THE FOCUS on rationalism in Habad leads us to consider another aspect of the nature of hasidism: what, if anything, is the role of the individual? The crucial relationship of the hasid with the tsadik immediately presents the contemporary mind with the question of personal freedom and individuality. An early twentieth-century Yiddish song, ‘And when the Rebbe sings, all the hasidim sing’, describes the hasidim as imitating their rebbe. In another stereotype, based on contemporary observable fact, the hasid would not take a job, move to a new home, or decide to get married without first asking the rebbe. These images obviously run counter to a central theme of modernity: the autonomy and independence of the individual. To what extent do hasidic followers see themselves as individuals? How might this question relate to the history of hasidism, and to its context in Western culture?

The Individual: Positive and Negative Concepts

The topic of the role of the individual is important for the study of Habad precisely because the emphasis on the individual is a central feature of modernity, clearly distinguishing it from the Middle Ages. Rather than consider people only in corporate terms, as members of a tribe or clan, or of an estate in the feudal system, value, power, and responsibility are ascribed to the person.

Jacob Burckhardt described this new perspective as an important feature of the Renaissance. However, there are more ancient forms of this concept, going back to the Bible on the one hand and Graeco-Roman thought on the other. According to Johann Huizinga, during the Christian Middle Ages the notion of the person was submerged. It was concealed by the quest for the general principle and the grand ideal. This was the age of Western collectivism, in which the good of the individual might be sacrificed for that of society. There were collective punishments, applied to an entire town or village, with no concern at all for the suffering of those who were innocent. Examining medieval culture on another level, that of its art and architecture, one finds both the anonymity of the artist or architect and also the curious lack of individuation of the subject. What mattered was not the individual, but the office which he occupied.