Reshit Hokhmah

This volume publishes for the first time an untitled anti-Hasidic manuscript, which the editors have called Reshit Hokhmah (The Origin/Beginning of Wisdom), from the Joseph Perl Archive in Tarnopol. The manuscript was copied in 1819, the year that Perl’s Megale Temirin was published. It is housed today in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The identity of the author is unknown, but he probably came from Galicia and was associated with Mitnagdim and Maskilim. The book expresses harsh and detailed criticism of the hagiographic work, Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, Kapost 1815), which is the first extensive engagement with this book. Moreover, the work is erudite and anticipates the views of Isaac Baer Levinson in his work Te‘udah be-Yisrael (A Warning to Israel, Vilna and Grodno 1828). The manuscript was read by many Maskilim in Galicia and it seems to have influenced both Joseph Perl and Isaac Baer Levinson. This work is therefore of great importance as an example of anti-Hasidic literature, which influenced nineteenth-century Haskalah literature. A transcription of the manuscript is presented in this volume, accompanied by explanatory notes, references to literature that influenced the author, references to anti-Hasidic literature, and an introduction that describes the character of the work and its reception.