Hasidism: A Story of Success and Failure – Prof. Art Green at Oxford

In this special Oxford edition of Truths: Jewish Wisdom for Today, Levi Brackman shares a live lecture given by Professor Arthur (Art) Green to students at Oxford University, hosted by Rabbi Eli Brackman and the Oxford Chabad Society.

Art Green is both a leading historian of Hasidism and a contemporary Jewish theologian. A student of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he’s spent over sixty years studying classic Hasidic texts and re-articulating their teachings for modern Jews. In this talk he puts on his “historian hat” and offers a sweeping, honest overview of Hasidism from its beginnings to today.

Professor Green divides Hasidic history into four major periods:
– The revolutionary beginnings with the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, centered on the radical idea that “God is everywhere” and that Judaism is a path to cultivating the inner life.
– The conservative turn in the 19th century, when Hasidism allied with the traditional rabbinate against modernity and became a mass movement built around charismatic rebbes and dynasties.
– The struggle and decline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, under the pressures of industrialization, secular ideologies, World War I, and Soviet repression.
– The post-Holocaust rebuilding, in which communities like Satmar, Bobov, Ger, and Chabad rose from the ashes in America and Israel, combining deep trauma with remarkable resilience and demographic growth.

Throughout, he returns to the Baal Shem Tov’s original question: what would Jewish life look like if we truly lived as though God is present in everything? Hasidism, he suggests, is both the story of that dream’s success – and of how it was often watered down into social conformity and “the same dry potatoes” as everyone else.

The Q&A ranges widely:
– Hasidism’s uneasy peace with the traditional rabbinate
– The quasi-monastic nature of Hasidic fellowship (and its parallels to Sufism)
– The absence of women in classic Hasidic structures
– Hasidic responses to the Shoah and messianism
– The very different paths of Chabad, Breslov, and neo-Hasidism today

Whether you come from a Hasidic background, another part of the Jewish world, or are simply curious about Jewish spirituality, this lecture offers a rich, nuanced picture of a movement that continues to shape Judaism more than 250 years after the Baal Shem Tov.

About the channel

Truths: Jewish Wisdom for Today is hosted by Rabbi Dr. Levi Brackman. We explore timeless Torah and Hasidic teachings and ask what they mean for real life in the 21st century – spirituality, ethics, community, family, and the search for God in everyday experience.

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✡️ Credits
– Lecturer: Professor Arthur (Art) Green
– Host: Rabbi Dr. Levi Brackman
– Recorded at: Oxford Chabad Society / Oxford University
– Shared with permission of Rabbi Eli Brackman