Dov Ber

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch, remembered as the Maggid ("preacher") of Mezritch, was born around 1704 in Lokachi, in the region of Volhynia. A trained Talmudist who had also studied Lurianic Kabbalah and earlier lived an ascetic life, he became a close disciple of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. After the Baal Shem Tov's death in 1760, he emerged as the movement's central figure and shifted its base from Medzhybizh to Mezritch (Mezhirichi). There he gathered a circle of students and helped give Hasidic thought a more systematic form, developing themes such as devekut, mystical attachment to God. He wrote no books himself; students later recorded his teachings in works such as Maggid Devarav le-Yaakov and Ohr Torah. Several pupils—among them Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and Elimelech of Lizhensk—founded Hasidic dynasties. He died in 1772.