that I had sinned
in making ignorance synonymous with virtue. There are good men even
among the learned--men whose hearts are uncorrupted by their brains.
Baer was such a one, and since he had great repute among the learned I
saw that the learned who would not listen to a simple man would listen
to him."

Now, before I say aught else on this point, let this saying of the
Master serve to rebuke his graceless followers who despise the learned
while they themselves have not even holiness, and who boast of their
ignorance as though it guaranteed illumination; but as to Rabbi Baer I
will boldly say that it would have been better for the world and the
Baal Shem's teachings had I been appointed to hand them down. For Baer
made of the Master's living impulse a code and a creed which grew
rigid and dead. And he organized his followers by external
signs--noisy praying, ablutions, white Sabbath robes, and so forth--so
that the spirit died and the symbols remained, and now of the tens of
thousands who call themselves Chassidim and pray the prayers and
perform the ceremonies and wear the robes, there are not ten that
have the faintest notion of the Master's teaching. For spirit is
volatile and flies away, but symbol is solid and is handed down
religiously from generation to generation. But the greatest abuse has
come from the doctrine of the Zaddik. Perhaps the logic of Baer is
sound, that if God, as the Master taught, is in all things, then is
there so much of Him in certain chosen men that they are themselves
divine. I do not doubt that the Master himself was akin to divinity,
for though he did not profess to perform miracles, pretending that
such healing as he wrought was by virtue of his knowledge of herbs and
simples, and saying jestingly that the Angel of Healing goes with the
good physician, nor ever admitting to me that he had done battle with
demons and magicians save figuratively; yet was there in him a strange
power, which is not given to men, of soothing and redeeming by his
mere touch, so that, laid upon the brow--as I can personally
testify--his hands would cure headache and drive out ill-humors. And I
will even believe that there was of this divinity in Rabbi Baer. But
whereas the Baal Shem veiled his divinity in his manhood, Baer strove
to veil his manhood in his divinity, and to eke out his power by arts
and policies, the better to influence men and govern them, and gain of
their gold for his further operations. Y