The Torah Atlas

person · P0246

The Baal Shem Tov הבעל שם טוב

Founder of chasidut: orphaned, obscure, a clay-digger and children's escort in the Carpathians before revealing himself c. 1734 at Medzhybizh as healer, mystic, and teacher of divine immanence and joy. He wrote no books; his Torah survives through his students. He has NO historically attested teacher — the chasidic tradition that Achiyah HaShiloni taught him is recorded below as a claim, and deliberately NOT drawn as an edge across twenty-five centuries.

I. Who

Hebrew
הבעל שם טוב
Also known as
Yisrael ben Eliezer, the BeShT
Era
acharonim
Transmitted the mesorah to
The Maggid of Mezritch
Students
The Maggid of Mezritch

II. When

Traditional
c. 5458–5520 AM (died Shavuot 5520)
Academic
c. 1698–1760 CE
Lifespan (traditional)
≈62 years
Precision
approximate

III. Where

Places
Medzhybizh

V. How do we know

ClaimEvidenceConfidenceSources
Chasidic tradition holds that his teacher was the prophet Achiyah HaShiloni (Achiyah HaShiloni) — "my master, known from the Tanach" — who appeared and taught him; the tradition is early and internal to the movement (reported in the school of his student R' Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye), but it asserts trans-historical instruction, which this atlas records without drawing.
Cardinal-rule case: no received_from edge; a 2,500-year link would erase the very distinction the map exists to show. His historical teachers, if any, are unknown.
tradition ★☆☆☆☆
His teachings — service of God through joy, divine vitality in all things, the ordinary Jew's prayer as cosmically potent — were preserved by his circle and published posthumously in collections such as Keter Shem Tov and Tzava'at HaRivash.
The collections are students' compilations, not his autograph; attribution of individual sayings varies in reliability.
tradition ★★★★☆
He settled at Medzhybizh in Podolia c. 1740, where communal tax records confirm the community supported "the Baal Shem" — rare external documentation for a figure otherwise wrapped in hagiography. external ★★★★☆
Yisrael ben Eliezer was born around 1700 in Okopy, a small fortified settlement near the southeastern border of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
His exact birth year is not documented contemporaneously.
external reconstruction ★★★★☆
As a young man he worked in several occupations, including elementary teacher, ritual slaughterer, and circumciser, and later practiced as a healer and baal shem.
Some occupational details are reconstructed from early Hasidic sources rather than governmental records.
external ★★★★☆
His wife Chana was a divorced woman and the sister of Gershon of Kitov. Their named children were a son, Tzvi Hirsh, and a daughter, Odl.
The family relationships are standard in early Hasidic biographical tradition.
external ★★★★☆
He died in Medzhybizh in 1760 and was buried in the old Jewish cemetery. The cemetery and the ohel marking his grave are physically documented and remain pilgrimage sites.
The current marker and ohel have undergone restoration; the burial identification rests on continuous tradition rather than excavation.
external archaeology ★★★★☆