Israel ben Eliezer (c. 1700 −1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov (; Hebrew: בעל שם טוב) or BeShT (בעש״ט), was a Jewish mystic and healer regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. A baal shem tov is a "Master of the Good Name". The term has also been used to refer to one able to work miracles using a secret name of God. Other sources explain his sobriquet as arising from a reputation of being a saintly, or superior, Baal Shem ('miracle-worker'); hence, he was given the nickname Baal Shem Tov (the "good Baal Shem").
Biographical information about the Baal Shem Tov comes from contemporary documents from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the legends about his life and behavior collected in the Praise of the Besht (שבחי הבעש״ט, Shivḥei haBesht).
A central tenet of the teachings associated with the Baal Shem Tov is devekut, a direct connection with the divine, which is infused in every human activity and every waking hour. Prayer is of supreme importance, along with the mystical significance of Hebrew letters and words.
Israel was born about 1700 to a certain Eliezer. According to Shivḥei haBesht,Eliezer lived at the edge of Wallachia. He and his wife were elderly. Once upon a time, they were captured and taken prisoner to a far-away land . . . Eliezer found his wife, who thankfully still lived, and the Besht was born when each was near 100 years old.According to other early Hasidic legends, he was born in "Okop" (probably Okopy, Ternopil Oblast), although Shivḥei haBesht mentions him residing there only as an adolescent, and only in a parenthetical insertion by the 1815 printer. Later legend names his mother Sarah.
Romanian-Israeli historian Moshe Idel claims that Baal Shem Tov was born in the Principality of Moldavia, in what is today Bukovina. He says that "Wallachia" from the Shivhei haBesht does not mean the Principality of Wallachia, but Moldavia, also kown as Moldo-Wallachia (Romanian: Moldo-Vlahia). Idel concludes that there is no solid evidence that he was born in Okopy: "the founder of Hasidism was born to a poor family that inhabited an unknown place on the Romanian part of the border with the Kingdom of Poland... there is no extant evidence whatsoever that the Besht was born in Okopy".
Solomon Isaac Halpern (1727 or 1729-1791) records two anecdotes about his father Jacob (1698–1738), the rabbi of Zhvanets, meeting "the renowned Israel Baal Shem, master of divine knowledge" that are non-legendary, as Halpern was not a hasid, although he was only between 9 and 11 when his father died. The Baal Shem Tov performed a dream question, and discovered Jacob was the reincarnation of Isaac Alfasi, a famous Maghrebi scholar. These meetings necessarily occurred before 1738.
Polish census records show that a certain holy man lived in Medzhybizh from 1740 to 1760, which was presumably Israel. In 1740, the census describes a "kabbalist," in 1742 and 1758 a "baal shem", and in 1760 a "baal shem doctor", the last being perhaps testimony to Israel's thaumaturgical practice.
Meir Teomim writes in Meirat Einayim (1782), "I saw a letter from the Holy Land, written by the pious Rabbi Gershon to his brother-in-law, the renowned master of the Good Name, Rabbi Israel, may he live". From the honorific "may he live", it seems that this book was composed in Israel's lifetime; this is the only time the Baal Shem Tov was mentioned by name before his death.
Beyond these scant sources, a few letters on theological subjects, attributed to Israel, were printed posthumously. Their authenticity is debated by scholars. Nothing more can be gleaned of his biography from contemporary sources.
He is last seen in the census as a resident of Medzhybizh in 1760. By 1763 another resided in the house, and Hasidic legends give various dates around 1760.
Several letters attributed to Israel or his associates have been printed since his death, and scholars debate their authenticity. According to a letter supposedly from Besht's brother-in-law to Israel himself—as interpreted by Rosman—the latter was a practitioner of prophecy, being able to see a messianic figure arrive in Jerusalem despite living far from the city; the brother-in-law claims to have inquired into the figure and discovered the Besht's vision to be true. This would support the belief that the Besht could see the souls of men, divining the messianic quality of him despite only seeing him through a vision.
Rosman also describes another letter the brother-in-law wrote, which claims that the Besht could travel to heaven and commune with God. This view is derived from a series of titles given to the Besht, attributing various religious achievements to him such as understanding the mysteries of God.
Israel ben Eliezer left no books; a kabbalistic commentary on Psalm 107, ascribed to him (Zhytomyr, 1804), Sefer miRabbi Yisrael Baal Shem-tov, is not genuine. The only record of his teachings is in his utterances as recorded in the works of his disciples. Most are found in the works of Jacob Joseph of Polnoy. Since Hasidism immediately after its founder's death was divided into various parties, each claiming for itself the authority of Besht, utmost caution is necessary for judging the authenticity of utterances ascribed to Besht.
Jacob Joseph quotes over 800 teachings of Israel in his books. Jacob Joseph sometimes says he is unsure whether a quote is the "exact" words of the Baal Shem Tov, implying that other quotes are verbatim.
The later developments of Hasidism are unintelligible without consideration of Besht's reputed opinions on man's proper relation with the universe. True worship of God consists of cleaving to and unifying with God. He is supposed to have said, "The ideal of man is to be a revelation himself, clearly to recognize himself as a manifestation of God." Mysticism, then, is not the Kabbalah, which everyone may learn. That sense of true oneness is usually as strange, unintelligible, and incomprehensible to mankind as dancing to a dove, but someone capable of this feeling is endowed with a genuine intuition, and the perception of such a man is prophecy according to the degree of his insight. From this it results that the ideal man may lay claim to authority equal, in a certain sense, to the authority of the Prophets. This focus on oneness and personal revelation help earn his mystical interpretation of Judaism the title of Panentheism.
The doctrine's second and more important result is that man forms a connecting link between the Creator and creation through his oneness with God. Thus, slightly modifying the Bible verse Habbakuk 2:, Israel is quoted as saying, "The righteous can vivify by his faith." His followers enlarged upon this idea and consistently deduced from it the source of divine mercy, blessings, and life; therefore, one may partake of God's mercy if one loves him.
It may be said of Hasidism that there is no other Jewish sect in which the founder is as crucial as his doctrines. Israel himself is still the real center for the Hasidim; his teachings have almost sunk into oblivion. Solomon Schechter observed that Hasidim view Baal Shem as "the incarnation of a theory, and his whole life the revelation of a system."
Chapin and Weinstock contend that the Besht was essentially the right person in the right place at the right time. 18th-century Podolia was ideal for fostering a sea change in Jewish thinking. It had been depopulated a generation earlier due to the pogroms of the Khmelnytsky uprising. The Ottoman occupation of Podolia occurred within Israel's lifetime, and along with it, the influence within this frontier territory of Sabbatai Zevi and his latter-day spiritual descendants such as Chaim Malach and Jacob Frank. Once the Magnates of Poland and Lithuania regained control of Podolia, it underwent an economic boom. The Magnates valued the financial benefits the Jews provided and encouraged Jewish resettlement to help protect the frontier from future invasions. Thus, the Jewish community itself was essentially starting over.