Chernobyl Nachum

Rabbi Menachem Nachum (Twersky) of Chernobyl (* 1730 ; † 1787 in Chernobyl , Poland-Lithuania , today Ukraine ) was a Hasidic rabbi and the founder of the Twersky dynasty .

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He received his training in Lithuanian yeshivot , which was the center of Jewish Orthodoxy at the time . After his marriage he made a meager living as a teacher. Influenced by the Kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria , he practiced self-mortification , and when Hasidism began to spread, he took a trip to Mejybish to visit its founder, Baal Shem Tov . After the death of Baal Shem Tov, Menachem Nachum became one of the most important students of Dow Baer von Mesritsch and was one of the first to actively seek to spread Hasidism.

He was called as a maggid (preacher) to Chernobyl, where he lived in poverty. The mitnagdim (opponents of Hasidism) were hostile to him and sometimes interrupted his sermons with insulting heckling. It is not certain whether Menachem Nachum became a Hasidic tzaddik - a tzaddik here in the sense of “master”, who resides in one place and gathers a “court” (Hebrew chazer ) around him. On the other hand, we know that as a traveling preacher in the Ukraine he went from place to place and tried to get the "release of prisoners" - in this case the release of small Jewish farmers who were sentenced to prison terms because they owed the big landowners the rent stayed.

His book Maor Ejnajim is a commentary on the Torah and selected passages from the Talmud and is one of the first Hasidic books. One of the principles that Menachem Nachum emphasized was the purification of the moral attributes of man. In his commentary he writes: “Unless the moral attributes of man are purified, he will not be worthy of the Torah. Each day of the week should be dedicated to the purification of a specific attribute: the first day of love, the second day of fear of God, and so on. "

Menachem Nachum's son, Mordechai von Chernobyl (1770–1837), was born in Chernobyl and took over his father's position as preacher. The Chernobyl dynasty branched out into a number of dynasties under Mordechai's eight sons, including those of Skver, Rachmastrivka, Trisk, and Tolna.

literature

• Entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Baal Shem Tov's "Etz Hahaim" - List of Chasidic Dynasties. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .