Excerpt from a letter by Baal Shem Tov to his brother-in-law Abraham Gershon of Kitov (also known as Rabbi Gershon of Brody), about a mystical experience that he had on the day of Rosh Hashana in 5507 (1747).
“I performed, by means of an oath, an elevation of soul(1), as known to you, and saw wondrous things I had never seen before. What I saw and learned there is impossible to convey in words, even face to face… I ascended from level to level until I entered the chamber of the Mashiach, where the Mashiach learns Torah with all the Tanaim and tzadikim and also with the Seven Shepherds(2). A great joy – the cause of which I did not knew – prevailed among them. I thought the cause of this joy was my death(3) – God forbid – but I learned later that I was still alive because the spiritual processes I was causing by the means of their teachings gave them great satisfaction. However, I neve knew the reason for their joy.
I asked the Mashiach, ‘When will the Master come?’(4) And he answered, ‘By this you shall know: When your teachings will become public and revealed in the world, and your wellsprings burst forth to the farthest extremes–that which I have taught you and you have comprehended’ ”
Machia’h’s reply to Baal Shem Tov, which illustrates the links between his teachings and the coming of messianic times, became for the Hassidic movement a true manifesto of the universality of its significance.
This is the entire meaning of the revelation and global dissemination of the “‘Hassidut ‘Chabad”, allowing each and everyone to intellectually understand the teachings of Baal Shem Tov in order to make them the basis of their daily life.

Notes :
1. The rise of the soul to the spiritual spheres is a Kabbalistic process that Baal Shem Tov frequently used. According to the Hassidic tradition, he was more frequently in the spiritual world than in this world.
2. Who are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, King David et King Solomon.
3. The death of a righteous person is, from an esoteric point of view, a source of great joy, since he is liberated from the physical constraints of his body and the world.
4. The formulation of this question, raised by Baal Shem Tov in Aramean, was borrowed from Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi in the Treaty of Sanhedrin (98a).

Letter by Baal Shem Tov to his brother-in-law Abraham Gershon of Kitov (also known as Rabbi Gershon of Brody), about a mystical experience that he had on the day of Rosh Hashana in 5507 (1747).
http://www.inner.org/baal-shem-tov/letter.php (09/02/2015)

This is an excerpt from a letter sent by Israel Ben Eliezer, also known as Baal Shem Tov, to his brother-in-law, Rabbi Gershom of Kitov (also known as Rabbi Gershon of Brody). The letter relates a mystical experience that he had on the day of the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashana) in 1747. A mystical rabbi, Baal Shem Tov is considered the founder of Hassidic Judaism. This religious revival was born in the 18th century in eastern Europe and was characterized by high level of piety, but also by the search for a joyous communion with God through song and dance. Hassidism today is a major current in ultra-Orthodox Judaism. The text presented here also conveys the idea that the divine must be understood through both daily acts and study.

This is a photograph taken in Venice in the 1920s showing the great Jewish dancer Baruch Kowansky, also known as Baruch Agadati (the Extraordinary Baruch). Born in Odessa, he went to Palestine as a young man to create Jewish folk dances, known today as the “Isreaeli dances”. Baruch Agadati went on various tours in eastern and western Europe. On this photograph he is shown wearing a traditional eastern European Jewish costume, epitomizing the importance of dance in the Hassidic world as an expression of joy. Dance is perceived as a means of purifying the soul, exalting the spirit and bringing community cohesion.

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(09/02/2015)

This is a photograph showing the great Jewish philosopher and founder of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala), Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). He was Talmudic scholar and an erudite figure in other profane areas, including mathematics, Latin and, especially, philosophy. A great defender of the emancipation of Jews, he also advocated a non-proselytizing Jewish universalism and rejected any contradiction between civic and religious duties. He was the first to translate the Hebrew Bible into German.

Dear Sirs and dear brothers:
That day has happened when the veil that covered us with humiliation was torn. We finally recover these rights which, for more than eighteen centuries, were taken from us. How much must we recognize now the wonderful mercy of the God of our ancestors!
Thanks to the Supreme Being and to the sovereignty of the nation, here we are, not only men and citizens, but also French! God Almighty, what a welcome change you just brought on us! On September 27, we still were the only inhabitants of this vast Empire who seemed forever condemned to be degraded and chained; and the next day, on September 28, a memorable day that we will celebrate forever, you inspired these immortal legislators of France. They made a decision, and more than sixty thousand victims, bemoaning their fate, were overwhelmed by the purest joy. We do not hide, my very dear brothers, that neither our repentance nor our morals have deserved this wonderful awakening: we can and must only attribute it to the continuity of heavenly goodness that has never abandoned us. Whereas it did not find us worthy yet to fulfil the promises of a perfect and lasting redemption, it did not feel the need to make our ills even more pressing. Our chains were also becoming more unbearable in respect to these human rights that were so sublimely presented and highlighted.
So God who reads in the heart of man intervened, after seeing that our whole resignation would not be sufficient to help us endure this, and after seeing that we needed supernatural forces to support these new torments. God chose the generous French nation to reinstate our rights and regenerate us, after He had chosen in former times Antiochus and Pompey to humiliate us and chain us. What a glory for this nation to bring us so much happiness in such a short time! And certainly, whereas people usually become French with the help of the law and the freedom they just conquered, how much did we win on this particular point, and how grateful we must be for this happy change in our fate! From vile slaves, from mere serfs, from people who were barely tolerated in this Empire and subjected to enormous and arbitrary taxes, we all of a sudden become children of the country, to share its burdens and common rights (...).

Lettre d’un citoyen, Berr Isaac Berr de Turique, 1791. Trans. Marie Lebert. http://judaisme.sdv.fr/histoire/document/ecoles/beer/beer.htm

This is a letter by Berr Isaac Berr of Turique (1744-1828), a Jewish deputy in the Lorraine region of France, who, on 14 October 1789, led a delegation to the National Assembly defending French citizenship for his coreligionists in Lorraine. Under the reign of Napoleon, he was a member of the Great Sanhredrin. In this letter he is addressing French Jews only a few days after the proposal made to the National Assembly, on 28 September 1791, stating that “Jews in France will enjoy the rights of active citizens”. He urged Jews to show their gratitude to France, as was the first nation to grant Jewish men and women equal citizenship rights.