In the plentiful and fascinating polemical literature surrounding the Hasidic-Mitnagdic controversy, one of the more interesting tracts is a slim volume by the name of מצרף עבודה (hereinafter: MA). Its special importance derives from its explicit references to R. Hayyim of Volozhin (1749-1821), the leading ideologist of the Mitnagdim, and from its arguments which are, in effect, rebuttals to the criticisms contained in R. Hayyim's Nefesh ha-Hayyim[1] (hereinafter: NH). MA was first published in Königsberg in 1858 by Dov Segelowitz, and purported to be the record of a debate that took place seventy-two years earlier between a Mitnaged and a Hasid. It is quite obviously a pseudepigraphic work, abounding in innumerable contradictions and inconsistencies. The moderateness of its polemic and the respectful forcefulness of this Hasidic apologetic tract, preclude 1786 as the date of the alleged dialogue—the tone and temperament clearly mark it as the product of a later, more conciliatory period. It is important to note the nature of this work, its probable authorship and date of composition, and the reliability of its contents and its relationship to the NH.

The MA appeared in two editions. The first has been mentioned above. The second was published by Meir Greenspan in Zytomierz, 1865. The title page asserts that the contents of the volume was composed first in the year 1786; the 1st edition refers to the debate as having taken place seventy-two years earlier, and the 2nd edition dates it as eighty years earlier. Similarly, the correspondence which forms the major part of the book is dated 1786. The two correspondents are identified as Benjamin Ze'ev of Slonim (the Mitnaged) and Joseph of Nemerov (the Hasid). Both editions carry, as an addendum, an undated letter by R. Shneour Zalman to his followers in Vilna, which appropriately refutes many of the Mitnagdic charges and relates the HaBaD leader’s efforts at mediation and reconciliation. The literary form of the MA is that of an exchange of correspondence on the differences between the Hasidim and Mitnagdim. The second letter contains a lengthy recounting by the Hasid of a debate he carried on with another Mitnaged, and the latter's conversion to the Hasidic view. It is this latter debate-within-a-debate that contains most of the items of significance in the MA. The style of this inner dialogue is reminiscent of Yehudah Halevi's Kuzari. The Mitnaged, like the King, begins with a self-assurance which, under the searching scrutiny and superior wisdom of his partner (the Rabbi in the one case and the Hasid in the other), he gradually surrenders until he is persuaded of his conversationalist's point of view. The Mitnaged's questions, like the King's, are merely foils for the author's thesis. Of course, the analogy is restricted to form; the MA cannot by any means be regarded as a work of literary distinction. Furthermore, the narrative context of the Kuzari is meant as a literary device, despite the authenticity of its general historical background, whereas the story related in MA was intended to be taken as factual truth. Nevertheless, despite the pseudepigraphical nature of the "correspondence" and debate, it is quite probable that a number of incidents related in MA did indeed occur, although this does not necessarily mean we must accept the author's assertion of personal knowledge of these events. Were they untrue, the reliability of the work would become immediately suspect and its pretensions exposed. Thus, for instance, the author is no doubt correct in asserting that young Hasidim were students in the Yeshivah under R. Hayyim, and that he—the author—studied there; although one may question the veracity of his claim of having been close to R. Hayyim or, indeed, that he personally knew him at all.

Likewise, the reliability of the author's report is strengthened (though not established beyond question) when he quotes names and places, as when he identifies a visiting Hasid to whom R. Hayyim extended hospitality as R. Israel Jaffe, a printer of Kapust. As will become evident shortly, he had no personal knowledge of this incident but was probably repeating "well known facts". There are thus three principal characters in the story told in the MA: the Hasid, the Mitnaged he writes to, and the Mitnaged with whom he debates orally in the inner dialogue (and which debate he recounts in his second letter). Furthermore, there are occasional additions entitled "compiler’s notes". Since the letters are all the invention of the author, it is clear that the "compiler" and the writers of the letters are one and the same person—the author of the MA. Dubnow has pointed out some of the major anachronisms in the MA, which make the alleged 1786 date utterly impossible. Thus, there are mentioned in the book the Yeshivah of Volozhin (1802), the Gaon’s Commentary on ספרא דצניעותא (1820), and the NH (1824). Many other instances may be cited as evidence that the work post-dates 1786; the latest date of any specific event or book mentioned is 1824, the year of publication of the NH.

Any attempts to learn something authentic about the author from the words of the compiler and the Hasidic correspondent, who is his mouthpiece, are bound to fail. The Hasid's information about himself is a hopeless jumble of contradictory statements and hints. So blatant are these inconsistencies that one must conclude that either the author was incredibly inept or, more probably, that he was perpetrating a practical joke at the same time that he was seriously confronting certain theoretical and social problems. Yet his acquaintance with Mitnagdic doctrines and lore lend credence to his assertion that, at one time, he studied at the Yeshivah of Volozhin. The author, to take his Hasid at face value, claims personal acquaintanceship with R. Hayyim. In his role as "compiler", he maintains that he, the compiler, heard personally from R. Saadia, disciple of the Gaon, a story of the Gaon told by the Mitnaged. This is probably untrue; R. Saadia, the zealous antagonist of the Hasidim, and brother-in-law of R. Shelomoh Zalman, the brother of R. Hayyim, emigrated to Palestine in 1809-1810. Since MA was first published in 1858, the "compiler" was thus repeating a tale he heard at least almost half a century earlier. The "Hasid" can be shown to have no less than four different allegiances. Dubnow has already noted the similarity of many of the Hasidic arguments to the doctrines of R. Shneour Zalman in the לקוטי אמרים and concludes that the author most probably was a member of the HaBaD movement. Thus, the MA's position on the Study of תורה שלא לשמה parallels exactly, even in language, that of לקוטי אמרים; so, too, his ideas on the progressive spiritual degradation of the generations from the pre-Patriarchal to the post-Talmudic period follow that of R. Shneour Zalman, as do his views on Prayer in relation to Study. The author has his Mitnaged assert openly that the Gaon ignored certain Lurianic practices, which reopens the same charge made against the Gaon in a letter by R. Shneour Zalman, to which R. Hayyim responded in his Introduction to the Gaon's Commentary on the ספרא דצניעותא. Likewise, he repeats the earlier implication by R. Shneour Zalman that the Gaon's rejection of Hasidic immanentism is philosophically inspired. The fact that the MA bears, as an appendix, a letter by R. Shneour Zalman to his followers in Vilna indicates that the author was a Hasid of R. Shneour Zalman. More directly, he traces the mainstream of Hasidic tradition from the Besht through the Maggid to R. Shneour Zalman, whom he refers to as "two lights," and as if he were alive and residing in Ladi.

Yet in other places the Hasid in the MA professes to be a follower of R. Dov Ber, the son of R. Shneour Zalman. In one passage he refers to the latter as "our Rabbi" and to the former as "the Rabbi" of Ladi, citing the latter's קונטרס ההתפעלות (first published in Kapust, 1816). Towards the end of his work, the Hasid offers the Mitnaged a resume of the genealogy of Hasidic leaders, from the Besht through the Maggid through R. Shneour Zalman to R. Dov Ber. In addition to posing as a follower both of R. Shneour Zalman and R. Dov Ber, which would have been not at all improbable, for most of the Hasidim of the former transferred their allegiance to his son and successor, the Hasid speaks of becoming a follower of the Rabbi of Amdur. Amdur—or Hamdura or Indur—was a town in northwestern Lithuania in the province of Grodno, where the Rabbi was R. Hayyim Hayy'ke, a disciple of the Maggid and a zealous missionary for the new movement of Hasidism. Under R. Hayyim Hayy'ke, Amdur was an isolated island of Hasidism in Lithuania; from 1785 to 1787, when he died, he was the only Hasidic Zaddik in Lithuania, R. Shelomoh of Karlin and R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev having been exiled by the Mitnagdim. Amdur Hasidism came to an end with the death of R. Hayyim Hayy'ke's son, R. Samuel, in 1798. The anachronism here is painfully obvious: the Hasid's claim is to have left the Yeshivah of Volozhin, founded in 1802, to become a follower of a Zaddik who died in 1787. In all probability the author, unaware of or ignoring the late date of the founding of the Yeshivah, invented the Amdur episode to lend credibility to the early (1786) dating of the alleged correspondence.

There is yet a fourth Zaddik to whom the Hasid pretends to offer his allegiance; although, in fairness to the author, it should be mentioned that this element is only indirectly implied in the MA and explicitly announced in the ויכוח רבה, which is but a later version, slightly modified, of the MA. The title page of ויכוח רבה (hereinafter, VR) clearly identifies the Hasid, R. Joseph of Nemerov, as a disciple of R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. In both MA and VR, the same Hasidic Zaddik is mentioned in the text, identifying him, together with R. Yehiel Michel of Zloczow, his fellow-disciple of the Maggid, as the one who introduced the Hasidic habit of delaying the morning prayers. There are certain differences in the manner in which these works refer to him. Thus, the VR, the later work, writes of him as if he were alive, and in terms reserved by Hasidim for one's own Rabbi (רביי); in the same context, the MA, the earlier work, writes of R. Levi Yitzhak as if he were already deceased, without the ז"ל, and, to make matters worse, his two names are given in reverse order!

The only conclusion is that internal criticism is inconclusive in yielding any reliable information about the author of this tract. All we can say with any certainty is that the author's claims are false, the letters are spurious, and the incidents invented—if not completely, then at least for the most part. However, we do have some information as to the identity of the probable author of this work. Dubnow mentions, en passant, a theory identifying the author as a Jacob Bachrach of Bialystok. Weiner, who considers VR as simply the same MA reprinted under a different title, unhesitatingly declares Bachrach the author. Zinberg, for reasons he does not make clear, rejects this suggestion. The first one to name Bachrach as author of the MA was Ephraim Deinard, who lived in the United States at the turn of the century. Deinard was a close friend of Bachrach, who superintended a Hebrew printing establishment in Königsberg. The latter, born in Russia in 1824 and died in Bialystok in 1896, was an assiduous student of Karaitic literature (engaging in controversies with Karaites) and an expert in problems of the Jewish calendar. In order properly to evaluate the MA, it is important to consider critically the evidence and theory proposed by Deinard; apparently this has not been done heretofore.

Deinard's theory embraces not only the pro-Hasidic apologetic, the MA, but, somewhat fantastically, the Mitnagdic polemic "זמיר עריצים" and the bitter anti-Hasidic diatribe, "שבר פושעים". All three, Deinard asserts, were written by Bachrach. Deinard is aware of the obvious discrepancy in style that separates the three books. Bachrach possessed a fine literary style and was a competent grammarian, yet MA and שבר פושעים reveal neither good style nor correct grammar. Deinard's explanation is to declare that these literary defects are contrived, part of a conscious effort by Bachrach to disguise his authorship. But, then, what of the זמיר עריצים which is well written? Deinard has an easy solution: Bachrach slipped and allowed himself to write with literary grace! It is important to note Deinard's facility in inventing theories for it sheds light upon his general reliability. Bachrach wrote MA, Deinard avers, in response to a request by Segelowitz (the publisher of MA), who was a proof-reader in Königsberg in 1860. The date, of course, is inaccurate; MA was first published in 1858. Bachrach, according to Deinard, did this for two reasons: to ridicule the naive and credulous Hasidim and to enable Segelowitz to make money by selling the MA to them as an authentic record of the 1786 correspondence which it pretends to preserve for posterity. If Deinard was indeed a close friend of Bachrach, why did he have to resort to "theories" about his alleged authorship of these various volumes instead of confirming it with him personally? Deinard's answer is that Bachrach wanted this to be a closely guarded secret, perhaps because he did not enjoy the reputation of being a "ghost" and, out of consideration for Bachrach's feelings, not wanting to irritate him, Deinard refrained from broaching the subject during the three years (1873-1876) they spent together in Sevastopol. However, by the time of the publication of this volume (1899), Bachrach was already dead three years and Deinard considered it a sin against Jewish history not to make the fact of Bachrach's authorship known.

Deinard is the source of all others who have attributed the MA to Bachrach. Dubnow, who tends to accept this information with regard to the MA, is not wont to regard as reliable the theory that he wrote all three works mentioned earlier; it is an "astounding theory" of the same order as Deinard's insistence, against all historians of Hasidism, that R. Israel Baal Shem Tov never existed! Enough has been said about Deinard to indicate that his conclusions are suspect, based upon a series of inaccuracies and speculations, and must be taken with more than a grain of caution. Certainly, Bachrach's authorship of all three works is improbable. Bachrach's reputation as a serious scholar and convinced Rabbinic Jew does not lend credence to the implication that he was so unprincipled a literary hack as to write such contradictory works, simultaneously attacking and defending Hasidism.

Nevertheless, Deinard's insistence upon Bachrach's authorship of the MA is more convincing than the rest of his theory. At the very least, Deinard offers some evidence for this assertion: the end of the Introduction to the MA is an acrostic of Bachrach's name. The entire passage has been cited in order to underscore the fact that this is no coincidence; the last five words are somewhat awkward in style compared with the rest of the passage, and were probably placed in this strained order in order to make the acrostic possible. There is yet one more indication that may be cited in support of Bachrach's authorship or that the author's name was Jacob: the names of the fictitious Hasid and Mitnaged in the MA are, respectively, Joseph and Benjamin. The Biblical Joseph and Benjamin were full brothers and sons of Jacob. If, then, as appears probable, Bachrach is the author of MA, certain conclusions must immediately be drawn as to the reliability of the reports contained therein. Bachrach was born in 1824. This means that he never knew R. Hayyim (d.1821), or R. Dov Ber of Ladi (d.1828), or R. Levi Yitzhak (d.1809), or indeed any of the historical figures with whom he feigns such intimacy. All the "factual" information offered by the author is suspect; it cannot be accepted without independent corroboration except, perhaps, in such cases where a fabrication would be immediately recognized as such.

This would be true, on the basis of internal criticism, even without the particular identification of Bachrach as the author. With this information, however, we are confronted with additional obstacles in attributing some credibility to the MA. Bachrach was a careful investigator, who produced serious works of scholarship demanding a high degree of accuracy and meticulousness. If he were to set about inventing a piece of pseudepigraphy, he would take certain elementary precautions to avoid obvious inconsistencies; certainly he would never permit his work to abound in fantastic anachronisms and contradictions, some of which have been noted above. This could happen only if the author took a very dim view of his audience, and, out of a sardonic sense of humor, decided to play upon their gullibility. This, indeed, was the assertion of Deinard. It certainly appears that some of the statements in the MA border upon meaningless gibberish, intending to mystify the ingenuous reader; such obscurantism may very well be the product of wry wit. Were this the end of the matter, the whole of the MA would have to be dismissed as historically irrelevant and of no value whatever for the scholarship dealing with significant religious and theological issues that agitated some of the best minds of this period.

Certainly, as was mentioned earlier, one must under the best circumstances be circumspect in using the MA as a valid source. Yet it appears that despite the author's clever playfulness, perhaps despite himself, he has confronted some important issues in a mature and substantial manner. His analyses, his rebuttals of the main Mitnagdic criticisms, including those of R. Hayyim, reveal a deft mind that grasps the heart of the issue, that understands the true nature of the problems, and that offers solutions which, whether they are or are not adequate, are at least credible and merit further consideration. It is obvious that the MA filled a definite need felt by the Hasidic community for a reasoned defense of its position against the Mitnagdic animadversions. Hence, the MA went at least into a 2nd edition. It was deemed worthy of plagiarizing; thus, the VR which, as stated, is essentially the same as the MA. This volume, too, was republished; we know of at least three editions. Furthermore, the same work appeared later under yet a different title, which has seemingly escaped the notice of scholars, the ויכוח רבה and ספר הלקוטים, published in Warsaw in 1900. It may be assumed, therefore, that even were the MA a literary hoax, its wide acceptance and imitation by Hasidim warrant its consideration as representing—intended or not—the reactions of the Hasidim to Mitnagdic criticisms, and the readiness of the Hasidim to respond in a conciliatory manner to the overtures of the Mitnagdim, particularly R. Hayyim in his נפש החיים. Moreover, it may be assumed that the ideas put forth in the MA were not completely original but represented, in more systematic fashion, ideas which were already circulating in informed Hasidic circles.

Dubnow has already recognized the MA as embodying a new tendency in the Hasidic-Mitnagdic polemics: one of peaceful conversation, a dialogue which seeks an accommodation. The Hasid, in the book, lays down four conditions to guide the dialogue: that there be no hatred, no rancor, no arrogance, and no seeking "victory"—i.e., merely scoring debater’s points without dealing with the issues proper. These four conditions—which are appropriate to any genuine dialogue—were noticeably absent in the polemics prior to this period. The work announces its own purpose as the re-establishment of fraternal harmony. It castigates the Hasidim for regarding the Mitnagdim as wanting in faith, and the Mitnagdim for ridiculing the Hasidim and disbelieving the tales told of the Zaddikim; the latter must not be taken at face value, in which case they sound like fables, but as containing profound inner mysteries, as with the stories told by R. Nahman of Bratzlav. Only mutual love and respect can unite the House of Israel and turn their hearts as one to their Father in Heaven.

Dubnow ventures the opinion that the MA is perhaps a sort of response to the NH. A careful reading of the volume shows that it is indeed primarily a response to the NH, which was first published thirty-four years earlier. The author mentions R. Hayyim and his works explicitly a number of times. Thus, he maintains that he was a student at the Yeshivah of Volozhin under R. Hayyim, and that the latter’s conciliatory attitude towards the Hasidim, despite the Gaon's harsh strictures, contributed to his eventual transformation into a Hasid. To a comment by the Mitnaged, the "compiler" adds the note that the theme is elaborated upon in the book by R. Hayyim; the passage does appear in the NH. The Mitnaged makes reverent reference to R. Hayyim’s description of the Gaon’s awesome spiritual prowess, in the former’s Introduction to the latter’s Commentary on the ספרא דצניעותא.

But more important than these direct mentions of R. Hayyim and his writings are the substance of the MA's arguments which are, for the most part, reactions to ideas propounded in the NH. A brief summary will suffice to establish the nature of MA as, above all, a response to the NH. The MA reopens the question of the Gaon’s loyalty to Lurianic teachings, which had been questioned by R. Shneour Zalman and defended by R. Hayyim in the latter’s Foreword to the Gaon’s Commentary on the ספרא דצניעותא; in this matter is it attempted to secure the legitimacy of the antecedents of Hasidism as against its opponents. R. Hayyim accuses the Hasidim of habitually ignoring the time limits set by the Halakhah for the performance of various commandments, especially prayer. The MA simply denies this, conceding only that if such a condition does exist, it is only amongst the very ignorant and is atypical of most Hasidim. R. Hayyim rejected the Hasidic requirement that study of Torah be accompanied by דבקות, which for Hasidism implied an experiential, ecstatic communion with God. R. Hayyim offers an analytic criticism of this principle, and maintains that the two are irreconcilable simultaneously. The Mitnaged in MA restates this challenge by R. Hayyim to this important Hasidic teaching; the Hasid denies any exclusive insistence upon conscious דבקות during study—a patent evasion. He also discusses R. Hayyim’s analysis of יראה (piety, religious devotion) and Torah. R. Hayyim consistently maintains the superiority of the study of Torah to the observance of the practical commandments, asserting that Torah, even if not studied for its own sake, is superior to the commandments even when the latter are performed for their own sake (לשמה): Torah, even when not studied לשמה, defends one against sin. The author of MA counters this argument, offering proof for his thesis from the אור החיים to בחוקותי. He rejects R. Hayyim’s principle which denies the possibility of simultaneous conscious devotion and ratio, and offers instead a psychological insight, namely, that the devotional mood (יראה) derived from a preliminary study of Musar texts, remains active on a subconscious level during the time the mind is overtly preoccupied with the rigorous study of Halakhah. He counters R. Hayyim’s argument for the superiority of Study over Prayer by summing up R. Shneour Zalman’s thesis that without Prayer the Study of Torah loses its spiritual efficacy. He opposes R. Hayyim’s limiting the means of achieving repentance to the Study of Torah by declaring תשובה, rather than Torah Study, an all-inclusive and all-embracing spiritual therapy. Many more such examples may be cited; indeed, with few exceptions of problems not mentioned in the NH, the MA is the direct pro-Hasidic rebuttal to the NH.

Dubnow, who recognized both the new conciliatory spirit of the MA and its nature as a response to R. Hayyim, failed, however, to make the connection between them. The NH, as I have attempted to demonstrate elsewhere, was the first conciliatory Mitnagdic gesture. It endeavored to confront the substantive issues raised by Hasidism without recourse to personal recrimination and invective. The MA was the answer, upholding the Hasidic views but, in the same fraternal spirit, refusing to read the opposition out of the Jewish people. Since the first such attempt at reconciliation came from the Hasidic side, with R. Shneour Zalman’s efforts, the eventual harmony that was effected was about half a century in the making: the לקוטי אמרים, the NH, the MA. It must be repeated that this significance of the MA transcends the intentions of the author of this pseudepigraphic tract. Its importance lies in the acceptance accorded to it by the Hasidic community and the substantive arguments, and is independent of the goals and purposes that may have been entertained by the author, probably Jacob Bachrach.


NOTE

[1] The NH was first published in ViIna and Grodno in

1824, three years after the death of its author. Seven

editions have appeared to date, all of them identical in

wording. For purposes of pagination, references here

will be to the Rogozin edition, Brooklyn (no date on

title page, but probably 1944). For a more elaborate

discussion on the NH and the religious thought of

R. Hayyim, see my

"חורה לשמה ב8«נת רבי חיים מוולוז״ין ונ8ח'«ית הדור"

(מוסד הרב תריז, ירושלים, 972 1) •

The present essay was submitted for publication before

my book on R. Hayyim appeared in print.