Making Sparks Fly: Mysticism and Politics in the History of Hasidism

Hasidism was a social movement founded on mystical ideas. Using the texts of its greatest masters, we will learn how revolutionary new ideas about God and the world became a powerful movement for social change. We will examine Hasidism's kabbalistic background, and the mystical ideology of the Ba'al Shem Tov and his followers. We will focus on the development of the Zaddik and the Hasidic Court, as well as their conflicts with the rabbinic and community establishments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The seminar will involve critical reading of primary sources in translation and class discussions of historiography.