Living in the Presence: A Personal Quest for the Baal Shem Tov - Softcover

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Rabbi Burt Jacobson was a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he studied with Abraham Joshua Heschel, and was mentored in Kabbalah and Hasidism by Rabbi Arthur Green. After moving to California in the early 1970’s, Jacobson joined with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and others in founding the Jewish Renewal movement, helping to reintroduce Jewish spirituality and mysticism in the U.S. and throughout the world. 

In 1984, Jacobson founded Kehilla Community Synagogue in Berkeley, which presently has a membership of 560 families. One of his tasks at Kehilla was the creation of new Jewish liturgy that was both universal and non-patriarchal. Out of this work he co-edited with Rabbi Leila Berner Or Chadash: New Paths for Shabbat Morning, the first liturgy for the Jewish Renewal movement, published by P’nai Or Religious Fellowship. Rabbi Burt was also instrumental in designing the curriculum for the Rabbinic Training Program of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Jacobson has been a student of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, for fifty years. He lives in El Sobrante, California with his wife, Rabbi Diane Elliot.

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There are two very different images of the Baal Shem Tov found in Hasidic tradition. Most of the written sources picture him as a fully realized compassionate master; and yet there are a number of early stories that describe him as having been crude and peasant-like, subject to severe moral failings. A good deal of my original motivation in studying the literature associated with his name had to do with solving this conundrum. Examining the original sources led me to develop a theory about the Baal Shem’s historical identity that varies considerably from the widespread image of the man as a free spirit who never experienced adversity and taught only joy and love.

After decades of study, I came to agree with Heschel’s evaluation of the Baal Shem Tov as one of the greatest Jewish spiritual teachers who had ever lived, but not exactly for the same reasons that Heschel had put forward. Given the traumatic experiences that the Besht underwent in his early life, his transformation into a powerful healer, spiritual teacher, and founder of Hasidism are absolutely remarkable, and perhaps unprecedented in traditional Jewish life. Because of this I am able to affirm the promise that Heschel made at the beginning of my journey: “He who really wants to be uplifted by communing with a great person whom he can love without reservation, who can enrich his thought and imagination without end, that person can meditate about the life and being of the Besht. There has been no one like him in the last thousand years.”