Introduction
About six years ago, after
translating over three hundred Kherson Letters for the first time into English, I wrote a post Kotzk Blog: 137) WHY THE LETTERS OF THE CHERSON
GENIZA MAY NOT BE FORGERIES:
However, having researched the matter in more depth − I am no longer of that
view. This is why:
The Kherson Geniza
even though it is overwhelmingly accepted by scholars to be a forgery. The Geniza
− and its
close relationship to the Chassidic hagiographical biography of the Baal
Shem Tov as portrayed in Shivchei haBesht − is examined here in detail because it can be
viewed as a test case, demonstrating that large segments of Chassidic
literature were not averse to a tendentious and revisionist reconstruction of
its own history. I show that this recasting and adjustment of early Chassidic
history took place in a number of ways.
1) In one respect the Kherson Geniza favours
and promotes the hagiographical narrative of a particular sect of Chassidim,
namely the Chabad dynasty. The letters in the Kherson Geniza advance
the notion that R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe, was:
“the most authentic heir of the original
Hasidism of the founders” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:137).
The Kherson Geniza does so by generally following the narratives
of Shivchei haBesht which was published by a student of R. Schneur
Zalman of Liadi in 1814.[1] The Geniza
then offers an abundance of written testimonies as ‘evidence’ in the dramatic form of hundreds
of personal letters allegedly exchanged between the main characters involved in
the early Chassidic period. There is a distinct anomaly in the writing
style of the letters of the Kherson Geniza which is evident in the
opening and closing sections of these communications. Lineage, pedigree and
relationships, such as signing off the letter with expressions like רבך ומורך (from your rabbi and
teacher), חברי ובן גילי (my friend and colleague), תלמידי (my student) are overemphasised − compared to other letters
that we know are genuine. This indicates an apparent intention to demonstrate
authoritative lines of transmission. In a similar sense, the letters from the Magid
of Mezeritch refer to R. Shnuer Zalman of Liadi by the sobriquet זלמינא (Zalmina)
implying a great sense of familiarity with the future leader of the movement. “Zalmina,”
however, was a nickname commonly used in regions of Ukraine but not in
Lithuania and Russia (Hilman 1953:242).[2]
Thus, these letters seem determined to portray and ‘confirm’ the storyline as
presented in Shivchei haBesht:
“From the point of view of the modern forgers
[of the Kherson Geniza]…the tales [in Shivchei haBesht]
represented the [actual] history of Hasidism…and it was this that they were
proposing to reinforce with documentation” (Rapoport-Albert
1988:130 n.58).[3]
As a general
observation, Shivchei haBesht is buttressed and completed by the
‘documentary evidence’ as found in the Kherson Geniza which favours the Chabad
narrative (Meir 2023-).
2) In another respect, the Kherson Geniza
together with its ‘parent’ or ‘source’ literature of the Shivchei haBesht,
unequivocally dispel the question of Sabbatian influences on the Chassidic
movement.[4] If it can be shown that significant parts
of Shivchei haBesht are tendentious reconstructions of history and that
the Kherson Geniza is a forgery, we would have a stronger case
supporting the supposition that potential Sabbatian influences could
have easily been suppressed in various internal layers of subsequent Chassidic
written testimonies, records and hagiographies.
Background
In 1918 rumours began
to spread about the origins and status of a large collection of Chassidic letters − allegedly
exchanged between the Baal Shem Tov, his students and his students’ students − that
was found in Kherson (Southern Ukraine), an area not generally known for
its Chassidim. This was during during the Russian Revolution
(1917-1923). A newspaper in Cracow reported that these letters were from the
private collection of the Chassidic Rebbe, R. Yisrael of Ruzhin (1796-1850),
who was arrested on a charge of murder in Kiev in 1838. His belongings and
writings were confiscated by the Russian police as he had no money (for bail).
When he was eventually released, the documents remained in the custody of the
police. These documents were moved from police archive to archive, eventually
making their way to Kherson in 1918 (Meir 2023-). The collection was
either sold by, or stolen from, the Kherson archive of the secret police. This collection
made its way to Odessa and parts were sold for large sums of money. The sellers
refused to reveal how they attained the letters which
were all stamped with the official seal of the government, numbered, and signed
by an official (Schneerson 1975:11).
According to R. David Tzvi Hilman, the official stamps and markings in Russian were:
“used as proof of the authenticity of the
letters by those who ‘authorised’ them (machshirim), but these [proofs]
are simply misleading” (Hilman 1953:242).[5]
The language is poor
and defective and could not have been written by anyone familiar with Russian.
It describes how the collection of Hebrew writings was confiscated to be
translated into Russian. Hilman questions why the collection would have been
sent from a large centre like Kiev to the much smaller Kherson for
investigation.
In any case, with this exceptional new find, it was expected that the letters
would finally serve as documentary evidence concerning the early undocumented
period of the Chassidic movement. There were three distinct groups of
people extremely interested in these personal letters:
1) The first group was the mainstream Chassidic courts.
Needless to say, these documents, thought to have once been in the possession
of R. Yisrael of Ruzhin, garnered the attention of many Chassidic
Rebbes. These included the family of Ruzhin and the Chassidim of Husiatyn who
put forward claims for this collection of letters. Additionally, another rabbi,
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson also expressed particular interest in this
collection. He was not yet a Rebbe because his father R.
Sholom Dovber Schneerson (known as the Rebbe Rashab) − the
fifth Chabad Rebbe − only passed away in 1920, a year and a half
after the manuscripts were discovered in 1918.
2) The second group interested in this
collection of letters was the emergent ‘Beshtian’ Chassidim.[6]
Besides the mainstream and traditional Chassidic courts, there was a
breakaway movement of Chassidim that also claimed ownership of the Baal
Shem Tov. These were Chassidic believers who did not want
to be led by a line of Rebbes and they were particularly active between
the two world wars They left their respective traditional Chassidic courts
and adopted the earlier model of the Baal Shem Tov and his circle. They wanted
to experience the ‘original’ form of Chassidism that may be
called ‘Beshtian Chassidism.’ In this spirit, these new Chassidim began
to publish books about the Baal Shem Tov and his ways − which in their view,
had soon become corrupted by the various official Chassidic courts
under the hegemony of the many Rebbes. The Kotzker Rebbe (d.
1859) had already been promoting the idea of the tyranny and corruption of the Rebbes,
many decades earlier (Heschel 1974:9).
3) The third group comprised modern and secular
Jewish writers and thinkers. They too, were extremely keen to see the original
letters of the Baal Shem Tov. Martin Buber described how the Baal Shem Tov was
a great reformer of the Jewish world; how he came to do battle with the
fossilised rabbinic establishment and its laws; and how he tried to restore the
Jews to an intimate relationship with the Divine and return them to their
connection with nature. These often-secular romantic notions surrounding the
Baal Shem Tov were very common during this period, and they paralleled many
sentiments of the religious model of Beshtian Chassidim. Numerous
other authors like Micha Josef Berdichevsky (1865 –1921), Hillel
Zeitlin (1871–1942), and Shmuel Aba Horodezky (1871− 1957) wrote
about the Baal Shem Tov. All these writers saw the Baal Shem Tov as a great
religious reformer who was only to be defeated by the subsequent generations of
the Chassidic Rebbes who, as it were, reigned him in (Meir 2023-).
This means that the
Baal Shem Tov did not just belong to the camp of traditional and Beshtian Chassidism but
to all people including modern writers. Against this backdrop, one begins to
understand the tremendous excitement that swept across all segments of the
Jewish world, when rumours circulated that genuine writings of the Baal Shem
Tov had been discovered. So many interested parties wanted to know just what
was hidden in this extraordinary find.
A certain Husiatyn Chassid who lived close
to Kherson, by the name of Naftali Tzvi Shapira, a poor and itinerant
bookseller, obtained fragments of this collection which became known as the Kherson
Geniza, and began selling them. One text made its way to the writer and
poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) who was living in Odessa. He published
it and declared it to be a wonderful find. But he also noted that there was
something suspicious about this text as if it had been touched by foreign hands
(Meir 2023-).
Chabad’s relationship to the Kherson
Geniza
Also living in Odessa
at that time was a wealthy Chabad Chasid, Shmuel Gourarie, who
decided to purchase the entire collection of letters, and gift it to his Rebbe,
R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson.[7]
At the same time, some tens of letters also reached the Chassidim of Ruzhin, and
in 1920, they began to publish these new findings in a series of booklets.
However, from the language of these texts that were published by the Ruzhiner
Chassidim, it soon became evident that although they appeared to be
relatively reasonable, they did not correspond appropriately to the era in
which they were supposedly produced. This anomaly aroused some suspicion (Meir
2023-).
At this stage, the story takes on a significant turn. When the texts
that were gifted to Chabad − and there were many hundreds of
them – eventually became known, they appeared to be much more
polished in terms of grammar and were more time-appropriate. They still aroused
suspicion but not to the extent as the earlier Ruzhiner texts. This was
surprising because both sets of texts had come from the same source. It
appeared as though the Chabad texts had been ‘improved’ in the interim.
If this was the case, the letters may have been forged twice, or forged once
and then enhanced again (Meir 2023-).
Perhaps the first forger was Naftali Tzvi Shapira, the poor bookseller
from Odessa. Perhaps they were forged again or at least ‘corrected’ and
‘enhanced’ while in the custody of Chabad. Referring to the letters of
the Kherson Geniza, Maya Balakirsky Katz is
convinced that the:
“Hasidic leader R. Yosef Yitzḥak Schneersohn
(1880–1950) falsified documents…to retroactively create authoritative source
material for early Hasidism” (Balakirsky Katz 2019:179).
This might explain why
the collection in the hands of Chabad appeared more polished
and accurate compared to the smaller collection acquired by the Ruzhiner
Chassidim. Either way, between 1935 and 1938, while living in Warsaw, R.
Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson published over three hundred of the many other
letters he had in his possession that originated in the Kherson Geniza.
Earlier, in 1922, Avraham Schwadron (1878-1957), one of the founders of
the Israel National Library in Jerusalem, sent samples of the fibres of the
paper on which the letters were written to Vienna for testing. The results
showed that they could not have been written before 1846. This was some years
after R. Yisrael of Ruzhin was arrested in 1838, so he could not have owned the
collection. R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson responded
six years later through his secretary that the letters were not all autographs
but copies of the ‘originals’ (Hilman 1953:241). R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson then
doubled down and began to promote the Kherson Geniza even more. He went
so far as to turn them into primary sources for actual Chassidic historiography
(Meir 2923-).
It soon became evident that this was one of the greatest forgeries in the
history of Chassidism. Jonatan Meir (2023-) believes this to be an
example of one of the most unprofessional attempts at textual fraud ever
because hardly a single letter is perfectly accurate in terms of
dates, and characters. According to R. David Tzvi Hilman, who had worked with
and published original and genuine letters of the early Chassidic Rebbes,
the Kherson Geniza was an outright forgery:
הזייפן לא הצליח במלאכתו, עד שרובם של
המכתבים הם מזוייפים מתוכם
“The forger [not only] did not succeed in his
technical forging work, but [as is evident in] most of the letters, even the very
content was false” (Hilman 1953:240).
Some individuals who
had passed away and were separated by a hundred years are depicted as writing
to each other. In one instance R. David Tzvi Hilman writes:
הזייפן
מחיה מתים
“the forger has brought the
individual back to life again” (Hilman 1953:270).
Meir (2023-) insists
that any historian would immediately recognise that the texts are fraudulent. Ada Rapoport-Albert claims that:
“[T]he documents are likely to have been
produced not long before their discovery [in 1918]” (Rapoport-Albert
(1988:130).[8]
According to Meir
Balaban (1935:320), the letters in the Kherson Geniza are זיופים גלויים (open forgeries)
and were produced just
after 1914.[9]
In 1931, the historian, Simon Dubnow (1860-1941) published a book on the
history of the Chassidic movement. He showed that the Kherson
Geniza letters were indeed fake. The interesting thing is that Dubnow and
other historians had not been able to see the entire collection of manuscripts
except for a few fragments. The bulk of the letters were held by the Chassidim,
because when Dubnow published his book in 1931, Chabad had not
yet published the letters in haTamim. Nevertheless, Dubnow was able to
make his determination on just a few samples from the collection.
Meir maintains that notwithstanding their fraudulent nature, the
collection of letters is most engaging and impressive. There is no question
that the first forger wanted remuneration and worked on the assumption
that Chassidic courts like Ruzhin and Chabad would
pay large sums of money for these letters. This is exactly what transpired.
There is also no question that the original forger was exceptionally talented
and creative. He had extensive albeit sometimes distorted knowledge of the
period. However, he knew exactly which types of texts and ideas would be most
sought-after and desired by Chassidim – and he produced
results that corresponded to those needs (Meir 2923-).
The story takes on another significant and surprising turn. Years later,
in 1954, the seventh and last Chabad Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel
Schneerson, produces a letter supporting the absolute authenticity of the Kherson
Geniza. He acknowledges some of these discrepancies we have pointed out but
uses them as arguments in favour of their legitimacy:
מזייף הרוצה לזייף ולמכור
אח״ך את המכתבים לאחד מבתי האדמו״רים, היינו לאלו שיש להם ידיעה בקורות ימי
החסידות ותורתה הרי בודאי ידייק ויגיה כמה פעמים, כיון שיחשוש שאים ימצאו טעויות
כאלו יגלה קלונו ברבים ויפסיד את כל העסק שלו. ולכן מציאות הטעויות הנ״ל (לאחר
שננכה מהם הטעיות שנתוספו ע״ד הבחור הזעצער של ״התמים״) הן אדרבה הוכחה שהמכ׳ לא
נכתבו ע״י מזייף
“A forger, however, who would want to sell
the writing to a Chassidic court where they have knowledge of Chassidic
history, would have made the effort to ensure there were no mistakes as this
would reveal the fact that the writing was a forgery. So, the existence of
mistakes (after dismissing the additional mistakes
incurred by the youth who acted as the typesetter) actually proves
their authenticity” (Schneerson, Igrot Kodesh,
vol. 8, 1998:249).[10]
Many of the letters in
the Kherson Geniza were clearly not autographs but copied from the supposed
‘original’ letters which are no longer extant. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
probably based himself on R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson, the fifth Rebbe of Chabad who,
as mentioned, had been gifted the collection just before his passing in 1920,
and who had made the same point. Testimony exists that R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson
examined the manuscripts. He detected a foreign element in the letters but
generally accepted their authenticity while aware that they were copies and not
the original letters. R. Sholom Dovber Schneerson writes:
“all the writings and letters are only copies
of the original autographs but their contents are authentic. Even if they
should be found to contradict some points of fact, this is insignificant in
relation to their remarkable contents, and must be the result of errors by the
copyists" (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1, 1975:11-12).[11]
On the other hand, Hilman
(1953:242) points out that − based on testimony from those who saw the
early collection of the letters − the overall appearance of the letters did not
look like copies. Instead, they were presented as older, genuine and original
letters, and not as copies. A copier would have no business to make the letters
look old and worn.
Nevertheless, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson continues to provide
statistical evidence to bolster his approbation of the copied letters:
“The
major argument of those who doubt the authenticity of these letters is that the
dates[12] do
not correspond appropriately. Anyone who has ever worked on copying and editing
will know that mistakes are likely to occur in about five per cent of the work.
This is especially the case where one copies in haste” (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1, 1975:11-12).[13]
This is difficult to
understand because, as we shall see, there appear to be major and significant
historical inconsistencies over and above just dates that do not correspond.
There are some very
unusual entries in these letters. Most of these letters are relatively short
and the grammar is incorrect. The writing does not correspond to the style of
language used by Chassidim in the time of the Baal Shem Tov.
Additionally, family names like Rappoport and Horowitz are commonly used in the
Kherson Geniza, even though family names were not customary during those
times (Hilman 1953:242).[14]
The Baal Shem Tov’s nature and character are also depicted very
differently in the letters from the way he had generally been portrayed until
that time. Before the publication of the letters in haTamim in
1935, there existed only two or three letters of the Baal Shem Tov, but now
there were about seventy. In the published letters in haTamim, the Baal
Shem Tov is generally presented as a scholar of Halacha[15] who
commands a thorough knowledge of the law. He is depicted as corresponding in
writing to the leading rabbis of his time on matters of Halacha.
This is in sharp contradistinction to the romanticised notion as propounded by
the more secular writers. In the Kherson Geniza, the Baal Shem Tov
doesn’t suddenly emerge from a vague background because the figure of his
alleged teacher, R. Adam Baal Shem, writes to him and hands over secret
writings. Thus, from the outset, the Baal Shem Tov is portrayed as being part
of a structured and organised continuum. He is also associated with, and leads,
a group of thirty-six hidden Tzadikim (righteous men).
The letters convey repeated calls from R. Adam Baal Shem for the Baal Shem Tov
to reveal himself and begin to openly manage and lead the new Chassidic movement
(Meir 2923-).
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson clearly uses the Kherson Geniza as
an absolute basis for, and source of, historical facts. He writes, for example,
about details of the group of hidden Tzadikim:
הצדיקים הנסתרים (אשר שמות
איזה מהם אנו מוצאים בהגליונות והמכתבים של הגניזה שנתגלתה זה לא כבר, כמו ר׳
מרדכי, ר׳ קהת ועוד)
“[Regarding] the hidden Tzadikim (some of
whose names we find in the sheets and letters of the [Kherson] Geniza, [and]
these [individuals] were not yet known to us [before the discovery of the
Geniza], like R. Mordechai, R. Kehat and others)” (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1,
1975:138).[16]
Significantly, this
idea that the Baal Shem Tov was part of a well-structured organisation of
hidden Tzadikim:
“does not occur in the hagiographical or any
other Hasidic sources, but makes its first appearance in the Kherson material”
(Rapoport-Albert 1988:142).
This structural imagery,
peculiar to the Kherson Geniza, creates a backdrop of organisation and
authority in the early Chassidic movement, and challenges the idea of the
Baal Shem Tov as a free-wandering mystic, alone in the forests and mountains.
It emerges, now, through the Kherson Geniza, that the Baal Shem Tov
immediately formulates and controls a vibrant movement. Continuing in this
manner, the letters describe how towards the end of his days, the Baal Shem Tov
hands over the organisational reins of leadership to the Magid of Mezeritch who in turn transfers the leadership to R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the
first Rebbe of Chabad:
“[T]he Kherson material often appears to
reflect a peculiarly HaBaD perspective on the early history of Hasidism, and to
serve HaBaD interests” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:137).
The letters depict the
Baal Shem Tov as a more contemporary rabbi, not living in the eighteenth
century − but rather conducting himself along the lines of the
thought and behaviour of rabbis of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Meir
2023-).
Some of the letters seem to exhibit anachronistic Chabad/Chassidc
innuendos. In one letter, reference is made to the Baal Shem Tov travelling the
night after Shabbat, still dressed in his specialבגדי
שבת (Shabbat garments) and his הטיליג העליון
(overcoat) (Schneerson, haTamim,
vol.1, 1975:16).[17] This may just be a benign reference to smart Sabbath
clothes but, in later Chassidic culture and custom, special garments
like the long flowing frock coat or Kapota became recognisable as
specific Chassidic attire. Wearing a Kapota after Shabbat on
Saturday nights remains a distinctly Chabad Chassidic custom to
this day.
Another letter mentions that the Magid of Mezeritch sent the
girdle belonging to the Baal Shem Tov to R. Kehat who was ill, as a healing
amulet. אני שלחתי לו אבנט אחד מאבנטי
אדו״מו״ר לשמירה (I
sent him one of your girdles (gartel) as protection) (Schneerson, haTamim,
vol.2, 1975:560).[18]
Wearing the special long girdle or belt (gartel) belonging to a holy man
or Rebbe is considered to have protective qualities. Although not only Chassidim
wear belts, the Chassidic gartel is a distinctly symbolic and
recognisable mark of the movement.
In another example, the Baal Shem Tov writes to his daughter Adel
informing her that שכחתי את האבנט המשי של שבת קודש (I have forgotten my Shabbat silk girdle [gartel]) (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1,
1975:345)[19] and
requests that she send it to him. Silk frock coats and gartels were to become
important markers in the later Chassidic movement.
The last Chabad Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson writes:
“In general, the conduct
[of Chassidei Chabad] should be distinctive, and this should
express itself in the fact that on Shabbat and Festivals, one wears a
silk kapota [זיידענע
זופיצעס]…
שבגדי שבת
ויו״ט צריכים להיות של משי
…The special Shabbat garments [בגדי שבת][20] should be made out of silk” (Schneerson, Torat Menachem, 1950,
vol. 1, 53).[21]
Besides these apparent
and anachronistic Chabad/Chassidic innuendos, a more pressing issue is
the historicity of Baal Shem Tov’s alleged participation in the debates with
the Frankists.[22] The
ferocious deliberation by historians and theologians over the Baal Shem Tov’s
opposition or association with Sabbatianism is swiftly dealt
with in the letters. In the Kherson Geniza, there is no discussion
whatsoever. He is unequivocally opposed to Sabbatianism and he
excommunicates the Frankists in the famous debates of Kamenetz-Podolsk
(1757) and Levov (1759) − although there is no historical evidence of his
participation in the debates. Regarding the way the Frankist debates
are depicted in the Kherson Geniza:
“This apparent corroboration of what had been
established as a false report, and its ill-informed embellishment, so that a
victory is announced when in reality the outcome was defeat, was in fact one of
the first Kherson documents which aroused the suspicion of scholars and led to
their exposure as forgeries” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:133).
Far from a victory,
the historical defeat at the debate in Kamanetz-Podolsk, for example, was a
terrible blow to the Jews:
“Bishop Dembowski ruled in favour of the Sabbatians
and cartloads of Talmudic books were confiscated from Jewish homes in
Kamenetz, Lvov, Brody, Zolkiew and burned in the marketplace of
Kamenetz-Podolsk and hundreds of Jews converted to Catholicism (Doktór
2015:396-411).
Kamanetz-Podolsk was
no glorious victory. The debate in Levov was no better either because, after
that debate, Jacob Frank claimed that five thousand of his followers were ready
for conversion to Christianity (Scholem 1987:296).
Notwithstanding, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson persists in defending the
historicity of the alleged participation of the Baal Shem Tov in these
‘victorious’ debates, citing the Kherson Geniza as historical
evidence. He writes:
מורנו הבעש״ט ערך כמה
ויכוחים עם הפרנקיסטי׳ עד אשר נצחם - כמבואר בארוכה בכתבי הגניזה הנ״ל - והנצחון
הזה גרם לשנאה כבושה מצד הפרנקיסטים אל מורנו הבעש״ט ותלמידיו
“Our master the Baal Shem Tov presided over a
number of disputations with the Frankists until he defeated them – as is explained at length in the writings of the
aforementioned [Kherson] Genizah” –
and this victory triggered pent-up hatred from the Frankists towards the Baal
Shem Tov and his students (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1, 1975:139).[23]
This way, difficult
historical questions and missing information are all resolved by the ‘evidence’
exhibited within these letters. These observations and discrepancies were
widely noted long before the letters were eventually published by R. Yosef
Yitzchak Schneerson in 1935. Yet, surprisingly, while aware of the allegations
of forgery, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson still went ahead and published a large
section of the letters in haTamim, and he even included an
Introduction.
Meir (2023-) suggests that the only way to understand this conundrum is
by considering the context and Sitz im Leben of those times.
While R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson was living in Warsaw, many of his followers
were still in Russia undergoing hardships. The Chabad community was
fractured and he needed to create a new and inspiring forum for the refugees. This was a very difficult time because
back in Russia:
“the Jewish ‘sections’ of the propaganda department of the Russian
Communist Party were engaged in the systematic eradication of all national and
religious institutions of Jewish life: community councils, synagogues,
religious academies and schools, ritual baths, ritual slaughter houses and
butchers, Hebrew libraries and books were being liquidated with the help of the
internal security forces” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:145).
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson responded boldly to these
challenges. He conducted:
“an underground operation, sending out secret emissaries - rabbis,
teachers, ritual slaughterers, and other specialists in Jewish lore - as well
as material resources to Jewish settlements which had been cut off and were
becoming estranged from their tradition” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:145).
It seems that he began to view the early Chassidic movement
as a reflection of his own religious activism and organisational acumen. In
1930, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson wrote:
מאז ומקדם תפסו ההסתדרות
והתעמולה מקום חשוב מאד במחנה החסידים, ועוד טרם שנתגלה מורנו הבעש״ט נ״ע, בהיותו
עוד בהסתר, הי׳ הוא וחבריו הצדיקים הנסתרים...מסודרים בהסתדרות חזקה וקבעו להם
מרכזים במקומות שונים וכל אחד מהם הי׳ עובד במרכז שלו, ומזמן לזמן היו שולחים
הרצאות מפורטות להמרכז שאצל מורנו הבעש״ט נ״ע.
“Since its very inception, the notion of order and propaganda has
played a most primary role within the Chassidic camp. Even before our master
the Baal Shem Tov was revealed, while he was still in hiding, he and his
colleagues, the hidden Tzadikim…were managed with intense organisation. They
established centres in various places and each would run their own centres. At
regular intervals, they would send detailed reports to the [main] centre of the
Baal Shem Tov” (Schneerson, haTamim, vol.1, 1975:138).[24]
Anyone even vaguely familiar with the Chabad movement
today would immediately recognise this familiar archetype of structure,
marketing and the dispatching of global emissaries who report regularly to the centralised
authority. The use of language and the description of the ‘original’ Chassidic
organogram does appear anachronistic as if the Baal Shem Tov was living in, and
adopting the strategies of, the later generations of Chabad Rebbes.
There is a certain irony to R.
Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson’s unshakable promotion of this Chassidic version
of history because, in 1814 when Shivchei haBest was first
published, its author apologised to its audience for the ahistorical and
legendary style of the book. However, just over a century later, R. Yosef
Yitzchak Schneerson was promoting the historicity of the Kherson Geniza
which was supporting the very narratives in Shivchei haBesht:
“in the second decade of the nineteenth century, the author of Shivkhey
ha-Besht still needed to apologize for writing apparently ‘meaningless
narratives’ or ‘histories,’ and to derive the legitimacy of this medium from
the value of edification which it promoted…[yet] by the first half of the
twentieth century the Admor Joseph Isaac could take for granted the full
legitimacy of the historiographical medium [of the Kherson Geniza]”
(Rapoport-Albert 1988:153).[25]
R. Yosef Yitzchak
Schneerson, however, only published one photocopy of the actual letters while
all the others were printed versions. Some of the Geniza writings were
produced on parchment and others on paper. In his Introduction to the first edition
of haTamim in 1935, he writes that the Geniza did not
only comprise letters but also personal items belonging to the authors, including
the Baal Shem Tov’s pipe, his walking stick and his private collection of books
(Schneerson 1975:11). This creates the impression that the entire body of the Kherson
Geniza findings is authentic.
Meir (2023-) tries to understand the motivation behind R. Yosef Yitzchak
Schneerson’s intense desire to promote the Kherson Geniza against the
flow of scholarship that overwhelmingly pronounced its fraudulent origins and
content. R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson is known for his dedication to building
and strengthening the Chabad movement during difficult times, but
also had aspirations to be a writer. Had he not been involved in the leadership
of his movement; he may have become one of the great Hebrew and Yiddish
writers. He had lived in Warsaw which was the centre of Jewish literature. He
loved literature, writing and history, particularly Chabad history.
He collected oral accounts from older Chabad Chassidim and
recorded them in his diary:
“[M]any of his publications were in the
historiographical genre, a genre in which none of his HaBaD or general Hasidic
predecessors had ever expressed [themselves]” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:139-40).[26]
Meir (2023-) points
out that, in effect, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson had created a
masterpiece of hagiography comprising a particular narrative of Chassidic history
through the idiom of the Kherson Geniza. He could easily have placed the
collection of letters in his private collection, but it seems that he doubled
down, and between 1935 and 1938, he chose to publish them in his haTamim journal.
“It could, had he so wished, have been
suppressed and quickly forgotten. The Admor Joseph Isaac elected to risk
discredit by association with the Kherson Genizah because he clearly recognized
its immense value to his novel historiographical enterprise” (Rapoport-Albert
1988:139).
In R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson’s narrative, the Baal
Shem Tov is no longer a reformer. He is no longer a simple wandering mystic.
“This historiography developed as…a reaction
against…the Jewish Enlightenment of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries” (Rapoport-Albert 1988:130).
The Baal Shem Tov is
now a master of Halacha and his leadership style coincides
with, and was reflected in, the style of R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi and the
later Chabad Rebbes. R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson offered a powerful
counter-narrative. This would have served to challenge the three narratives
of:
1) the mainstream Chassidic movements;
2) the style of ‘Beshtian Chassidism’ active
between the two world wars which longed for a Chassidic ‘renaissance’
and a return to a purer Chassidism, without the need for the
structure of the Rebbes, and;
3) the modern writers’ fascination with the romanticism and freedom of
the Baal Shem Tov.
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson showed the fractured Chabad
community reeling from the hardships in Russia and grappling with integration
into the new world, just how important traditionalism, structure, Halacha and
the Chassidic organogram were. To this end, one may assume
that it didn’t matter to him whether the texts were forgeries or not. He was
restoring the honour of the Baal Shem Tov. He was also rescuing the Baal
Shem Tov from the three hegemonies of mainstream Chassidim, the
‘renaissance’ Chassidim, and the enlightened writers. He
used the Kherson Geniza for his theological and literary goals while
simultaneously regaining and maintaining ownership of the ‘historical’ Baal
Shem Tov narrative (Meir 2023-).
Eventually, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson arrived in New York in 1940 and
– perhaps
quite tellingly after he transitioned to a new and more historically critical
environment − he hardly mentioned the Kherson Geniza, which accompanied him to
the United States, again. The Khesron Geniza had now assumed a backstage
position. That is, until 1954.[27] In
that year, the last Chabad Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, suddenly wrote a
sharp defence of the Kherson Geniza in support of his father-in-law R.
Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson who had passed away in 1950. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
committed himself to officially endorsing the authenticity and historicity of
the Kherson Geniza.
This formal approbation in 1954 was not without context. R. Menachem
Mendel Schneerson issued this statement of approval because, in the previous
year 1953,[28] R. David Tzvi Hilman had just published a
book entitled, Igrot Baal haTanya uVenei Doro, containing
the genuine letters of R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi. The letters
of the Kherson Geniza, however, were blatantly excluded from this
collection because R. David Tzvi Hilman was convinced of the fraudulent nature
of these letters.
Perhaps alluding to this, R. David Tzvi Hilman
writes in the Introduction to his anthology:
לא הבאתי השערות או שמועות שבעל פה וכד׳
שאין להן עדות ברורה
“I have not included oral assumptions or
rumours and suchlike, all of which have no clear evidence” (Hilman 1953:3).[29]
Being familiar with
the genuine writing style of the early Chassidic Rebbes, he soon concluded
that:
כל מכתבי הגנידה שראו את אור הדפוס הנם
מזויפים
“all the letters of the [Kherson] Geniza that were published, are
forgeries” (Hilman 1953:240).[30]
He goes so far as to state
that:
ורבים הוטעו להאמין באמיתותם של מכתבים
אלו
“many were deceived into believing in the authenticity of these
letters” (Hilman 1953:241).[31]
This created a
tremendous scandal in Chabad and R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
chose to defend the absolute authenticity of the Kherson Geniza. Meir
(2023-) doubts that the last two Chabad Rebbes personally
believed in the authenticity of the Geniza because he maintains that not
one historian or scholar believes in the authenticity of this Geniza. It
must be noted that not all sects of Chassidim unanimously
accepted the authenticity of the Kherson Geniza either:
“A number of Hasidic leaders were quick to
dissociate themselves from the discredited Genizah while others continued to
endorse it as authentic; in scholarly circles the condemnation of the letters
as forgeries has become virtually universal” (Rapoport-Albert
1988:129).
The leadership
of Chabad, however, did (at least publicly) promote the Geniza
as an authentic repository of genuine and vital Chassidic manuscripts.
The problem was that there were no good options for them. There was no way to
deny the existence of the Geniza. Sections of them had been published in
1935 and the rest were located in the Chabad Library.
Within Chabad circles, there remains some tension over the
matter of the Geniza to this day, although the officially published and
popular works on Chassidic history follow the narrative of the
Geniza Letters which serve as authoritative historical sources.
In any event, the much larger bulk of the Kherson Geniza, which
was not published in haTamim, remains housed in the Chabad Library.
However, this collection of letters is inaccessible to the public, let alone
researchers who might want to revisit the matter and put an end to the
controversy, whatever the outcome. Our knowledge of history today (for the
copied letters) coupled with modern technology (for the original autograph
letters) would hastily resolve the issue once and for all.
Meir (2023-) concludes that even were it to be established beyond a
shadow of a doubt that the letters in the Kherson Geniza are forgeries,
there would still be great literary and theological value in their study, as
they have taken upon a life of their own. In the meantime, this vast literature
remains under lock and key, awaiting its redemption. Having translated into
English the more than 300 published letters of the Kherson Geniza,
I would have loved to continue and translate the rest of this fascinating
unpublished collection. I have twice requested permission to view the other
letters but to no avail.
Bibliography
Balaban, M., 1935, Le-Toledot ha-Tenuah ha-Frankit
[History of the Frankist Movement] (Hebrew), part 2, Dvir, Tel Aviv.
Balakirsky Katz, M., 2019, ‘Iconography’, in Studying
Hasidism: Sources, Methods, Perspectives, Edited by Marcin Wodziński, Rutgers
University Press, New Brunswick, 178-196.
Hilman, D.Z. 1953, Igrot Baal haTanya uVenei
Doro [The letters of the author of the Tanya and his
contemporaries] (Hebrew), Jerusalem.
Meir, J., 2023,
‘Херсонская гениза || Стертые следы [Kherson Geniza: Erased Traces]’ (Lecture).
Online source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=myafhgAzn1Q&feature=youtu.be. Retrieved on 15 November 2023.
Rapoport-Albert, A., 1988, ‘Hagiography with
Footnotes: Edifying Tales and the Writing of History in Hasidism’, Essays in
Jewish Historiography, Wiley for Wesleyan University, 119-159.
Schneerson, Yosef Yitzchak, haTamim, vols. 1 and
2, Otzar haChassidim, Brooklyn 1975.
Further Reading
Kotzk
Blog: 177) THE WRITINGS UNDER THE STONE:
Kotzk
Blog: 123) 26 TAMMUZ - THE CHASSIDIC HOLIDAY THAT NEVER WAS:
Kotzk
Blog: 124) LETTERS FROM THE CHERSON GENIZA - TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. Part 1.
Kotzk
Blog: 125) LETTERS FROM THE CHERSON GENIZA -TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. PART 2.
Kotzk
Blog: 126) LETTERS FROM THE CHERSON GENIZA - TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. PART 3:
Kotzk
Blog: 127) LETTERS FROM THE CHERSON GENIZA - TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. PART 4.
Kotzk
Blog: 136) WHAT HAPPENED IN MEDZEBUZH AFTER MIDNIGHT? Part 6.
Kotzk
Blog: 137) WHY THE LETTERS OF THE CHERSON GENIZA MAY NOT BE FORGERIES: Part
7.
Kotzk
Blog: 138) BAAL SHEM TOV EXPLAINS HIS INITIAL LACK OF TORAH EDUCATION (And
other fascinating letters): Part 8.
Kotzk
Blog: 139) WHY DID THE BAAL SHEM TOV REFUSE TO DISCLOSE HIS HIDING PLACE TO HIS
TEACHER? (And other fascinating letters) Part 9.
Kotzk
Blog: 141) THE 'OTHER BAAL SHEM TOV' WAITING IN THE WINGS (And other
fascinating letters): Part 10.
Kotzk
Blog: 142) 'IF YOU DON'T COME OUT OF HIDING THEN BURN THESE TEACHINGS' (And
other fascinating letters): Part 11.
Kotzk
Blog: 143) DO THE CHERSON LETTERS CHANGE SOME ASPECTS OF POPULAR CHASSIDIC
HISTORY? Part 12.
