הבעל שם טוב, ר' יעקב יוסף מפולנאה והמגיד ממזריטש - קווי יסוד לגישה טיפולוגית דתית

In this paper, an attempt is made to determine what may be gleaned from a comparative examination of those books which are explicitly mentioned as having been studied by the Baal Shem Tov and testimonies relating to the contents of his own religious experience. We find that the Besht was drawn to complex theoretical texts with a strong emphasis on revelation, in which the ecstatic and magical mystical experience are interconnected with one another to the point of being unrecognizable — first and foremost the book Berit Menuha and the Hekhalot literature. His relationship to the Hekhalot literature, on the one hand, and the fact that the Amidah prayer during public worship frequently served as the structural axis for his ecstatic religious experience, on the other, are perceived as being of great significance for understanding the structural shaping of the mystical path by his disciples. The Baal Shem Tov had two distinct religious paths. The one: ascent to the Hekhalot; the other, attachment to the light of the Infinite present in the letters. We have attempted to distinguish two attitudes to the light: as present within the letters, or as needing to be drawn down into the letters. The aim of this distinction is to sharpen the claim that the center of gravity of the Besht's religious experience is to be found in the identification and uncovering of this immanent Divine dimension, and not in the attempt to draw it down. The former approach (ascent in the Hekhalot) is associated with extreme trembling of the body, with "separation" of the soul from the body (state of trance), and the seeing of visions. These frequently occur during public worship, particularly in the context of times of trouble for the public or in the ritual timing of the Days of Awe. The second approach (contemplation of the light of the letters) is connected with a state of introspective reflection and deepening of the integration between the soul and the body, and likewise emphasizes the integration between the light and the letter. The Besht's religious personality united these two paths as two modes of intensive religious experience, of both the introverted and extroverted type. Did the Besht already create the correlation between ascent to the Hekhalot as entities and chambers, and the understanding of progress within the prayer liturgy as a journey through the words and letters, understood as rooms? The following directions are suggested for describing the disciples of the Besht: The Maggid is portrayed as one who systematically developed the Besht's flickerings and flashes of visions and images within the Amidah, related to the Hekhalot, into a kind of structured path in which the worshipper understands the words from the onset as heavenly palaces. R. Yaakov Yosef of Polonnoye likewise sharpened the correspondence between progress during the course of worship towards the Amidah as representing the World of Emanation and the moment of unification, and progress within prayer as a journey through the Hekhalot.