Israel ben Eliezer, known as Baʿal Shem Ṭov (c. 1700–60), is credited with developing Hasidism, particularly in the area of modern Poland. He drew on the mysticism of Kabbala and emphasized a this-worldly religiosity and seeing the spiritual in the mundane and eschewing extreme asceticism. At the time he was active, eastern European Jews had become disillusioned by failed messianism and dry intellectual study, and Hasidism offered an alternative for religious expression.
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