The Ba’al Shem Tov Magic, Mysticism, and LeadershipNew Documentary and a Co-production of Throughline Productions & Albion-Andalus Productions
ONE WOULD BE HARD PRESSED to find any one Jew in the last 500 years who has had as great an impact on Judaism as the Ba’al Shem Tov . . . Or a more unlikely candidate than this simple mystic who broke with nearly all of the established conventions of his time: an orphan of obscure origins when Jewish leaders were expected to be of distinguished ancestry; an uneducated folk-healer among religious scholars of an erudition hardly to be imagined today; a popular teacher speaking directly to the impoverished masses of Jews scorned by the learned elite. Despite this resume—or perhaps because of it—the influence of his Hasidic movement swept through Eastern Europe like wildfire, so that by 1850, the majority of Jews in the Ukraine, Galicia, Poland, Russia, Hungry and Romania were Hasidic.
To these Jews, the Ba’al Shem Tov was a well-spring of miracles, a mythical figure of enormous power whose reach extended between this world and the next. Sometimes the miraculous events extolled in their tales were such that even his spiritual heirs rolled their eyes at them, though they carefully qualified their response, saying: “Though many of these miracles never happened, they were all in is power to do!”
But who was the Ba’al Shem Tov, really? Was he just an obscure folk-healer—Israel the son of Eliezer—grown to enormous proportions in the folk-imagination? Or was he a true spiritual genius whose greatest miracle was the transformation he effected in hearts? Whatever the truth may have been, the impact of his person upon Judaism and the history of religions is undeniable.
For this reason, we have chosen to go in search of the Ba’al Shem Tov—as a historical figure, as a mythological hero, as a Jewish spiritual rebel, and most importantly, as a mystic of world significance. While a few documentaries on the Ba’al Shem Tov have emerged from the Hasidic world in recent years, these have naturally emphasized his local significance to his heirs in the modern Hasidic community. This documentary, on the other hand, wants to celebrate his significance to the broadest spectrum of Jews—from the most orthodox to the most liberal—and most importantly, to spiritual seekers of all traditions and cultures, the world over.
For hundreds of years the study of the Ba’al Shem Tov has been the province of Hasidim and scholars of Judaism alone, but the time has come for him to take his place among the other great mystics of the world—Rumi, Chaitanya, Black Elk, St. Francis, and Milarepa. Though he is less well-known than many of these mystics, his impact on his own tradition surpasses most of them, and he certainly equals them in importance on the world scale. So we invite you to be a part of our exploration, and to help us in our endeavor to bring the light of the Ba’al Shem Tov to a new audience.
