NAḤMAN OF BRATSLAV (1772–1810), Hasidic master and founder of the Bratslav sect, born in Medzhibozh, Ukraine. A great-grandson of Yisraʾel ben Eliʿezer (1700–1760), the BeSHT, the first central figure of Hasidism, Naḥman proclaimed a path that stood in direct opposition to that of his esteemed forebear. Naḥman's complex and tortuous struggle for faith stood in sharp contrast to the BeSHT's ideal of simplicity and wholeness: theologically, Hasidism's earlier enthusiastic proclamation of the all-pervasive presence of God is replaced in Bratslav Hasidism by a painful awareness of his absence. The relative "neutralization" of messianic energies, characteristic especially of the Mezhirich school, is also reversed in Bratslav, where Naḥman, whom Bratslavers consider the only true tsaddiq ("righteous man"), is clearly depicted at least as a proto-messianic figure.

Given the family into which he was born, it...