Religion and Theology

To understand Hasidism as a movement, it is important to comprehend not only when it was started and why but also the perspective of the movement in relation to schools of thought such as psychology, sociology and the phenomenology of religion. This essay thus seeks to help understand Hasidim in its entirety.

Body
Hasidism started in mid eighteenth century along the Polish-Romanian border of Galicia and a region of Ukraine known as Volhynia. The founder was Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer (1698-1760) who later became the Baal Shem Tov or the Master of the Good Name. Hasidism comes from the Hebrew word Hasidus that wields the meaning loving kindness (Boteach, 21-23). Being a branch of the well-known Orthodox Judaism, it seeks to promote joy and spirituality by internalization and popularization fundamental aspects of Jewish mysticism and Jewish faith. It was a movement overtly against legal Judaism. Emerging as a popular reaction, the followers were against what they saw as remote, formal characters and elitism of the rabbinic leaders. The movement was sharply in contrast with the rigid and mechanical forms of worship, where Baal Shem Tov was preaching about piety of ones heart and emotional service to God.

The Hasidic teachings did cherish the concealed and sincere holiness of the common people as well as their equality with the elite or scholars (Boteach, 26). The emphasis was on the presence of divinity in just everything and it gave a novel value to deeds and prayer of kindness. It was replacing supremacy of the Rabbinic in study and historic mysticism, admonishment, ethical asceticism with doses of encouragement, fervor and optimism. Its goal was adding to the ritual observance standards by relaxing others, as inspiration predominated.  The Hasidic communal gatherings used to celebrate soulful storytelling and songs as a form of mystic devotion. Hasidism does comprise a chunk of the contemporary Judaism, Ultra-Orthodox together with the earlier Lithuanian-Yeshiva Talmudic approach as well as the Sephardi Oriental tradition. Also, the charismatic mysticism it wields has been inspirational to the Neo-Hasidic non-Orthodox thinkers and it has really influenced the wider modern and current Jewish denominations, just as its scholarly thought, rich and deep, has been a subject of contemporary academic studies.

Of importance is that Hasidism is not a single movement and each dynasty follows its own sets of principles. It can be referred to as separate and individual groups with a common goal. About 30 huge Hasidic groups exist while other minor ones are in their hundreds. As much as there are no individual kinds of Hasidic groups, they share more often with one another worship practices, songs, philosophy and dress.

Hasidism is an in-depth religious movement affecting basically every segment and strata of human life (Boteach, 34). From a sociological perspective, the insights postulated by Peter Berger seem to be relevant and enlightening in the case of Hasidic teachings. Berger is widely recognized for his strong and pragmatic views that in essence, social reality is in itself a kind of consciousness. At the heart of his work, is the existence of the relationship that exists between an individual and society. He developed the sociological theory that sees the society as the Objective Reality as well as Subjective Reality (Berger, 34-56). However, it is in subjective reality that we see Hasidism, from where it rose to its current level. Subjectivity reality aptly describes that the individual and personal reality conception is produced by the individuals interaction with his or her immediate social structure. Once the Hasidism movement has started under Baal Shem Tov, it sought to let the Jews who had been used to a rigid and legal religion believe and enjoy a better religion that would build into their individual conception of reality through the interaction with God in a more personalized and emotive way.

It is towards this awakening that simplicity and sincerity characterized the teachings of the early Hasidism, which stressed that true and poignant divine service consist a lot more than just religious scholarship. It is a sincere love of the creator combined with warm belief and faith and the fact that prayers are effective. Subjective reality in the line of Hasidism hardly stops there, since it is all about understanding oneself in the line of religion and cultural arrangement. It stresses that an ordinary person who is filled with sincerity and belief in God and has prayers that come from his heart is very acceptable in the realm of God than a person who observes the Jewish law fully but lacks inspiration in the line of divine service. A pure democratization of the Judaism religion that attracted the common folk and scholars, that the scholasticism of the rabbinical and asceticism of the Kabbalah hardly satisfied.

Berger also recognized that religion was a very powerful force in the society and pointed to the fact that globalized and more pluralistic fundamentals do change the way a person sees or experiences faith, where religion, taken for granted, is usually replaced by a personal individual search for a personal preference of religion. After the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov it is what the results up to date show, a personal preference of religion (formal Judaism), being taken for granted. Hasidism aimed at changing believers and not the belief. It also allowed the followers for once to place their emotions above rites and exaltation of religion above knowledge.  Those who were illiterate were offered spiritual enlivenment while their sincerity was to bring them as close as possible to God (Berger, 87-115).

Another crucial view from a psychological point of view is Eriksons psychosocial theory, which lays its emphasis in shaping and transforming human development, something that occurs in everyone (Erikson, 67-77). It is a fundamental theory that was developed by a psychoanalyst who was also a humanitarian. Its usefulness rises above just psychoanalysis and inevitably applicable in facets of personal awareness as well as development of others.  Taken from this basic point of understanding, psychosocial school of thought explains the results that the words and teachings of Baal Shem Tov aimed.  After personal awareness and understanding, he opened up the other Jews to a better approach of the same religion of their ancestors, this time not from a scholarly view but from a personal, emotional and one on one prayerful approach. After a period of false Messiahs and tribulations, the common folk Jew wanted inspiration and a personal way of praying and believing in God, and Hasidism had all the ingredients of human development and a novel way of exalting God.

The theory is superb in a society that still craves for teachings, coaching, self-awareness, conflict management as well as understanding others. The mysticism and teachings through parables that Hasidism incorporates is what Eriksons theory postulates, even in the modern society where relationships and family are quite stretched and requiring direction (87-93). This is because Hasidism teachings are founded along two main theoretical conceptions the omnipresence of God or religious pane theism and the idea of the existence of communion between man and God. They are stressed by the teachings of Baal Shem Tov who says that man should realize as he looks at material things that he is really gazing at the Deitys image, present in all beings and things. Thus, man will always be in the service of God even in very minute and small matters.

In phenomenology, religion is viewed as being component of different things and continues to study these distinct components over religious traditions towards understanding them. In the same, Eliades centrality of phenomenology in relation to history is dully reflected in his generalized understanding and comprehension of the religious as hierophany, or the manifestation of the sacred according to him (Heidegger, 45). As such, it has two elements, namely the modality of the sacred as well as the expression of the specific modality as historical phenomena of concrete proportions. In modality of the sacred, Eliade is in phenomenological terms referring to the most simplistic level of relationship existing between the sacred and the believer. In essence, it represents historical conditioned and concrete way that the sacred came into conception and ultimately explained. Thus phenomenology is in this case interprets the distinct ways that the sacred appear to people in the world, while being the manner in which humans care and understand, that has been revealed to them.

In the conception of the sacred and the appearance of the Hasidism in its framework of teaching, phenomenology can be looked at from the point of the developments of refreshed piety, demystification and refinement in the resultant Hasidism (Heidegger, 67-94). Hasidism aims at making its adherents to cultivate an extra piety degree, since it is the way it stresses the followers to see the sacred. It also stresses on refinement, where a Hasid is taught merely to refrain from striving to improve his or her character through learning novel manners and habits. The individuals should change completely the maturity, depth and quality of their nature. This change is achieved through integrating and internalizing the philosophy of Hasidism. In the relation between the sacred and the believer, demystification is encouraged, where esoteric lessons and teachings of the Kabbalah are made understandable for each person. In understanding, the goal is to aid in refining an individual while adding vigor and depth to a persons observation of rituals.  Through the phenomenology of religion the relationships between God and Hasidism followers are explained and comprehended. It is able to depict the function of religion in society for all individuals while offering a better meaning to the term religious experience to those who are serious and religious. This depicts the success of Hasidism in the lives of those who have been part of its movement.

Conclusion
The comprehension of Hasidism is important because of the tremendous effect it has on its followers, more so because of changing the historical and old approach towards Judaism that was far from the people in terms of interest and understanding.