Quotes About Hasidism

It is in man that God must be loved, because the love of God goes through the love of man. Whoever loves God exclusively, namely excluding man, reduces his love and his God to the level of abstraction. Beshtian Hasidism denies all abstraction.

Historically speaking, however, the synthetic path of development—which includes the stage of the hero fight—was never followed in Christianity as it grew up under Gnostic influences, but only in alchemy, the cabala, and above all in Hasidism.

Hasidism is considered Ultra-Orthodox, but when it began in the 1730s in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, it was seen as liberal and even revolutionary because of its emphasis of the heart over the Head. This movement was inspired by the Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), a man beloved not so much for his book learning as for his heartfelt spirituality, his down-to-earth stories, and his unshakable conviction that God is near to all of us, and not just the intelligent and the learned.

How could anyone reconcile the agony of the Holocaust with Hasidism, a dancing religion that teaches love, joy, and celebration?