Under the charismatic leadership of Rav Nosson Adler (1741–1800), a young cadre of followers studied mysticism and engaged in Kabbalistic customs
“IT is appropriate for me to cry and deliver a hesped. I witnessed him studying and teaching as Moshe Rabbeinu did from Hashem. I followed him wherever he went, and as is well known I even left my parents’ home to sojourn with him, and together with him suffered all of his suffering.”
—Rav Moshe Sofer, the Chasam Sofer, in his hesped delivered in Mattersdorf on the passing of his beloved rebbi, Rav Nosson Adler in 1800
In the early 1770s, a new minyan opened up in the storied community of Frankfurt am Main. Under the charismatic leadership of Rav Nosson Adler (1741–1800), a young cadre of followers studied mysticism and engaged in Kabbalistic customs that separated them from the mainstream community. Rav Nosson Adler instituted a Kabbalistic form of prayer following the Arizal, Sephardic pronunciation, daily Bircas Kohanim, stringent practices regarding shechitah, and other forms of prishus.
The emergence of Rav Adler’s group raised the ire of the Frankfurt establishment. Rav Nosson Maas, who served as av beis din and rosh yeshivah in Frankfurt for four decades, headed the opposition to the nascent Kabbalah-oriented minyan. The communal suspicion was engendered by Jacob Frank’s Sabbatean movement, which misused mystical practices and wreaked havoc on traditional Jewish life across Europe. Frank’s antinomian cult posed a real danger to the Jewish community, and as a result all suspicious Kabbalistic activity was viewed with distrust if not outright hostility.
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