Talk:Abraham Gershon of Kitov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Judaism Portal Abraham Gershon of Kitov is part of WikiProject Judaism, a project to improve all articles related to Judaism. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Judaism articles.
Project Judaism To-do: edit purge watch Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: Jewish and Biblical Units of Measurement or some such name, to include material of Ancient Hebrew units of measurement but also Talmudic units and use in Halacha (a la the Hebrew Wikipedia article he:מידות ומשקלות תורניים) Collaboration of the week { Cleanup: Jewish mythology - needs to be rewritten to be inline with our other mythology articles. Expand: Yom Ha'atzmaut - quite short for an article of such importance Wikiversity: School of Jewish Studies. Part of the new open content university, Wikiversity. Stubs: Category:Judaism stubs, Category:Tanakh stubs, Category:Synagogue stubs Update: Portal:Judaism is WikiProject Judaism's frequently updated portal. You can help make this the best portal on Wikipedia. Look at the talk page to see how you can help. Template loop detected: Template:WikiProject Judaism
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

Created page.--Klezmer 14:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gershon as a "hasidic rebbe"?

Remember the definition of a hasidic rebbe that we worked so long and hard to develop:

A Hasidic dynasty is a dynasty of Hasidic spiritual leaders known as rebbes, and usually has some or all of the following characteristics:

1. Each member of the dynasty is a spiritual leader, often known as an ADMOR (abbreviation for ADoneinu MOreinu Rabeinu ("our master, our teacher and our rabbi") or simply as Rebbe (or "the Rebbe") and at times called the "Ruv" ("the rabbi") and sometimes referred to in English as a "Grand Rabbi";
2. It continues beyond the initial leader's lifetime by succession (usually by a family descendant);
3. It is usually named after a key town in Eastern Europe where the founder may have been born or lived, or where the group began to grow and flourish;
4. It has (or once had) followers who, through time, continue following successive leaders (rebbes) or may even continue as a group without one leader by following the precepts of a deceased leader.

I guess I would put Gershon in the same or similar category with Zev Wolf Kitses and David Purkes as early followers of the Baal Shem Tov who themselves did not purvey a separate brand of hasidism as other rebbes did.

However, Gershon I think went further. He helped develop a Besht-based Hasidic sect in the holyland where it continued after his death. By that criteria, he fits category number 4 above. I think it should be reconsidered whether he should be recategorized as a "hasidic rebbe" or not.--Klezmer 13:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)