הרב דב בער ממזריטש

Rav Dov Ber of Mezritch (niftar 19 Kislev 5533/1772), the Maggid of Mezritch (also spelled Mezeritch), was the great talmid and successor of the Baal Shem Tov, under whose hand chassidut grew from a circle into a movement — most of the tzaddikim of the following generation were his talmidim. He was born in Lokachi in Volhynia to Rav Avraham, a poor melamed; the family held a yichus scroll reaching back to the tanna Rabbi Yochanan HaSandlar. His year of birth is not known. As a boy he was sent to learn in the great yeshiva of Rav Yaakov Yehoshua Falk, the Pnei Yehoshua, in Lvov. He married Kayla, daughter of Shalom Shachna of Torchin, lived in bitter poverty as a village melamed, and served as maggid — the preacher of the community — in Torchin, Koritz, and Rovno, the office that gave him his title.

Given over to the Arizal’s Kabbalah, he lived as a porush — fasting much and praying long — until his health broke and he was left lame in one foot. It was, by one account, to seek a cure that he first came to the Baal Shem Tov. Expecting deep mysteries and hearing only simple stories, he resolved to leave; the Baal Shem Tov then asked him to explain a passage in the Eitz Chaim of Rav Chaim Vital, and after hearing him, showed him the living soul within the words that his learning alone had not reached. He stayed. Under the Baal Shem Tov he set aside the path of fasting and self-affliction, learning instead to find Hashem’s presence in everything and to raise the material into a vessel for kedushah. The Baal Shem Tov said of him that he was already a menorah of pure gold — all that remained was to light it. After the Baal Shem Tov’s petirah on Shavuot 5520/1760, and after Rav Tzvi, the Baal Shem Tov’s son, led for a year, the Maggid took up the leadership of the movement.

He settled in Mezritch in Volhynia, and the center of chassidut moved there from Medzhibuzh. Kept close to home by his frailty — he appeared in public chiefly on Shabbat — he turned his strength to raising the Chevraya Kadisha, the circle of talmidim who would carry the movement across Poland, Galicia, and Russia: his son Rav Avraham HaMalach, Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk, Rav Zusha of Hanipoli, Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, Rav Nachum of Chernobyl, Rav Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, Rav Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, Rav Shmuel Shmelke of Nikolsburg, Rav Pinchas Horowitz, later rav of Frankfurt, and Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, whom he charged to compose an updated Shulchan Aruch with the reasons of the halachot — the Shulchan Aruch HaRav. From his beit midrash spread practices that took hold in many kehillot: baking matzot from kneading to oven within eighteen minutes, care against matzah sheruyah, and shechitah with honed, polished knives. When the opposition to chassidut reached its height and a cherem went out in Vilna in Nissan 5532/1772, he sent his talmidim Rav Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and Rav Shneur Zalman to seek out the Vilna Gaon for reconciliation.

The Maggid himself wrote no sefarim; his Torah was set down by his talmidim. Maggid Devarav LeYaakov was arranged in his lifetime and at his request, printed in Koritz in 5541/1781 by his talmid Rav Shlomo of Lutzk; after it came Or Torah, Likutim Yekarim, Kitvei Kodesh, Or HaEmet, and Shemuah Tovah, besides his teachings quoted throughout his talmidim’s own sefarim. In 5532/1772 he returned to Rovno, and shortly before his petirah, fleeing an epidemic, he settled in Hanipoli, where he was niftar on 19 Kislev 5533 and lies buried beside his talmid Rav Zusha of Hanipoli.