Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I JOSEPH G. WEISS AS A STUDENT OF HASIDISM
- PART II TOWARDS A NEW SOCIAL HISTORY OF HASIDISM
- PART III THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF MYSTICAL IDEALS IN HASIDISM
- PART IV DISTINCTIVE OUTLOOKS AND SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT WITHIN HASIDISM
- PART V THE HASIDIC TALE
- 20 New Light on the Hasidic Tale and its Sources
- 21 The Source Value of the Basic Recensions of Shivḥei ha Besht
- PART VI THE HISTORY OF HASIDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
- PART VII CONTEMPORARY HASIDISM
- PART VIII THE PRESENT STATE OF RESEARCH ON HASIDISM: AN OVERVIEW
- Bibliography
- Index
21 - The Source Value of the Basic Recensions of Shivḥei ha Besht
from PART V - THE HASIDIC TALE
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I JOSEPH G. WEISS AS A STUDENT OF HASIDISM
- PART II TOWARDS A NEW SOCIAL HISTORY OF HASIDISM
- PART III THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF MYSTICAL IDEALS IN HASIDISM
- PART IV DISTINCTIVE OUTLOOKS AND SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT WITHIN HASIDISM
- PART V THE HASIDIC TALE
- 20 New Light on the Hasidic Tale and its Sources
- 21 The Source Value of the Basic Recensions of Shivḥei ha Besht
- PART VI THE HISTORY OF HASIDIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
- PART VII CONTEMPORARY HASIDISM
- PART VIII THE PRESENT STATE OF RESEARCH ON HASIDISM: AN OVERVIEW
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
IN spite of its admittedly legendary character, Shivḥei habesht has served the scholars of early hasidism as an important, if not the main, basis for their reconstructions of the beginnings of the movement in the eighteenth century. Modern hasidic scholarship should therefore address itself to the question of the source value of the text of this important and early collection of narrative hasidic lore.
The text is available in two versions, the Hebrew version published in Kopys in 1814, our understanding of which has been much enhanced by the publication of the important Mondshine edition, and the Yiddish version published in Korets in 1815. This has given rise to a number of questions:
Is the Yiddish Korets edition a paraphrastic translation of the Hebrew Kopys edition, or does it represent an earlier, independent tradition?
Did the editor of the Hebrew edition deliberately understate the notion of the founder of hasidism as a ba’ al shem engaged in magical practices?
Is it possible to discern in the book an early stratum of ‘authentic’ tales in which the subtle supernatural element is totally dependent on the subjective perception of spectators and narrators, since nothing extraordinary takes place on the plane of external reality? If this is so, then the more extravagantly fantastical tales could be distinguished from the ‘authentic’ core as belonging to the universal genre of hagiography.
All these questions would have a bearing on any attempt to gauge the source value of the tales as they have come down to us.
Numerous scholars, such as B. Dinur, I. Halpern, A. Ya'ari, A. J. Heschel, J. G. Weiss, I. Bartal, and J. Barnai, have all pointed to historical connections between the tales and extraneously verifiable facts and I do not wish to question the value of their work. However, Bartal has remarked that the problem of the reliability of such historical facts as are contained in the hasidic tales is a complex one:
It is connected … with the difficulty of distinguishing between, on the one hand, the literary elements of structure and theme and, on the other hand, historical material which is unique or bound to a specific and well defined period. The hasidic tale uses historical material ahistorically; it is liable to combine separate elements, to antedate events and to mingle the natural with the supranatural, the earthly with the celestial.
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- Hasidism Reappraised , pp. 354 - 364Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1996