Chasidim

Chasidim (Heb., 'pious'), the name by which the Jewish party afterwards known as the Pharisees was first distinguished. The Chasidim first took definite form as a party in the course of the struggle between Judaism and Hellenism during and immediately before the Maccabean period. When in 167 B.C. the great majority of the Jewish people rose against their heathen masters, the Chasidim joined in the conflict, though separated from the other adherents of Judas Maccabeus as a closer community of those who were distinguished by especial 'piety'—i.e. especial strictness in the observance of the law. They took part in the struggle only so long as the freedom of religion was the question really involved; at a later time, when this was no longer the case, they seem to have withdrawn from it, for under Judas's brothers Jonathan and Simon (160-135 B.C.) they are not mentioned. Under Simon's successor, John Hyrcanus (135-105 B.C.), they appear for the first time in history under the name of Pharisees, and here we already find them in opposition to the family of the Maccabees or Hasmoneans, with whom they had originally pursued a common interest. See PHARISEES.—The modern Chasidim are not, like those in the times of the Maccabees, marked by any peculiar spiritualistic tendency in religion, but rather by a strict observance of certain traditional forms and a blind subservience to their teachers. Their doctrine was promulgated in the middle of the 18th century by Israel of Podolia, called Baal-Shem ('Lord of the Name,' so called because he professed to perform miracles by using the great cabalistic name of the Supreme Being). Though condemned by the orthodox rabbis, this new teacher had great success in Galicia, and when he died (1760) left 40,000 converts. They are now broken into several petty sects; their religion is utterly formal, and its ceremonies are coarse and noisy.