Jewish law in the Beit Midrash of Hasidism

Hasidism – the movement, its leaders and adherents, its ethos and religious message – is often cast in shades of antinomianism or anomianism, suggesting that hasidic masters and their faithful disciples either flouted Jewish law or ignored it. According to this line, the hasidic attitude towards halakhah was not improvised, temporary, or provisional; rather, the disdainful attitude was ideological and systemic. In the following, I argue for a recalibration of this dominant narrative. My argument is rooted in the reality that – contrary to the widespread assumption – hasidic masters from the earliest days of the nascent movement were embedded in the world of halakhah and active in the legal realm.