[Footnote 1:  See p. 120, n. 1.]

Hasidism produced not only leaders but also martyrs, victims of the Russian police regime.  About the time when the Tzaddik of Ruzhin fell under suspicion, the Russian Government began to watch the Jewish printing-press in the Volhynian townlet of Slavuta.  The owners of the press were two brothers, Samuel-Abba and Phinehas Shapiro, grandsons of Besht’s companion, Rabbi Phinehas of Koretz.  The two brothers were denounced to the authorities as persons issuing dangerous mystical books from their press, without the permission of the censor.  This denunciation was linked up with a criminal case, the discovery in the house of prayer, which was attached to the printing-press, of the body of one of the compositors who, it was alleged, had intended to lay bare the activities of the “criminal” press before the Government.  After a protracted imprisonment of the two Slavuta printers in Kiev, their case was submitted to Nicholas I. who sentenced them to Spiessruten [1] and deportation to Siberia.  During the procedure of running the gauntlet, while passing through the lines of whipping soldiers, one of the brothers had his cap knocked off his head.  Unconcerned by the hail of lashes from which he was bleeding, he stopped to pick up his cap so as to avoid going bare-headed, [2] and then resumed his march between the two rows of executioners.  The unfortunate brothers were released from their Siberian exile during the reign of Alexander II.

[Footnote 1:  See above, p. 85, n. 1.]

[Footnote 2:  According to an ancient Jewish notion, which is current throughout the Orient, baring the head is a sign of frivolity and disrespect towards God.]

Hasidic life exhibited no doubt many examples of lofty idealism and moral purity.  But hand in hand with it went an impenetrable spiritual gloom, boundless credulity, a passion for deifying men of a mediocre and even inferior type, and the unwholesome hypnotizing influence of the Tzaddiks.  Spiritual self-intoxication was accompanied by physical.  The hasidic rank and file, particularly in the South-west, began to develop an ugly passion for alcohol.  Originally tolerated as a means of producing cheerfulness and religious ecstasy, drinking gradually became the standing feature of every hasidic gathering.  It was in vogue at the court of the Tzaddik during the rush of pilgrims; it was indulged in after prayers in the hasidic “Shtiblach,” [1] or houses of prayer, and was accompanied by dancing and by the ecstatic narration of the miraculous exploits of the “Rebbe.” [2] Many Hasidim lost themselves completely in this idle revelry and neglected their business affairs and their starving families, looking forward in their blind fatalism to the blessings which were to be showered upon them through the intercession of the Tzaddik.

[Footnote 1:  The word, which is a diminutive of German Stube, “room,” denotes, like the word Klaus, the room, or set of rooms, in which the Hasidim assemble for prayer, study, and recreation.]