Peri ha-arets (Fruit of the Earth)

Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk

1814

An Immortal Pleasure

Devekut requires that there be no impediment between man and God; only then is devekut possible. As in the parable of the Besht, it is impossible to join silver coins together with glue unless some of the coin is scraped away where the attaching takes place. Only then will they hold well and become as one. If, however, there is…

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Creator Bio

Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk

ca. 1730–1788

A leading disciple of Dov Ber, the Magid of Mezritsh, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk was instrumental in spreading Hasidism in Lithuania and Russia, and also in Palestine. In 1772, when opposition to Hasidism first appeared, he visited Vilna twice, accompanied during the second visit by Shneur Zalman of Liady, in order to reconcile with the Vilna Gaon, but neither encounter succeeded. The next year, along with Abraham of Kalisk, he left Minsk because of persecutions by opponents of Hasidim (Misnagdim). In 1777, with Abraham as his deputy, he led a group of three hundred followers (many of them Hasidim) to Palestine; they first settled in Safed but relocated to Tiberias a few years later.

Related Guide

Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880

Despite the challenges of the early modern period, rabbinic scholarship flourished in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. 

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