Mitnagdim מתנגדים

The word began as a label: "those who oppose." In 1772 Shklov, and Vilna after it, proclaimed a ban on the Chasidim and burned their writings; in 1781 the ban was renewed more harshly: the Chasidim must leave the communities, their ritual slaughter may not be eaten, they are not to be given a night's lodging.

The objections were not abstract. The Chasidim pushed the morning prayer past its appointed hour, for the sake of preparation. They exchanged the Ashkenazi order of prayer for the Sephardi, Lurianic one. They separated into their own minyanim, outside communal oversight. They slaughtered with specially honed knives and would not eat others' meat — and that split a community economically, not only spiritually. The tzaddik as intermediary between a man and God looked like plain idolatry. Kabbalistic intentions in unlearned mouths looked like danger. And above all this stood the main thing: the study of Torah displaced by the rapture of prayer, that is, the whole scale of values overturned. Sabbateanism was remembered too — the suspicion hung over everything.

After the Gaon's death in 1797 the quarrel went beyond its own bounds: both sides denounced each other to the authorities, and Rabbi Shneur Zalman was twice imprisoned. In 1804 Russian law permitted each "sect" its own synagogues — and the quarrel lost its footing.

Then came the most interesting part. Denial grew into a way of life. Volozhin, the yeshivas of the Lithuanian type, study as the chief service, sobriety and distrust of rapture — that is what the Mitnagdim of the nineteenth century are, no longer "against" but "for." And a common opponent, the Haskalah, completed the reconciliation: by the end of the century Chasidim and Mitnagdim stood on the same side.

The documents of the dispute are gathered by Mordecai Wilensky (Chasidim u-Mitnaggdim, 1970); on the theology Allan Nadler has written, and on the Gaon himself and his image, Immanuel Etkes.