Chasidic Judaism: What is it and where did it come from?
Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong
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What Is the Best Judaism?
There was a german lay pietist movement at the same time among german gentiles who emphasized personal piety, internal emotional connection to god. So this circle formed around israel ben eliezar, and they came to call him the balshem tov, the good or holy balshem. He preached that people should strive for a state of being called devicut, which sort of means joining together with god. It's not entirely unlike the christian idea mystical union with god. And it seems like, as far as that goes, right in, the sort of anxiety that judaism had become too rote, too dry, too intellectualized,. That probably spurred
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