Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Nahman was born in Ukraine in 1772, a great-grandson of the founder of Hassidut, one hundred years earlier. Nahman wandered around the Eastern European Jewish communities, usually without his family. He quarreled with rabbis, claiming they were corrupt, and was subsequently driven out of many places. He opposed medicine, not treating the tuberculosis from which he died at the age of 38. During his short life, he neither led a community, nor taught in houses of learning. He had few followers. He secluded himself in forests and prayed without a fixed text. He viewed prayer as a personal act between the believer and God. The stories he told discussed man’s faith in God. With a demand to constantly seek out happiness and joy, and forgiveness for the wicked. For around two centuries, the religious establishment succeeded in dimming his memory to maintain the institutional hegemony. In the late twentieth century, a wave began in Israel of return to religion, with a search for non-establishment teachings and faith. One anti-establishment stream which developed, attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters, began studying Nahman’s teachings. Most were newly religious, exposed to religion through several of his key teachings, focusing on seeking happiness and joy. Nahman is buried in Uman, Ukraine, and his grave has now become the largest pilgrimage site outside Israel. My study considers the modern expression of the new religion which arose based on Nahman’s spiritual-mystic ideas.