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Cedars of Lebanon:
The Tanya and the Gaon
- Abstract
The following is an excerpt from a letter written in 1789 by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladithe “Tanya,” as he came to be called–to his congregation. The “Tanya” was a leader of the Hasidic sect founded by the Baal Shem Tov (and, incidentally, the first Rabbi of the Lubovitcher dynasty which is currently established in New York). Hasidism was spreading rapidly and had aroused passionate opposition, particularly in Lithuania, a country dominated by the spiritual leadership of the great Gaon of Vilna. The Gaon was the most important scholar of his time-the title Gaon had been used f6r the heads of Babylonian academies and was venerated by many as the ultimate religious authority. His uncompromising hatred of the Hasidim seems to have been based on his view that the Baal Shem Tov had propagated a pantheistic heresy in the book Gathering of Sayings by interpreting such Biblical phrases as “Who fills all the worlds” and “There is no place empty of Him” too literally. The Baal Shem’s book was burned in the streets of Vilna shortly before this letter was written.
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