praxis in Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady: The Tanya and Shulhan ‘Arukh ha-Rav ,” Jewish Law Association Studies 22 (2012): 251–82Google Scholar; Mondshine, Yehoshua, Sifre ha-halakhah shel Admor ha-Zaken (Kefar Chabad: Kehot, 1984)Google Scholar.

29. Iris Brown, “R. Ḥayim mi-Ẓanz: Darkhe pesikato ‘al reka’ ‘olamo ha-ra‘ayoni ve-’etgare zemano” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2004); Levi Cooper, “Ha-Admor mi-Munkatsh, ha-Rav Ḥayim ‘Elazar Shapira: Ha-posek ha-ḥasidi—demut ve-shittah” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2011); Tamir Granot, “Tekumat ha-ḥasidut be-’Ereẓ Yisra'el ’aḥarei ha-sho'ah: Mishnato ha-ra‘ayonit, ha-hilkhatit ve-ha-ḥevratit shel ha-Admor R. Yekuti'el Yehudah Halberstam mi-Ẓanz-Kloyzenburg” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2008).

30. To the figures listed above we should add Meshullam Feibush Heller, who enjoyed a reputation for extensive knowledge of Jewish law, and the scholar Uziel Meisels, whose works Tif'eret ha-Ẓevi (Zolkiev: 1803) and Tif'eret ‘Uziel (Warsaw: 1863) exhibit great legal agility.

31. Hallamish, Moshe, Ha-kabbalah ba-tefillah, ba-halakhah u-va-minhag (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Hallamish, , “Kabbalah ke-hitraḥashut,” Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah 70 (2011): 533 Google Scholar; Idel, Moshe, “‘One from a Town, Two from a Clan’: The Diffusion of Lurianic Kabbala and Sabbateanism: A Reexamination,” Jewish History 7, no. 2 (1993): 79104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bar-Levav, Avriel, “Ritualization of Jewish Life and Death in the Early Modern Period,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 47 (2002): 6982 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Faierstein, Morris M., Jewish Customs of Kabbalistic Origin: Their History and Practice (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013)Google Scholar. On the ritual embodiment of theology in Luria's own circle of disciples, see Fine, Lawrence, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 118 Google Scholar, 187–299. The spread of Safed Kabbalah in Europe and its multivalent incorporation into ritual life was also tied to the proliferation of hagiographical works extolling the piety and practices of Luria and his students or associates; see Fishbane, Eitan, “Perceptions of Greatness: Constructions of the Holy Man in Shivhei ha-Ari ,” Kabbalah 27 (2012): 195221 Google Scholar. For a range of studies exploring how Jewish thinkers and communities have translated theology or sacred texts into praxis and lived religious experience, see the excellent collection Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, ed. Fine, Lawrence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

32. See the summary of offenses given in Wilensky, “Hasidic Mitnaggedic Polemics,” 89–113.

33. Similar claims of continuity are also found regarding hasidic theology. See Shlomo of Lutsk's introduction to Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Maggid devarav le-Ya‘akov (Korets: 1781), in which the author traces the imagined development of Kabbalah from Moses through the Zohar to Moshe Cordovero and Isaac Luria. His description of the evolution of Kabbalah naturally culminates with the new stage ushered in by the Ba‘al Shem Tov and his disciple Dov Ber of Mezritsh.

34. T. Ta‘anit 1:7; cf. B. Ta‘anit 10b. Here the term talmid ḥakham carries the connotation of someone who observes an extra measure of piety.

35. Heb. yad va-shem, Isaiah 56:5.

36. Wilensky notes that the Brody writ of excommunication allows only famous individuals to pray according to the Lurianic rite, and alludes to the practice of wearing white garments on the Sabbath.

37. M. Menaḥot 13:11; and cf. B. Berakhot 5b.

38. Cleverly reinterpreting the talmudic discussion over the question of whether Sabbath boundaries apply to the space above ten handbreadths from the ground (teḥumin le-ma‘alah mi-‘asarah); see B. Eruvin 43a.

39. Wilensky, Mordecai, Ḥasidim u-mitnagdim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970), 1:8788 Google Scholar.

40. Mayse, “Beyond the Letters,” 121–34.

41. Wilensky, Ḥasidim u-mitnagdim, 201–2. Cf. Likkute ’amarim-tanya’, sha‘ar ha-yiḥud ve-ha-’emunah, chap. 7.

42. Jacobs, Louis, “The Uplifting of Sparks in Later Jewish Mysticism,” in Jewish Spirituality, ed. Green, Arthur, vol. 2: From the Sixteenth-Century Revival to the Present (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 99126 Google Scholar; and Idel, Moshe, “The Tsadik and His Soul's Sparks: From Kabbalah to Hasidism,” Jewish Quarterly Review 103, no. 2 (2013): 196240 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This issue was of moment in the debate over Safed Kabbalah because the notion of uplifting the fallen divine sparks, central to the Lurianic project and hasidic teachings, does not explicitly appear in classical kabbalistic works like the Zohar.

43. On the broader concept of ḥumrah in early modern Halakhah, see Brown, Benjamin, “Haḥmarah: Ḥamishah tipusim min ha-‘et ha-ḥadashah,” Dine Israel 20–21 (2000–2001): 123237 Google Scholar.

44. Rosman, Moshe, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba‘al Shem Tov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 2830 Google Scholar, 33–34, 115; Etkes, Immanuel, The Besht: Magician, Mystic, and Leader, trans. Sternberg, Saadya (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2005), esp. 122–66Google Scholar, 254; Brody, Seth, “‘Open to Me the Gates of Righteousness’: The Pursuit of Holiness and Non-Duality in Early Hasidic Teaching,” Jewish Quarterly Review 89, no. 1/2 (1998): 344 Google Scholar. See also Mayse, “Beyond the Letters,” 104–5; Uriel Gellman, “Ha-ḥasidut be-Polin ba-maḥaẓit ha-rishonah shel ha-me'ah ha-tesha‘ ‘esreh: Tipologiyut shel manhigut va-‘edah” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2001), 180, 181–82 n. 22; and cf. Nadler, Allan, The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 78103 Google Scholar.

45. For example, see Tsevi Elimelekh of Dinov, Bene Yissakhar (Bene Berak: Bene Shelishim, 2005–8)Google Scholar, vol. 2, ma'amare ḥodesh tishre 10:7.

46. See the sharp words of Naḥman of Bratslav, Likkute Moharan (Jerusalem: 2012), 2, no. 44.

47. Menaḥem Naḥum of Chernobil, Me'or ‘enayim (Jerusalem: 2012), 356.

48. Likkutim yekarim, ed. Kahn, Avraham Yiẓḥak (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Toledot Aharon, 1973)Google Scholar, no. 11, 2b.

49. Early hasidic sources often describe the emergence of thoughts as a type of ongoing revelation that transpires within the human mind, taking place as new ideas bubble forth from the infinite realm of inner creativity that serves as a nexus between God and man. See, for example, Mayse, “Beyond the Letters,” 228–31, 403–21; and Hurwitz, Sigmund, “Psychological Aspects in Early Hasidic Literature,” trans. Nagel, Hildegard, in Timeless Documents of the Soul (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 149240 Google Scholar.

50. Likkutim yekarim, no. 23, 4b.

51. Here we should note the claim of Schatz-Uffenheimer, Hasidism as Mysticism, 254: “The difference between Hasidism and Sabbatianism in terms of its common spiritualistic outlook lies only in the inversion of the formula. That which Sabbatianism gained through the formula, ‘he who permits the forbidden,’ was achieved by Hasidism through that of, ‘who prohibits the permitted.’ But in terms of the judgment of history, this reversal is important in principle; Jewish orthodoxy struggled equally with both of these outlooks and, in terms of the history of the struggle for the preservation of a unified image of Judaism, they were indeed synonymous.” Schatz-Uffenheimer seems to  have been unaware of the more sophisticated dimensions of hasidic Halakhah discussed here, but she also misses an important nomian aspect of Sabbatian thought as well. See Tishby, Isaiah, “Hanhagot Natan ha-‘Azati, ’iggerot R. Moshe Zakkut, ve-takkanot ba-sefer Ḥemdat yamim ,” in Ḥikre kabbalah ve-sheluḥoteha: Meḥkarim u-mekorot (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993), 2:339–64Google Scholar; Benayahu, Meir, “Hanhagot Natan Ha-‘Azati,” Sefunot 14 (1978): 257306 Google Scholar; and, recently, Kahana, Maoz, “Shabtai Zvi: ’Ish ha-halakhah,” Zion 81, no. 3/4 (2016): 391433 Google Scholar; Kahana, , “Cosmos and Nomos—Sacred Space and Legal Action, from Rabbi Yosef Karo to Shabbatai Tsevi,” El Prezente 10 (2016): 143–53Google Scholar.

52. Soloveitchik, Haym, “Halakhah, Hermeneutics, and Martyrdom in Medieval Ashkenaz (Part 1 of 2),” Jewish Quarterly Review 94, no. 1 (2004): 77108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soloveitchik, , “Halakhah, Hermeneutics, and Martyrdom in Medieval Ashkenaz (Part 2 of 2),” Jewish Quarterly Review 94, no. 2 (2004): 278–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soloveitchik, , “Catastrophe and Halakhic Creativity: Ashkenaz—1096, 1242, 1306 and 1298,” Jewish History 12, no. 1 (1998): 7185 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “Progress and Tradition in Medieval Ashkenaz,” Jewish History 14 (2000): 287315 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. On this phenomenon, see Kahana, Maoz, “Mekorot ha-yeda’ u-temurot ha-zeman: Ẓava'at R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid ba-‘et ha-ḥadashah,” in Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought, ed. Kreisel, Howard, Huss, Boaz, and Ehrlich, Uri (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2009), 223–62Google Scholar. On demons see Idel, Moshe, “Gazing at the Head in Ashkenazi Hasidism,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6, no. 2 (1997): 265300 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soloveitchik, Haym, “Piety, Pietism and German Pietism: Sefer Hasidim I and the Influence of Hasidei Ashkenaz ,” Jewish Quarterly Review 92, no. 3/4 (2002): 455–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On communal customs see Galinsky, Judah, “Custom, Ordinance or Commandment? The Evolution of the Medieval Monetary-Tithe in Ashkenaz,” Journal of Jewish Studies 62, no. 2 (2011): 203–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shyovitz, David I., “‘You Have Saved Me from the Judgment of Gehenna’: The Origins of the Mourner's Kaddish in Medieval Ashkenaz,” AJS Review 39, no. 1 (2015): 4973 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Baraita de-Niddah: Marienberg, Evyatar, “Lorsque la femme d'Eléazar de Worms croise un âne: la ‘Baraïta de Niddah’ et son influence sur les coutumes des juives ashkénazes, de l'époque médiévale à nos jours,” Revue des études juives 164, no. 1–2 (2005): 235–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Rabbi Judah's “Testament”: Hallamish, Moshe, “Rabbi Judah the Pious’ Will in Halakhic and Kabbalistic Literature,” in Mysticism, Magic and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism: International Symposium Held in Frankfurt a.M. 1991, ed. Grözinger, Karl Erich and Dan, Joseph (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), 117–22Google Scholar; Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “R. Judah he-Hasid and the Rabbinic Scholars of Regensburg: Interactions, Influences, and Implications,” Jewish Quarterly Review 96, no. 1 (2006): 1737 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Zohar see the classic studies of Ta-Shma, Israel M., Ha-nigleh she-ba-nistar: Le-ḥeker sheki‘e ha-halakhah be-sefer ha-zohar (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me’uḥad, 2001)Google Scholar and Katz, Jacob, Divine Law in Human Hands: Case Studies in Halakhic Flexibility (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1998)Google Scholar.

54. On the broader issue of changing attitudes toward Halakhah in this region at the cusp of modernity, see Berkovitz, Jay R., “Crisis and Authority in Early Modern Ashkenaz,” Jewish History 26, no. 1–2 (2012): 179–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Berkovitz, , “The Persona of a Poseq: Law and Self-Fashioning in Seventeenth-Century Ashkenaz,” Modern Judaism 32, no. 3 (2012): 251–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Katz, Jacob, A House Divided: Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry, trans. Brody, Ziporah (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998)Google Scholar.

55. Kahana, Maoz, Me-ha-Noda’ bi-Yehudah le-ha-Ḥatam Sofer: Halakhah ve-hagut le-nokhaḥ ’etgare ha-zeman (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2015), 223–48Google Scholar; Silber, Michael K., “The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition,” in The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era, ed. Wertheimer, Jack (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 2384 Google Scholar.

56. On this controversy, see Wertheim, Law and Custom in Hasidism, 291–95; Kahana, Me-ha-Noda’ bi-Yehudah le-ha-Ḥatam Sofer, 323–30.

57. Lit. “passing before the ark.”

58. Cf. Moshe Isserles's comments to Shulḥan ‘arukh, yoreh de‘ah 303, for the position that accidentally wearing a forbidden mixture is a lesser infraction than doing so intentionally.

59. Lit. “descends before the ark.”

60. Teitelbaum, R. Moshe, Heshiv Moshe (Lemberg: 1866), no. 7Google Scholar.

61. Elior, Rachel, “Rabbi Nathan Adler and the Frankfurt Pietists: Pietist Groups in Eastern and Central Europe during the Eighteenth Century,” in Judische Kultur in Frankfurt am Main, von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Erich, Karl Grozinger (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 135–77Google Scholar.

62. B. Sanhedrin 89a.

63. She'elot u-teshuvot Ḥatam Sofer (1819), ’oraḥ ḥayim 15.

64. Ibid.

65. See also R. Shnuer Zalman of Liady, Shulḥan ‘arukh ha-Rav, no. 489, 29–30.

66. She'elot u-teshuvot Ḥatam Sofer, ’oraḥ ḥayim 197. On this responsum, see Kahana, Maoz, “‘Yesh lanu ’av zaken’—ha-shamranut ha-ḥadshanit shel ha-Ḥatam Sofer,” in Ha-gedolim: Ha-’ishim ha-gedolim she-‘iẓvu ’et pene ha-yahadut ha-ḥaredit be-Yisra'el, ed. Leon, Nissim and Brown, Benjamin (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 2017), 73104 Google Scholar.

67. Kahana, Maoz, “Keẓad bikesh ha-Ḥatam Sofer le-naẓeaḥ ’et Shpinoza? Tekst, lamdanut, ve-romantikah be-ketivat ha-Ḥatam Sofer,” Tarbiz 79, no. 3 (2011): 557–85Google Scholar.

68. Shapira, Pinḥas, ’Imre Pinḥas (Bene Berak: 2003)Google Scholar, vol. 1, sha‘ar ‘avodat ha-shem, no. 29, 331.

69. Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Maggid devarav le-Ya‘akov (Korets: 1784)Google Scholar, 8a; No‘am ’Elimelekh, ed. Nigal, Gedalyah (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1978), 1:109–10Google Scholar.

70. The role of the Holy Spirit in deciding matters of Halakhah, and indeed the very meaning of the phrase ruaḥ ha-kodesh in legal literature, have long been the subject of controversy. See, for example, the comments of R. Abraham ben David (Rabad) to Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, hilkhot shofar ve-sukkah ve-lulav 8:5; and Twersky, Isadore, Rabad of Posquieres: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist, rev. ed. (Skokie, IL: Varda Books, 2001), 86 Google Scholar, 292. See also the famous She'elot ve-teshuvot min ha-shamayim, a volume of medieval responsa framed as divine responses to questions posed by the author; see Ta-Shma, Israel M., “She'elot u-teshuvot min ha-shamayim,” Tarbiz 57, no. 1 (1988): 5166 Google Scholar. It is not uncommon to find later legal adjudicators claiming that all rabbinic enactments (i.e., those from the time of the Mishnah and Talmud) were accomplished by means of the Divine Spirit; see R. Efrayim Zalman Margoliyot, She'elot u-teshuvot bet ’Efrayim, ’oraḥ ḥayim, no. 64; and R. Shelomoh Drimmer, She'elot u-teshuvot bet Shelomoh, ’oraḥ ḥayim, no. 112. It is interesting to note that certain later hasidic responsa extend this notion forward in time, arguing that even the rulings of medieval authorities reflect the imprint of the Divine Spirit; see R. Avraham Borenstein, She'elot u-teshuvot ’avne nezer, ’oraḥ ḥayim, no. 27; ibid., ’oraḥ ḥayim, no. 272; R. Ḥayim Halbershtam, She'elot u-teshuvot divre Ḥayim, yoreh de'ah, vol. 2, no. 105; and cf. R. Moshe Feinstein, ’Iggeret Moshe, ’even ha-‘ezer, vol. 4, no. 9.

71. Wilensky, Ḥasidim u-mitnagdim, 80–83.

72. Ben-Amos, Dan and Mintz, Jerome, In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov [Shivhei ha-Besht]: The Earliest Collection of Legends about the Founder of Hasidism (Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1993), 166–67Google Scholar. Cf. the antihasidic testimony cited above.

73. A legal incident in the 1790s concerning such a hasidic leader is described in Yoav ben Yirmiyah, Zeved tov (Zolkiev: 1806), kuntres ’Aḥaron, 169b (unpaginated). Traditions regarding the identity of this tzaddik, “who is like a true prophet in the eyes of the masses” appear in relation to the Maggid of Kozhenits as well; see Kahana, Yiẓḥak Ze'ev, Mehkarim be-sifrut ha-teshuvah (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1973), 416 Google Scholar. Cf. She'erit Yisra'el (Lublin: 1895), 23a, where the Maggid of Kozhenits refers to the tzaddikim of later generations using the Holy Spirit in determining points of law.

74. See the tradition in Tanna de-ve ’Eliyahu ‘im perush ramatayyim ẓofim (Jerusalem: 1966)Google Scholar, Seder ’Eliyahu Zuta, 32b, no. 17. This work is not a legal text per se, but rather a testimony close to the events at hand.

75. A report of this incident was preserved in a fiery letter of protestation by Moshe Sofer in ’Iggerot soferim (Vienna: 1929), no. 40, 38–39.

76. The responsum was eventually published in the hasidic periodical Koveẓ bet ’Aharon ve-Yisra'el 148, no. 4 (1990): 22 Google Scholar.

77. Piekarz, Mendel, Ha-hanhagah ha-ḥasidit: Samkhut ve-’emunat ẓaddikim be-’aspaklariyat sifrut (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1999)Google Scholar; and Piekarz, “Hasidism as a Socio-religious Movement on the Evidence of Devekut,” in Rapoport-Albert, Hasidism Reappraised, 225–48.

78. This notion of the hasidic master as the charismatic decider of law may not be far afield from the early rabbinic practice outlined in Polen, Nehemia, “ Derashah as Performative Exegesis in Tosefta and Mishnah,” in Midrash and the Exegetical Mind, ed. Teugels, Lieve and Ulmer, Rivka (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2010), 123–53Google Scholar.

79. Kahana, Maoz and Cooper, Levi, “The Legal Pluralism of an Enclave Society: The Case of Munkatch Hasidism,” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 48, no. 1 (2016): 117 Google Scholar. See also Nadler, Allan L., “The War on Modernity of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz,” Modern Judaism 14, no. 3 (1994): 223–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ravitzky, Aviezer, “Munkacs and Jerusalem: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Zionism and Agudaism,” in Zionism and Religion, ed. Almog, Shmuel, Reinharz, Jehuda, and Shapira, Anita (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1998), 6789 Google Scholar.

80. See, for example, Ḥayim Elazar Shapira of Munkatsh, Divre Torah, vol. 7, no. 10; and cf. Divre Torah, vol. 3, no. 62; Minḥat Elazar, vol. 5, no. 21.

81. Morgenstern, R. Yiẓḥak Meir, She'elot u-teshuvot yam ha-ḥokhmah (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yam Ha-ḥokhmah, 2010), vol. 1, no. 1, 1927 Google Scholar. It is worth noting that our text is the first entry in the initial volume of his responsa. Morgenstern, who was raised in London and later immigrated to Israel, is an intriguing figure whose intellectual output represents a fusion of different cultural influences. His teachings synthesize a wide range of kabbalistic traditions from Ashkenazic and especially Sephardic works, and are characterized by the interpretation of legal material (both talmudic and post-talmudic) through the lens of mystical and hasidic literature. Morgenstern's approach to Halakhah reflects syncretist elements of contemporary Israeli haredi society and is surely no carbon copy of that found in east European Hasidism, but his legal thinking (and much of his theology as well) is largely continuous with key aspects of the hasidic tradition. See Garb, Jonathan, “Mystical and Spiritual Discourse in the Contemporary Ashkenazi Haredi Worlds,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 9, no. 1 (2010): 1736 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 23–25; and Garb, Contemporary Kabbalah and Classical Kabbalah: Breaks and Continuities,” in After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions, ed. Wexler, Philip and Garb, Jonathan (New York: Peter Lang, 2012), 2223 Google Scholar.

82. B. Bava Meẓi‘a 59b. See Englard, Itzhak, “Tanuro shel ’Akhnai—perushehah shel ’aggadah,” Shenaton ha-mishpat ha-‘ivri 1 (1974): 4556 Google Scholar; Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 3463 Google Scholar; Halberstam, Chaya, “Encircling the Law: The Legal Boundaries of Rabbinic Judaism,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 16, no. 4 (2009): 396424 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brand, Itzhak, “Can Wondrous Signs Determine Law? A Comparison of Two Talmudic Traditions,” Revue des études juives 172, nos. 1–2 (2013): 122 Google Scholar.

83. Morgenstern, She'elot u-teshuvot yam ha-ḥokhmah, 20.

84. See Morgenstern's theoretical analysis of the legal dimensions of the various times of prayer in his Yam ha-ḥokhmah 5768 (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yam Ha-ḥokhmah, 2008), 242–49Google Scholar.

85. Here Morgenstern takes issue with those who accept that the Zohar may be used in determining the law when classical adjudicators disagree, but do not extend the same authority to traditions and practices attributed to Isaac Luria; She'elot u-teshuvot yam ha-ḥokhmah, 23–24, referring to a responsum of Moshe Feinstein in ’Iggerot Moshe, ’oraḥ ḥayim, vol. 4, no. 3.

86. In this case Morgenstern is justifying a hasidic practice and subtly broadening it into a more universal legal phenomenon. Thus his responsum is suggestive of a new stage in the expansion and reworking of the tradition of ruaḥ ha-kodesh within Jewish legal discourse, and not simply its institutionalization. Decisions and reasoning such as this likely reflect the influence of the Israeli haredi context. See Garb, “Mystical and Spiritual Discourse,” 17–36; and, more broadly, Friedman, Menachem, The Haredi Ultra-Orthodox Society: Sources, Trends and Processes (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1991)Google Scholar; Caplan, Kimmy, “Israeli Haredi Society and the Repentance (hazarah biteshuvah) Phenomenon,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 8, no. 4 (2001): 369–98Google Scholar.

87. Morgenstern, She'elot u-teshuvot yam ha-ḥokhmah, 27.

88. Morgenstern then gives several examples of kabbalistic customs that seem to contradict the ruling as presented in the Talmud and legal codes, spilling much ink in an attempt to identify an ancient source that supports the mystical practices.

89. See, for example, Shabetai ha-Kohen's excurses on Shulḥan ‘arukh, yoreh de‘ah, no. 110; and the well-known discussion in Heller, Aryeh Leib ha-Kohen, Shev shema‘tata (Lemberg: 1804)Google Scholar.

90. Of course, these questions are also the subject of great debate in earlier rabbinic and kabbalistic literature; see the introduction of the fourteenth-century Yaakov ben Asher to his ’Arba‘ah turim, in which he claims to have undertaken his codificatory project in order to clarify the many doubts that had arisen regarding the proper modes of Jewish conduct; and see also Maimonides's introduction to Mishneh Torah, where, based on T. Sanhedrin 7:1 and T. Sotah 14:9, he attributes all rabbinic disagreements and the eventual division of Halakhah into multiple streams to the fact that the students of Shammai and Hillel were not sufficiently attentive to their masters’ words. The plurality of Halakhah in his time—and thus an impetus for writing Mishneh Torah—is the result of defective transmission. However, de Leon, Moshe, Sefer ha-rimmon, ed. Wolfson, Elliot R. (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), 366–67Google Scholar, describes the unfolding of divergent opinions as the result of ideas being refracted through the matrix of the sefirot; and cf. Moshe Cordovero, Pardes rimmonim 9:2. Cf. the comments of Ritva to B. Eruvin 11a, and the sixteenth-century Maharshal, Yam shel Shelomoh, Bava kamma, introduction.

91. For an exploration of hasidic texts addressing these issues, see Mayse, “Ever-Changing Path,” 84–115. Without duplicating the discussion in full, we will revisit a few of the key sermons cited therein in order to sharpen our points vis-à-vis the two other approaches detailed above.

92. M. Beẓah 1:1.

93. B. Eruvin 13b, and B. Ḥagigah 3b. See further Sagi, Avi, The Open Canon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse, trans. Stein, Batya (London: Continuum, 2007)Google Scholar; Rosensweig, Michael, “ ‘Elu Va-‘elu Divrei Elokim Hayyim’: Halakhic Pluralism and Theories of Controversy,” Tradition 26, no. 3 (1992): 423 Google Scholar; Sokol, Moshe, “What Does a Jewish Text Mean? Theories of ‘Elu ve-Elu Divrei Elohim Hayim’ in Rabbinic Literature,” Daat: a Journal of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah 32–33 (1994): xxiiixxxv Google Scholar.

94. B. Bava Meẓi‘a 59b.

95. Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Magid devarav le-Ya‘akov, ed. Schatz-Uffenheimer, Rivka (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1976), no. 58, 8687 Google Scholar.

96. In classical Kabbalah da‘at is often counted as one of the central sefirot, which, like tif'eret, functions as bridge between the higher sefirot (keter, ḥokhmah, binah) and those below it (ḥesed, gevurah, tif'eret). Furthermore, the hasidic masters interpret da‘at in light of “and Adam knew (yada’) his wife Eve” (Genesis 4:1), understanding it as referring to a type of mystical awareness that create an intimate bond with the Divine. See, for example, Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Magid devarav le-Ya‘akov, ed. Schatz-Uffenheimer, no. 87, 152.

97. Zohar 1:47b–48b, 134a. The Zohar often correlates the Written Torah with tif'eret, which emerged from ḥokhmah, the abstract realm associated with the Torah that predated the world; see Zohar 3:160a. See also Perush ha-’aggadot le-Rabbi Azriel, ed. Tishby, Isaiah (Jerusalem: Mekiẓe Nirdamim, 1945), 23 Google Scholar, 77, 81–82. Moses is associated with the sefirah tif'eret, which represents the Written Torah, and he is also referred to as ba‘al ha-matronita, the “husband of Shekhinah” or malkhut. But in some texts, particularly those of the Lurianic tradition, Moses is associated with the higher sefirah of da‘at. See Wolfson, Elliot R., “The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience: Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar,” Religion 18, no. 4 (1988): 378–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 388; Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 3, 89 Google Scholar, 14–15; Hellner-Eshed, Melila, A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar, trans. Wolski, Nathan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 7576 Google Scholar, 91–92; Fine, Physician of the Soul, 314–15; Mayse, “Beyond the Letters,” 348–62.

98. For the relatively few historical records of the Maggid's rulings, see Levine, Shalom Dovber, Toledot ḥabad be-Rusyah ha-ẓarit: Ba-shanim 530–680 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2010)Google Scholar, chap. 5; Mayse, “Beyond the Letters,” 52, 428–29.

99. Katz, Divine Law, 56–87; and Matt, Daniel Chanan, “Adorning the ‘Bride’ on the Eve of the Feast of Weeks,” in Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, ed. Fine, Lawrence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 7480 Google Scholar.

100. A paraphrase of B. Eruvin 53a. Cf. B. Sanhedrin 93b.

101. On deciding matters of law according to the root of one's soul, see below. More broadly, see Scholem, Gershom, “The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism,” in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, trans. Manheim, Ralph (New York: Schocken, 1996), 6465 Google Scholar; and Idel, Moshe, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 9798 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102. Zohar 3:21a.

103. Referring to the six sefirot from ḥesed to yesod.

104. B. Ḥullin 60b.

105. Zohar 1:64a; 3:96b, 197a.

106. The Hebrew term beit kenesset sometimes appears as a name for Shekhinah; see Tikkune zohar, ed. Margoliot, Reuven (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1978)Google Scholar, tikkun 69, 115a. On beit kenesset as the assembly point for all blessings, see Tikkune zohar, ed. Margoliot, tikkun 47, 84b.

107. Sifra, Barayta de-Rabbi Yishma‘el (ed. Weiss, 1a–3a).

108. Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Maggid devarav le-Ya'akov, nos. 189, 291.

109. Quoted in the story on b. Bava Meẓi‘a 59b. Cf. Deuteronomy 17:11; Y. Mo‘ed Katan 3:1, 9a; Y. Sanhedrin 1:4, 6a–b; B. Ḥullin 11a; Derashot ha-Ran, no. 7; Zohar 2:117a. See Englard, Itzhak, “Majority Decision vs. Individual Truth: The Interpretation of the ‘Oven of Achnai’ Aggadah,” in Jewish Law and Legal Theory, ed. Golding, Martin P. (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 353–68Google Scholar; Urbach, Ephraim E., “‘Al ha-kelal ‘’aḥarei rabim le-hatot,’” in Studies in Jewish Thought, ed. Har, Moshe David and Fraenkel, Jonah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1998), 503–9Google Scholar; Elon, Mordecai, “’Emunat ḥakhamim be-‘’aḥarei rabim le-hatot’ u-ve-‘lo tasur,’Torah she-be‘al peh 45 (2006): 191205 Google Scholar.

110. Here we might recall the debate about the role of intuition in legal decision-making more broadly; see Hutcheson, Joseph C. Jr., “The Judgment Intuitive: The Function of the ‘Hunch’ in Judicial Decision,” Cornell Law Quarterly 14 (1928–29): 274–88Google Scholar; Wasserstrom, Richard A., The Judicial Decision: Toward a Theory of Legal Justification (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961), esp. 2021 Google Scholar, 89–115.

111. In this the Maggid follows the talmudic attitude; see, for instance, B. Berakhot 3b; B. Sanhedrin 93b. The utilization of this Davidic model for contemporary metalegal discourse is rather interesting, and a parallel move to that of the Maggid can be found in the works of the Ḥatam Sofer; see Kahana, Me-ha-Noda’ bi-Yehudah le-ha-Ḥatam Sofer, 428–30.

112. See also Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “Torah Study and Truth in Medieval Ashkenazic Rabbinic Literature and Thought,” in Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought, ed. Kreisel, Howard (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2006), 101–19Google Scholar.

113. Sha‘ar ha-gilgulim, hakdamah, 34. For examples in works of the Maggid's students, see R. Levi Yiẓḥak of Barditshev, Kedushat Levi, vol. 1, purim, 237; R. Menaḥem Mendel of Vitebsk, Peri ha-’areẓ (Jerusalem: Ha-mesorah, 1989)Google Scholar, korah, 93–94; R. Uziel Meisels, Tif'eretUziel, shir ha-shirim, 85–86, where it is cited as a Lurianic tradition. Naftali Bakhrakh refers to the notion that each person's soul derives from a certain letter of the 600,000 in the Torah, and that therefore there are 600,000 explanations of Scripture. Although many of these will only be available in the future, Bakhrakh says that Isaac Luria could discern each person's origin in a particular verse simply by examining their forehead, then conferring upon them the fitting scriptural interpretation based on this information; see ‘Emek ha-melekh (Jerusalem: Yerid Ha-sefarim, 2003)Google Scholar, 16:30, 843.

114. Another reading of this same sermon, however, might yield a description of deciding the Halakhah as a theurgic practice.

115. B. Eruvin 13b.

116. Kedushat Levi, vol. 2, likkutim, 479.

117. B. Menaḥot 34b.

118. R. Levi Yiẓḥak of Barditshev, Kedushat Levi, vol. 1, purim, 237.

119. See also his formulation in Kedushat Levi, vol. 2, likkutim, 463–65.

120. The next generations of hasidic leaders engaged with and developed this notion. See, for instance, Avraham Yehoshua of Apt, ’Ohev Yisra'el (Bene Berak: 1996)Google Scholar, toledot, 23; ibid., be-shalah, 92–93, and the discussion in Mayse, “Ever-Changing Path,” 101–3.

121. Tsevi Hirsch of Zhidachov, Peri kodesh hilulim (1832), derush la-sefirah, 12a. Tsevi Hirsch (1763–1831) was a student of the “Seer” of Lublin.

122. B. Niddah 73a.

123. This letter was printed in Kerem ḥemed 4 (1839): 56.

124. A strikingly similar conceptualization of Halakhah that attributed to legal change across generations to different “soul-roots” is found in a contemporary work published just before the end of the eighteenth century. The author, Yiẓḥak of Krisnapoli, was apparently a rabbinic and legal scholar in addition to being well versed in Kabbalah. He was not clearly connected to any early hasidic circles, but the legal ethos he articulates is remarkably familiar: each generation has a unique source in the Divine, and its leaders are tasked with developing an approach to Torah that befits their own spiritual circumstances. This constantly evolving system, which necessitates changing laws and practices in addition to homiletical creativity, is graced unto teachers and legal scholars as a veritable revelation from the Divine. See Yiẓḥak of Krisnapoli, Sod berit Yiẓḥak (Zolkiev: 1799)Google Scholar, 75b.

125. R. Yiẓḥak Ayzik's legal decisions (and his once-hidden work of Halakhah published as Shulḥan ha-tahor) have not yet been the subject of a proper academic study, but on the style of his rabbinic scholarship and legal method, see Yakov Meir, “‘Iẓuvah shel lamdanut ḥasidit: Bio-bibliografiyah shel Rabbi Yiẓḥak Ayzik Safrin mi-Komarna (1831–1853)” (Master's thesis, Hebrew University, 2012).

126. Safrin, Yiẓḥak Ayzik, Shulḥan ha-tahor (Tel Aviv: 1963)Google Scholar, vol. 1, zer zahav, no. 34, 36–44. On the different kinds of tefillin, see above.

127. Ibid.

128. The opinion of R. Yose in B. Berakhot 40b (“One who changes the form of the blessings established by the sages does not fulfill his obligation”) is often cited as precedent against inventing new blessings or modifying existing ones.

129. Yiẓḥak Ayzik Safrin, Shulḥan ha-tahor, vol. 2, no. 222, 82. See also ibid., vol. 1, zer zahav, no. 4, 14, where the author notes that although he received a tradition that the Ba‘al Shem Tov would recite a blessing before smoking his pipe, Safrin did not know the appropriate blessing and therefore would not say one. He then adds, however, that a great sage (talmid ḥakham muflag) may formulate his own blessing—for a pipe or any other such thing not obviously included in one of the classical blessings.

130. In addition to those recalled thus far, see ’Or ha-’emet (Zhitomir: 1900)Google Scholar, 63b. Cf. Keter shem tov (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2004)Google Scholar, no. 423b; Likkutim yekarim, 69a, no. 337; Darkhe ẓedek (Lvov: 1798), 18; and Ma'amare Admor ha-Zaken 5565 (New York: Kehot, 1981)Google Scholar, vol. 1, 489. We would like to thank scholar Eli Rubin for bringing this text to our attention. See also Yosher divre ’emet (Bene Berak: 2003)Google Scholar, kuntres sheni, no. 3.