Orot, Inc. was founded in 1990 by Rabbi Bezalel Naor to disseminate the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935), first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel. Rav Kook is considered one of the greatest Jewish thinkers and mystics of all time.
Title: The Project of Hasidism
By: Rabbi Betzalel Naor
Kodesh Press
R. Betzalel Naor’s latest offering, The Project of Hasidism, is a compilation of essays accompanied by his characteristically rich footnotes. It delves into the question: What is the contribution of chassidus to Yiddishkeit? More than merely a popular movement, chassidus has attracted – and continues to attract – the attention of searching souls. There is something “deep calling unto deep,” drawing in both scholars and laymen alike.
Its resurgence after World War II – despite the decimation of its homelands in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania by the Nazi scourge – is nothing short of miraculous. It has even caught the attention of the seemingly more “Americanized” portions of Judaism, including the bastion of rational American Orthodoxy at Yeshiva University and its ideological successor in Gush Etzion.
R. Betzalel Naor takes us on a journey through a dizzying kaleidoscope of sources to understand the nature of chassidus. What is the goal of chassidus? What are its methodologies? What is its allure in the modern era?
In the first essay – after which the book is named, “The Project of Hasidism” – R. Naor proposes that chassidus represents nothing less than the renaissance of prophecy. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman of Kopyst (the grandson of the third Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek) said that the Holy Spirit which rested upon the participants of the Simchas Beis HaSho’eva was a result of the sublime joy of the time, not of Torah study. R. Naor develops this concept of non-intellectual prophecy, contrasting the prophetic experience with the intellectual one.
He notes that throughout the generations of the Baal Shem Tov’s students, the practices of the chassidic fraternity – song, dance, storytelling, and drawing upon the power of the imagination – were methods for accessing these well-worn paths of prophecy, now largely devoid of travelers, but open once more to seekers of Divine inspiration.
In a fascinating theory, he proposes that the opposition of the Vilna Gaon was not to ecstatic prophecy per se – since such experiences were practiced in their own right – but rather to the notion that one could experience them outside the Land of Israel. These two worlds, the intellectual and the prophetic, converge in the last hundred years with Rav Kook’s arrival in Eretz Yisrael. This disciple of Volozhin and child of chassidus was astonished to see that the luminous gates of prophecy had begun to open with the nascent community’s interest in art, music, and culture – all faculties of imaginative prophecy. He exclaimed: “The aftergrowths of prophets are sprouting, and the children of prophets awaken. A spirit of prophecy walks through the land” (Orot HaKodesh, vol. 1, p. 157, §134).
Another component of the chassidic project is the meditative contemplation of Hashem’s unity. In the essay “Rav Asher of Titkin and Rav Isaac of Homil,” R. Naor asks whether such contemplation is unique to chassidus. Asher HaKohen of Titkin, a third-generation student of the Vilna Gaon, summarized the Nefesh HaChaim’s exposition on Divine Unity. R. Naor notes that, in his treatment, the matter remains an intellectual endeavor.
In contrast, R. Aizik Epstein of Homil – a contemporary of Rav Asher and a disciple of the Baal HaTanya and the Mitteler Rebbe – wrote to a questioner that for the chassidim, Hashem is immanent and felt everywhere. While both groups may explore similar themes, for the Lithuanian opponents of chassidus, Hashem’s unity remains theoretical; for the chassidim, it is experiential. As R. Naor himself observes, “In the Mitnagdic universe, the spell is broken; the magic becomes mundane.”
In the essay, “Two Themes from the Mitteler Rebbe,” we encounter a piece that “me’at mechazeik et harbeh.” (A little contains a lot.) R. Naor weaves together two ideas that, like the ancient Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, emerge from the same root. The Chabad concept of Divine Unity – pervading all of reality and rendering everything Divinity itself – and its opposition to ecstatic practice stem from the same principle. The oneness that suffuses reality negates the need for external ecstasy, favoring instead a silent, still surrender to the One that permeates all.
In this context, R. Naor guides us through both the Chabad succession struggle of the second generation and a brief history of the British Chief Rabbinate – each of which could merit an essay of its own.
In another fascinating essay, exploring the chassidic understanding of Divine will, R. Naor escorts us to Poland to visit the Izhbitz-Radzyn school. In “The Law of the Torah and the Law of the King,” he examines the idea of an extra-halachic will of Hashem – an idea that naturally raises eyebrows. Yet he argues that this concept is not a novel mystical innovation, but one rooted in Ramban’s glosses (on the commandments “to be holy” in Vayikra 19 and “to do what is straight and good” in Devarim) and in the Drashos HaRan. R. Naor further notes that this concept finds expression in certain chassidic groups’ alternative approaches to the timing of prayer.
The book concludes with a review of Modern Uses of Hasidism, edited by Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier, Ph.D. Modern Uses is a collection of studies presented to – and reacting to – a meeting of the Orthodox Forum, which examined new applications of chassidic thought and practice in non-chassidic circles. One noteworthy locus of this phenomenon is the traditionally rationalist Yeshiva University and the constellation of synagogues and schools within its orbit.
The chassidic project continues to expand outward, in fulfillment of the Baal Shem Tov’s vision that Mashiach will arrive when his teachings have spread to the entire world.
I highly recommend that interested readers inhale – and then digest – this remarkable new offering.
Originally published in The Jewish Press, December 4th, 2025: https://jewishpress.com/sections/books/book-reviews/on-the-path-of-the-prophets-from-the-past-into-our-future/2025/12/04/