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Baal Shem in Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 translates as "Master of the Name", and is almost always used in reference to Israel ben Eliezer, the Rabbi who founded Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism is a type of Orthodox Judaism or Haredi Judaism Orthodox Judaism religious movement. Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective chasidic / hasidic applies....
 and was called the Baal Shem Tov.

More generally, it refers to a rabbi who, due to his ability to perform super- and supra-good deeds that benefit others, is "given" the title by those who recognize or have benefited from his powers. It's a name that was given in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 to a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
 miracle
Miracle

File:Folio 171r - The Raising of Lazarus.jpgA miracle is a sensibly perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can only be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker....
 worker who could bring about cures
Cures

Cures, a Sabine town between the left bank of the Tiber and the Via Salaria, about 26 m. from Rome. According to legend, it was from Cures that Titus Tatius led to the Quirinal the Sabine settlers, from whom, after their union with the settlers on the Palatine Hill, the whole Roman people took the name Quirites....
 and healing
Healing

Healing, assessed physically, is the process by which the Cell in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrosis area.Healing incorporates both the removal of necrotic Biological tissue , and the replacement of this tissue....
, as well having mystical powers to foresee or interpret events and personalities.






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Baal Shem in Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 translates as "Master of the Name", and is almost always used in reference to Israel ben Eliezer, the Rabbi who founded Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism is a type of Orthodox Judaism or Haredi Judaism Orthodox Judaism religious movement. Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective chasidic / hasidic applies....
 and was called the Baal Shem Tov.

More generally, it refers to a rabbi who, due to his ability to perform super- and supra-good deeds that benefit others, is "given" the title by those who recognize or have benefited from his powers. It's a name that was given in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 to a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
 miracle
Miracle

File:Folio 171r - The Raising of Lazarus.jpgA miracle is a sensibly perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can only be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker....
 worker who could bring about cures
Cures

Cures, a Sabine town between the left bank of the Tiber and the Via Salaria, about 26 m. from Rome. According to legend, it was from Cures that Titus Tatius led to the Quirinal the Sabine settlers, from whom, after their union with the settlers on the Palatine Hill, the whole Roman people took the name Quirites....
 and healing
Healing

Healing, assessed physically, is the process by which the Cell in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrosis area.Healing incorporates both the removal of necrotic Biological tissue , and the replacement of this tissue....
, as well having mystical powers to foresee or interpret events and personalities. They were considered to have a "direct line" to Heaven
Heaven

Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the atmosphere or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English, however since at least AD 1000, it is typically also used to refer to an afterlife plane of existence in various religions and spirituality philosophy, often descri...
 evoking God
Names of God in Judaism

In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title. It represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relation of God to the Jewish people....
's mercies and compassion on suffering human beings.

The "Name" referred to in "Master of the Name" is the most holy Four-Letter Name of God or Tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton The letters, properly read from right to left , are:|-! Hebrew !! Letter name !! Pronunciation|-valign=top| ?'...
. In Jewish tradition, this Name was pronounced only by the High Priest
Kohen Gadol

Kohen Gadol or Kohen ha-Gadol is the title of wiktionary:High Priest of early Israelite religion and of Classical Age Judaism from the rise of the Israelite nation until the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem....
 on Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur , also known in English as the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn and important of the Jewish holidays. Its central themes are Atonement in Judaism and Repentance in Judaism....
. With the destruction of the Second Temple
Second Temple

The Second Temple was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem which stood between 516 BCE and 70 CE. During this time, it was the center of Judaism worship, which focused on the sacrifices known as the korbanot....
 by the Romans in the year 70
70

Year 70 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar....
 C.E., the true pronunciation was presumably lost. (Jews today do not pronounce the Name out loud, and substitute another Hebrew word, usually Adonai, in prayers and texts.) In some accounts, a Baal Shem was believed to have re-discovered the true pronunciation, perhaps during deep meditation
Meditation

Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness....
, and could use it in magical ways to work miracles. Some stories say he pronounced it out loud, others say he visualized the Name in his mind. He also used the names of angels in this way.

Not many people with this title have been recorded (outside of the Baal Shem Tov, the Baal Shem of Michelstadt was one example) and none have it today. The very first person to receive the title was Eliyahu of Chelm
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm

Elijah Ba'al Shem was a Poland rabbi who studied under Rabbi Solomon Luria and later became the Chief Rabbi of Chelm. He was a co-signer of the Agunah laws and, according to legend, was able to create a Golem creature with Kabbalah....
. Other Baalei Shem include Rabbi Eliyahu of Worms (the founder of the movement variously known as "Macheneh Yisrael", the "Nistarim
Tzadikim Nistarim

The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim refers to 36 Righteous people, a notion rooted within the more Kabbalah dimensions of Judaism....
", and the "Holy Brotherhood"), Rabbi Joel of Ropshitz (a student of Rabbi Yoel Sirkis
Yoel Sirkis

Yoel Sirkis, , also known as the Bach - an abbreviation of his magnum opus, Bayit Chadash - was a prominent Jewish posek and Halakha....
), and Rabbi Adam Baal Shem.

It mainly survives in Jewish surnames of people descending from Ba'ale Shem such as Balshem, Balshemnik and Bolshemennikov.

In recent years, some new age
New Age

New Age is a decentralized western culture social movement and new religious movement that seeks universality Truth and the attainment of the highest individual human potential....
 Jewish groups have revived the term as referring to the Jewish equivalent of a shaman or folk healer.

Source




See also

  • Chassidei Ashkenaz
    Chassidei Ashkenaz

    The Chassidei Ashkenaz was a Jewish movement in the 12th century and 13th century founded by Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel of Regensburg of Regensburg, Germany and several other German Jews members of the Kalonymus family....
  • Gadol
    Gadol

    Gadol or godol ???? , is a Hebrew term used mostly by Haredi Judaism Litvish Jews to refer to the most revered rabbis of the Generation. These Rabbis are usually held in high esteem by other Haredi or Orthodox Jews, though not necessarily to the same degree as Litvish Jews do....
  • Hasidic Judaism
    Hasidic Judaism

    Hasidic Judaism is a type of Orthodox Judaism or Haredi Judaism Orthodox Judaism religious movement. Some refer to Hasidic Judaism as Hasidism, and the adjective chasidic / hasidic applies....
  • Rebbe
    Rebbe

    Rebbe which means master, teacher, or mentor is a Yiddish word derived from the identical Hebrew language word Rabbi. It mostly refers to the leader of a Hasidic Judaism Jewish movement....
  • Rosh yeshiva
    Rosh yeshiva

    Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the Dean of a Yeshiva . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh ? meaning head, and yeshiva ? a school of religious Jewish education....
  • Tzadik
    Tzadik

    Tzadik is a title which is generally given to those who are considered to be righteous such as a spiritual master or rebbe. The root of the word tzadik, is tzedek , which means justice or righteousness....
  • Tzadikim Nistarim
    Tzadikim Nistarim

    The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim refers to 36 Righteous people, a notion rooted within the more Kabbalah dimensions of Judaism....