Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 12, pp. 473-6. RO’SH HA-SHANAH AND YOM KIPPUR, holy days prominent in the Jewish religious calendar, mark the beginning of the new year and set off the special period traditionally designated for self-scrutiny and repentance. They are referred to as Yamim Nora’im (“days of awe”),…...

Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 12, p. 100. PURIM (“lots”) is a minor Jewish festival (one in which work is not prohibited) that falls on the fourteenth day of Adar. It celebrates the deliverance, as told in the Book of Esther, of the Jews from the designs of Haman, who…...

Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 11, pp. 204-6. PASSOVER is the joyous Jewish festival of freedom that celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from their bondage in Egypt. Beginning on the fifteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the festival lasts for seven days (eight days for Jews outside…...

Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 6, pp. 193-4. HANUKKAH (“dedication”) is the Jewish winter festival that falls on the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev and lasts for eight days. It celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the forces of Antiochus after a three-year battle in the second century…...

Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 6, pp. 11-17. God in Postbiblical Judaism Postbiblical Jewish thought concerning God can be divided into four distinct periods: the rabbinic or Talmudic (from the first century BCE to the sixth century CE), the philosophical or theological (represented chiefly by the medieval thinkers), the qabbalistic…...

Originally published in Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), vol. 1, pp. 509-11. ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [This entry consists of three articles on the characteristics attributed to the divine being in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For broad comparative discussion of divinity in the history of religions, see Supreme Beings and Deity. For further discussion of…...

Originally published in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Decennial Book 1973-1982 (1982), pp. 635-6. Hasidic work; full title, Zava’at Ribash ve-Hanhagot Yesharot (“The Testimony of Ribash [Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem] and Upright Rules of Conduct”), published in Zolkiew in 1793. (Another Zolkiew edition, which may be earlier, is undated.) The title page ambiguously states that the manuscript was in the possession…...

Originally published in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Yearbook 1975-76 (1976), pp. 361-2. Galician hasidic author, descendant of Yom Tov Lippmann Heller, disciple of Jehiel Michel of Zloczow. Though there are numerous hasidic legends about Heller, few authentic biographical details are available. In his youth he ministered to the early hasidic masters Menahem Mendel of Peremyshlany and Dov Ber, the…...

Originally published in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Yearbook 1975-76 (1976), pp. 161-5. Habad (initial letters of Hokhmah, “Wisdom”, Binah, “Understanding”, Da’at, “Knowledge”) is the movement within Hasidism founded by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady (1745-1812); as the name implies, Habad places a greater emphasis on the use of the intellect in the study of the Torah, and especially in…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 520-1. Hasidism has a marked tendency to treat with greater sympathy and understanding than was usual on the part of the older tradition the religious strivings of the unlearned and ignorant Jew. Three main factors are at work in this hasidic reassessment…....

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), p. 511. First published in Zolkiev in 1793, it is attributed to the Besht. R. Shneur Zalman of Liady writes, “The truth is that this is not his ethical will, and that he made no such will before he departed this life. It…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 499-500. Truth (emet) in hasidic thought is more a moral than an intellectual virtue, denoting especially self-knowledge; lack of sham and hypocrisy in religious life; and complete sincerity in the service of God without any ulterior motives (piniyot, lit., “turnings aside,” i.e.,…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 496-7. The legends told about the Besht speak of his long pipe, the lulke, over which, it is said by some sources, he would even recite a benediction. Many of the hasidic masters similarly were tobacco smokers. The hasidic fondness for this…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), p. 482. The hasidim, like all other Orthodox Jews, attach great significance to the wearing of tefillin, but the special hasidic emphasis on this mitzvah is seen in the mystical intentions, based on the Kabbalah, that hasidim have in mind when wearing tefillin and…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 472-4. The mitnaggedim accused the hasidim of being indifferent to the study of the Torah and of despising talmudic scholars, but the revolutionary nature of hasidic attitudes toward study consisted far more in difference of aim and emphasis than in any neglect of…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 471-2. The curious doctrine of the elevation of strange thoughts occupied, to the dismay of the mitnaggedim, a prominent place in early hasidic life and thought, though it was generally abandoned in the third generation as suitable only for the greatest of saints…....

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 469-70. There are two kinds of hasidic stories (maasiyot). The first of these is the tale told by the tzaddik himself either in the form of a mashal (parable) or in the form of an apparently trivial account of mundane affairs but containing,…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 453-4. According to the Shivhei HaBesht, one of the occupations the Besht followed before he became renowned was that of shohet. A legend tells of how the Besht, grieving over the fowl he was obliged to slaughter, would whet his knife not with…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), pp. 402-3. Hasidic teachings on repentance differ from earlier Jewish teachings only in mood and emphasis. The motive for repentance, according to the hasidic masters, should be far less the fear of punishment than the love and fear of God, the latter being generally…...

Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), p. 402. As Orthodox Jews the hasidim were opposed to any idea that Judaism should or could be “reformed.” Nor is it correct to see Hasidism itself, at least on the conscious level, as a “reformist” movement, despite the numerous innovations for which it…...