The Baal Shem Tov and modern-day visitors from Sha’ar HaNegev

The Baal Shem Tov rarely wrote his teachings down. He did not avoid writing because he was anti-intellectual or lacked the ability to do so. Rather, he believed that the deepest truths are transmitted through relationships. A book can preserve information; a living encounter can transform a soul.

This was one of the central revolutions of Hasidism.

Before the Baal Shem Tov, Judaism was often centered on texts, scholarship, and institutions. The Baal Shem Tov shifted the focus toward people. He taught that G-d could be found not only in study halls, but also in conversations, melodies, shared meals, acts of kindness, and human connection. The sacred was not only in the words; it was in the space between people.

Perhaps that is why one of the only surviving writings from his own hand is not a theological text  or legal ruling.

It is a letter.

And I am quite certain that the fact that I had never encountered this letter before this week was not a coincidence, but perhaps G-d just being anonymous.

You see, the letter was written to his beloved brother-in-law, Rabbi Gershon Kitover, who was living in the Land of Israel. At its heart, it is a beautiful attempt to overcome the great distance between them.

Perhaps writing to bridge distance is itself the teaching.

And yet, when you read the letter through that lens, something remarkable emerges about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. Most modern conversations frame that relationship in terms of support, politics, philanthropy, or advocacy. The Baal Shem Tov sees something more profound.

He sees a people that is incomplete when separated.

He writes from Medzhybizh to Jerusalem. One is living in the center of Jewish longing. The other is carrying Jewish life into the far reaches of exile. Neither replaces the other. In fact, the letter suggests that they need one another.

Rabbi Gershon, his brother-in-law, is in the Land.

The Baal Shem Tov is in exile.

The most famous exchange in the letter is a description of a  vivid spiritual vision he had during an elevated meditation  to his brother-in-law, he writes:

“I asked the Messiah: ‘When will the Master come?’ And he answered me: ‘By this you shall know: when your teachings become widespread and revealed in the world, and your wellsprings spread outward, what I have taught you and what you have attained. And others too will be able to perform unifications and soul-ascents as you do. Then all the forces of darkness will be destroyed, and it will be a time of divine favor and salvation.’”

What is remarkable is what the Messiah does not say. He does not say redemption will come through political power. He does not say it will come through military victory. He does not say it will come only when all Jews live in one place.

He says redemption begins when the wellsprings spread outward.

For the Baal Shem Tov, the deepest spiritual insight is that holiness is not meant to remain concentrated in Jerusalem, among scholars, mystics, or a spiritual elite. The waters must flow outward to ordinary people, distant communities, and the edges of the Jewish world.

That idea struck me in a particularly powerful way this week as my dear friends and colleagues from Sha’ar HaNegev arrived in San Diego.

I found myself dwelling on that single word: outward.

This 275-year-old letter illuminated something for me. The redemption of the Jewish people does not begin by gathering everything inward. It begins when the wellsprings flow outward.

The Land of Israel becomes a source.

The Diaspora becomes a channel.

The relationship is reciprocal.

Israel preserves the center of the Jewish story.

The Diaspora carries that story into the world.

Neither is whole without the other.

What moves me most is that the Baal Shem Tov never made the journey. He spent years longing to reach the Land of Israel and never arrived. Yet perhaps his inability to make the journey became part of his mission.

He remained with the Jews of the Diaspora and taught them that exile was not abandonment. That holiness could exist wherever Jews gathered. That G-d’s presence could be found in Medzhybizh no less than in Jerusalem.

Today, we live in a moment the Baal Shem Tov could scarcely imagine.

His brother-in-law waited months for letters; we board airplanes.

He wrote through tears of separation; we welcome friends from Sha’ar HaNegev into our community.

He dreamed of being reunited with the people of Israel; we sit together at the same table.

And perhaps that is the part that touched my heart most deeply.

The bridge between Israel and the Diaspora is built through relationships.

The Baal Shem Tov did not leave us books because books were never the point.

People were.

This week, as our friends from Sha’ar HaNegev visit San Diego, we are not simply hosting an Israeli delegation. We are participating in a sacred act that the Baal Shem Tov spent a lifetime yearning toward.

We are transforming a letter into a relationship. We are turning longing into encounters.

We are proving that the Jewish people are not merely connected by history or geography, but by covenant, responsibility, and love.

And perhaps if the Baal Shem Tov could see a community from San Diego embracing a community from Israel’s border with Gaza, sharing meals, stories, grief, hope, and friendship, he would recognize it as exactly the kind of bridge he was trying to build all along.

Not a bridge of ideas.

A bridge of souls.

Thank you to our incredible partners at the San Diego Jewish Federation for investing so much to allow us the chance to build this gesher (bridge).