The period of Poland's partitions was also a period of divisions within Polish Jewry. The external division was accompanied by an internal split; the political partition, by a spiritual schism. The body of Polish Jewry was divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and its soul between Rabbinism and Hasidism. There was even a significant coincidence in dates: the first declaration against Hasidism by the rabbinate of Vilna, which started the religious schism, was issued in 1772, in the year of the first Polish partition, and the second emphatic declaration of the same rabbinate, which completed the schism, followed close upon the third partition of Poland, in 1796.
The interval between these two dates represents one continuous stretch of Hasidic triumphs. The Russian Southwest, Volhynia, the province of Kiev, and Podolia, had by the end of the period, been almost completely conquered by the Hasidim. With the exception of a few cities, they now formed the predominating element in the communities; their ritual was adopted in synagogue worship, and their spiritual rulers, the Tzaddiks, exercised control over the official rabbinate. As far as the Northwest is concerned, Hasidism had managed during that interval to obtain a foothold in White Russia, the only Polish province which for over twenty years had been under Russian dominion, and thus politically severed from the rest of curtailed Poland. Under the leadership of the Tzaddik Shneor Zalman of Lozno, a strong Hasidic center had been built up in that part of the Northwest, but there were yet no compact Hasidic communities in that region. In the majority of towns the communities were composed of both elements, Hasidim and their opponents, the Rabbinists, who were nicknamed Mithnagdim ("Protestants"), the preponderance being now on this side, now on the other, a state of affairs which gave rise to endless dissensions in the Kahals and synagogues.
In Lithuania alone, the stronghold of Rabbinism, Hasidism failed to take root. Here a few small Hasidic groups were ensconced in a number of cities. They held their services in modest rooms in private residences (minyanim), which they were often forced to hide from the gaze of the hostile Kahal authorities. In Vilna, the residence of the great zealot of Rabbinism, Elijah Gaon, the Hasidim constituted an "illegal" secret organization. Only in the suburb of Pinsk, in Karlin, the Hasidim succeeded in establishing themselves firmly, and could boast of having their own synagogues and Tzaddiks.[256] Karlin became the seat of a Hasidic propaganda extending all over Lithuania, where the Hasidim were accordingly nicknamed "Karliners."
The second and third partition of Poland, which united Lithuania and White Russia under the sovereignty of Russia, tended to buoy up the oppressed Lithuanian Hasidim, who could now join forces against the common enemy with their brethren all over the northwestern region. The Hasidic propaganda took on new courage. To enhance the success of their missionary activity, the Hasidim spread a rumor, that the former anti-Hasidic thunderer, the veteran Rabbi Elijah Gaon, was sorry for all the hostile acts he had committed against the sectarians, and that in consequence the excommunication formerly hurled by him against them was no longer valid. When this clever ruse became known in Vilna, the indignant champions of Rabbinism prompted the aged Gaon to publish an epistle in which he reaffirmed his former attitude towards the "heretics," and declared that all the herems previously issued against them remained in force (May, 1796). The epistle was intrusted to two envoys, who were dispatched from Vilna to a number of cities, for the purpose of stirring up an anti-Hasidic agitation. When the envoys arrived in Minsk, and set about executing their instructions, the Hasidim started a rumor to the effect that the Gaon's signature under the epistle was not genuine. The Kahal of Minsk sent an inquiry to Vilna, and in reply received, in September, 1796, a new energetic appeal of the Gaon addressed to all the gubernatorial Kahals of Lithuania, White Russia, Volhynia, and Podolia.
Ye mountains of Israel—cried the great zealot—ye spiritual shepherds, and ye lay leaders of every Government, also ye, the heads of the Kahals of Moghilev, Polotzk, Zhitomir, Vinnitza, and Kamenetz-Podolsk, you hold in your hands a hammer wherewith you may shatter the plotters of evil, the enemies of light, the foes of the [Jewish] people. Woe unto this generation! They [the Hasidim] violate the Law, distort our teachings, and set up a new covenant; they lay snares in the house of the Lord, and give a perverted exposition of the tenets of our faith. It behooves us to avenge the Law of the Lord, it behooves us to punish these madmen before the whole world, for their own improvement. Let none have pity on them and grant them shelter!... Gird yourselves with zeal in the name of the Lord!
In calling to arms against the Hasidim in these fulminant terms, the venerable knight of Rabbinism was moved by the profound conviction that the "new sect," which by that time numbered its adherents by the hundreds of thousands, was leading the Jewish religion and nation to ruin, because it was rending asunder the Jewish camp internally while the political upheavals were severing it externally. He was moreover alarmed by the luxuriant growth of the cult of the Tzaddiks, or miracle-workers, which constituted a menace to the purity of the Jewish doctrine.
The Gaon's ire was particularly aroused by a work published in the same year as his epistle (1796), by Rabbi Shneor Zalman, the head of the White Russian Hasidim. The work was familiarly called Tanyo,[257] and contained a bold exposition of the pantheistic doctrine of Hasidism, which the champions of the established dogma were prone to regard as blasphemy and heresy.[258] The Gaon's proclamation hinted at this work, and its author felt painfully hurt by the attack. Shneor Zalman responded in a counter-epistle, in which he tried to prove that the patriarch of Rabbinism had been misinformed about the true essence of Hasidism, and he invited his opponent to a literary dispute for the purpose of elucidating the truth and "restoring peace in Israel." But the Gaon refused to enter into polemics with a "heretic." In the meantime the Vilna epistle continued to circulate in many communities, and gave rise to severe conflicts between Mithnagdim and Hasidim, the former as a rule taking the offensive.
Exasperated to the point of madness by these persecutions, the Hasidic association of Vilna was stung into perpetrating an act of gross tactlessness. When, in the fall of 1797, about a year after the publication of his last circular, the aged Gaon closed his eyes, and the whole community of Vilna was plunged into mourning, the local Hasidic society met in a private house and indulged in a gay drinking bout, to celebrate the deliverance of the sect from its principal enemy. This ugly demonstration arranged on the day of the funeral raised a storm of indignation throughout the community. Before leaving the cemetery, the leaders of the community, standing at the Gaon's grave, pledged themselves solemnly to wreak vengeance upon the Hasidim. On the following day the Kahal elders were called to a special meeting, at which a series of repressive measures against the Hasidim was adopted. Apart from the measures to be made public, such as a new bull of excommunication against the sectarians, the meeting passed several resolutions which were to remain confidential. A special committee of five Kahal members was appointed, and was vested with large powers, for the purpose of grappling with the "heresy." Subsequent events proved that among the contemplated means of warfare was included the plan of informing against the leaders of the sect to the Russian Government.
It did not take long for the disgraceful scheme to be put into action. Soon the Prosecutor-General in St. Petersburg, Lopukhin, received a denunciation directing his attention "to the political misdeeds perpetrated by the chief of the Karliner [Hasidic] sect, Zalman Borukhovich [son of Borukh]," and his fellow-workers in Lithuania. Under the influence of this denunciation, Lopukhin, acting in the name of the Tzar, ordered the local gubernatorial administration, early in the fall of 1798, to arrest Zalman, the head of the sect, in the townlet of Lozno, together with twenty-two of his accomplices who were found in Lithuania. Zalman was apprehended and dispatched post-haste to St. Petersburg, accompanied by "a strong convoy"; his incriminated followers remained under arrest in Vilna.