The Besht: Magician, Mystic, and Leader

Appendix III | The Versions of the Besht's Epistle

appendix iii the versions of the besht’s epistle The epistle sent by the Besht to his brother-in-law, R. Gershon of Kotov is available to us in three versions. The epistle was first printed as an appendix to Ben Porat Yosef by R. Yaakov Yosef of Polonne, a book published in Koretz in the year . The connection between the Besht’s Epistle and R. Yaakov Yosef is made explicit in the initial lines added by the publisher: This is the letter given by Rabbi Israel Besht of Blessed and Righteous Memory to our Rabbi the author Our Teacher (etc.) Yaakov Yosef Hacohen to be passed to his brother-in-law Rabbi Gershon Kotover who was in the Holy Land and because of a delay which came from the Blessed Lord he did not travel to the land of Israel and it remained in his hands so as to benefit our nation the people of Israel. And indeed, at the end of the letter the Besht asks his brother-in-law to extend assistance to Rabbi Yaakov Yosef upon his arrival in the land of Israel.1 Another version of the Epistle was printed by Rabbi David Fraenkel in his book Michtavim Mehabesht Zal Vetalmidav, which was published in Lvov in . This version was reprinted, on the basis of a transcription from the original manuscript, by Mordechai Shraga Bauminger in the year .2 Bauminger corrected certain mistakes in the Fraenkel printing and added some introductory lines, in which he described the various incarnations of the letter from the time it had been, as it seems, in the possession of R. Israel the maggid of Kozhenits and until it reached him. Relying on the opinions of experts in handwriting analysis, Bauminger affirmed that the Epistle was written down by R. Yehiel Michal b. R. Baruch, the Besht’s son-in-law. If we compare these two versions of the Besht’s Epistle we find that certain passages found in the Koretz version are lacking from the version printed by Bauminger. Conversely, certain sentences present in the Bauminger version are lacking from the Koretz version. These differences have caused scholars to question the veracity of each of the two versions. Gershom Scholem mentions this issue in two small footnotes. In one of them, he asserts that the “authenticity of the letter is evident from its contents.” In the second footnote Scholem advances the conjecture that the differences in the versions are due to “revisions to the original letter made by the Besht himself.”3 It would thus appear that Scholem regarded both of these versions as authentic. Rubinstein pointed out numerous difficulties that challenge the authenticity of the version published by Bauminger. He came to the conclusion that the Koretz edition was original but that the Bauminger one was fraudulent.4 Bauminger responded to Rubinstein’s  etkes.qxp 11/23/2004 3:31 PM Page 282 arguments one by one. Among other things, he rejected the charge of fraudulence by arguing that it would not make sense for a forger to delete passages from the original text he is copying. Bauminger explained the presence of the passages found in the Koretz version yet lacking from the manuscript version that he had transcribed by the conjecture that the Besht gave R. Yaakov Yosef a second letter or a supplement to the original letter.5 Meanwhile, Yehoshua Mondshine discovered a third version of the Besht’s Epistle. This version was included in a Hasidic manuscript dating to .6 At first it appears as though this third version only compounds the difficulty: it contains passages not found in either of the other versions, while at the same time it includes passages that appear in the Koretz version yet are missing from the Bauminger version . A further feature of this version is its lack of introductory and closing passages . The transcriber seems to have deleted these passages in the belief that the letter’s chief importance lay in the passages describing the ascents of the soul. Yet as it turns out, Mondshine himself put forward a persuasive explanation to account for the three versions.7 According to Mondshine’s account, the Besht wrote two distinct letters; one of them is represented by the manuscript version from the year  and the other by the Bauminger version. The Koretz version, for its part, combines passages from both of these letters. To be more precise: in the opening passage of the Bauminger...