Avraham Yehoshua Heshel
Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apta, (* 1748 in Nowy Żmigród, † 1825 in Medschybisch, known as the Apter Rebbe ) was a Hasidic tzaddik.
Life
He was born in a village in south-eastern Poland and was a student of Elimelech of Lyschansk. From 1809 to 1813 he was rabbi in Opatów and Jassy, after which he settled in Medschybisch, where he lived until his death and was next to the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, buried. He was an opponent of the Haskalah ( Jewish Enlightenment ) and fought the Maskilim ( followers of the Haskalah ) in Brody, who spread his view heretical ideas among the Jews in Russia. After Tsar Alexander I had adopted a law which worsened the living conditions of Jewish tenants and landlords in the Russian Empire dramatically, Abraham Heschel decreed a public fast. In the controversy between Hasidim from Bratslav (followers of Rabbi Nachman ) and Przysucha (followers of Yaakov Yitzchak Przysucha ) he sought a reconciliation of different views.
He left instructions, which on his grave stone only the words Ohew Yisrael (the Israel loves ) should be available. Under this designation he is known to this day in Hasidic circles. He was a religious ecstasy and accompanied his sermons on Shabbat and Jewish holidays with wild hand gestures, which his followers believed, so will the " stripping of physical existence " expressed. His revelations were compared by Hasidim with the legends that are handed down from Rabbah bar bar Hana, an amora of the second half of the third century AD, in the Talmud. A contemporary report on Abraham Joshua Heschel notes: " In the midst of the meal, when the Spirit came upon him, he cried with a loud and lamentable voice, gesturing, his head fell back, almost to his heels, and all that to the holy table sat ... trembled and were afraid ... he began to reveal secrets of the Torah and hidden mysteries ... his face was (like) a torch, he raised his voice in ecstasy. " His posthumously published works include Torat Emet ( "True Torah ", Lviv 1854) and Ohew Yisrael ( Zhitomir 1863).