The Figure of Abraham in Hasidic Literature
1998 ◽
Vol 91
(3)
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pp. 279-300
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Keyword(s):
The Hasidic movement started in the latter part of the eighteenth century in the Podolia section of Ukraine, under the influence of Israel Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760). By the middle of the nineteenth century Hasidism came to dominate the religious sensibilities of Eastern European Jewry. As it changed from a marginal, nascent revivalist curiosity to an establishment fixture, it attracted magnetic leaders of great pneumatic powers and created a rich homiletical literature. Its combination of direct religious engagement and a message of joy in the worship of God appealed both to spiritually inclined rabbinic figures and to the masses of the undereducated.