A Number of Writings by a Number of Writers: The Manuscript Evidence for the Origins and Development of Hasidic Literature

My presentation will address the origins and development of Hasidic literature through an exploration of an extensive manuscript tradition that developed in the first decades of the movement. Based on an analysis of a large corpus of Hasidic writings, including hitherto unknown or neglected texts in both manuscript and print, I will argue that although previous scholarship has attributed this corpus to Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritsh, as transcribed by his disciple Levi Yitshak of Barditshev, it is better viewed as the product of a collective enterprise that extended over a number of decades and included both transcriptions of oral sermons and original compositions by various individuals both known and unknown. I will trace the emergence of this corpus and its gradual development into an extensive manuscript tradition that was repeatedly copied, continually supplemented and widely disseminated in numerous pamphlets and larger collections. I will also describe its occasionally ambivalent reception within the Hasidic movement and its critical reception without. I will further trace the transition this corpus underwent under the impact of print from an open and fluid textual tradition to a relatively closed body of literature. Finally, I will argue that the textually open and cumulative character of this corpus reflects the decentralized social structure of the early Hasidic movement and that the evidence for its widespread dissemination leads to the conclusion that in addition to the oft-stressed oral traditions, written literature, and in particular, manuscripts, played a significant role in the spread of the movement.