Authentic Chassidus or Relatable Chassidus: Why Not Both?

By Rabbi Betzalel Bassman

There has lately been a long string of passionate articles warning about the ways Chassidus and psychology are being merged, and about the danger of psychological ideas being dressed up and presented as Chassidus. I appreciate this discussion.

I am certainly no expert on where precisely the lines should be drawn: how Chassidus should be interpreted and applied to mental-health struggles, when that is appropriate, and where the respective roles of mashpi’im and mental-health professionals begin and end.

But I would like to make one observation and offer one book recommendation.

We need people reminding us to stay loyal to Chassidus, to its language, its foundations, and what the Rebbeim actually taught. There is a real danger in simply attaching the label “Chassidus” to every contemporary psychological idea.

At the same time, from the tone of some of these articles, I sometimes wonder whether the authors themselves — baruch Hashem — have not personally experienced serious mental-health struggles or been closely involved with people who have.

I think, for example, of someone who reached out to me numerous times while struggling with suicide attempts and severe emotional pain, and who found some of these very attempts to translate and apply Chassidus tremendously helpful.

That is obviously an extreme example. But on a much broader level, I hear from many people — often women, but plenty of men as well — who say that, for the first time, they are finding Chassidus relatable through some of these newer voices and down-to-earth, psychological applications of Chassidus.

It makes me think of the mashal of taking a precious stone from the king’s crown, grinding it down, and trying to get even a drop into the mouth of the sick child.

Unfortunately, I think a very large percentage of people who learn Chassidus find much of it difficult to relate to personally. I won’t venture an estimate, but I think the number is very high.

Personally, I feel torn between the desire to remain faithful to the older, traditional approach and the recognition that there is a real need for contemporary application. Again, I don’t consider myself an authority on this.

Where I increasingly find myself landing is this: Be very serious about remaining loyal to the actual concepts of Chassidus, but perhaps be fairly liberal in how we interpret, explain, illustrate, and apply those concepts in order to personalize the message.

There is a difference between changing Chassidus and taking something true in Chassidus and asking: What does this mean inside the actual life and נפש of the person sitting in front of me?

And perhaps there is some room here for the principle of אין משיבין על הדרש. Not every personal application needs to be presented as the definitive pshat in a maamar. Sometimes it can simply be a meaningful way of using a concept in Chassidus to illuminate a person’s experience and avodah.

I have spent a lot of time searching for mashpi’im who can make Chassidus more relatable and accessible without compromising its depth or authenticity.

I also continue to encourage mashpi’im to view these discussions as something of a wake-up call: Make Chassidus personal. Speak in simple language. Be relatable. Talk about real struggles. Show how the concepts affect a person’s inner life. Bring it down.

After a lot of searching, I found one book that, in my opinion, does a superb job of this: Your Awesome Self, by Mrs. Shterna Ginsburg. It was written after some twenty years of learning and teaching Chassidus and working to make it relevant to everyday life. I’m personally on my third cycle through the book.

And I don’t think this is only something for women. I think Anash men could gain tremendously from a movement learning Chassidus in this kind of אדעתיה דנפשיה manner — not merely understanding the concepts intellectually, but learning them with the question: What does this mean for me? Where is this in my life? How does this change the way I experience myself, my struggles, my relationships, my avodah, and my connection to Hashem?

I’ve encountered a growing group of men who are thirsting for exactly this kind of conversation from male mashpi’im.

The pushback I sometimes hear is: “That’s shallow women’s Chassidus.”

I’m not convinced they’re right. Maybe the challenge is not to choose between authentic Chassidus and relatable Chassidus. Maybe the challenge is to become much better at doing both.