Circle of truth includes some startling ideas

Last week I stumbled across something wonderfully eye-opening. But you'll need to hang with me for a moment while I set the stage.

One of the great holy men in Jewish history was The Baal Shem Tov, the sage often seen as the father of Hasidic Judaism. Those who study him say his insights seem to reinvent the world.

A modern Jewish sage, Abraham Joshua Heschel, writes about The Baal Shem in his book "A Passion for Truth." There, Heschel shares some of The Baal Shem's startling ideas.

Watch for words to jump out at you — words like "father," "veil," "royal," "exaltation" and "worlds."

"God is a father full of love and mercy. But why is he hidden, why is he evading us?

"He is not hidden, said the Baal Shem. He is hiding. He is very near, hiding behind veils and screens. He is playing 'Hide and Go Seek' with his children, waiting to be found, but we forget to look for him …

"Every man must think of himself as a stairway set on the ground, its top reaching heaven. It is within his power to affect what should happen in the upper worlds.

"The greatest sin of man is to forget that he is a prince — that he has royal power. All worlds are in need of exaltation, and everyone is charged to lift what is low, to unite what lies apart, to advance what is left behind … all worlds, above and below, are full of expectancy, full of sacred goals to be reached."

The Baal Shem was born in the Ukraine around 1700 and died in 1760. Over the years, his life became so mixed with legend and lore it is now impossible to fashion a true biography of him. We do know he believed the gates to glory were available to us and he felt all falsehood could be turned into compassion if we made the effort.

He once admonished his followers to: "Purify the body, refine it, but do not break it by mortification."

Given how recognizable many of his observations are, he might also have said that all truth is part of one great circle — one great whole.

But he didn't.

That insight would come 50 years later from a young man living in Palmyra, N.Y.

Jerry Johnston is a former Deseret News staff writer. "New Harmony" appears every other week in Mormon Times. Email: jerjohn@desnews.com