[Avodah] What is a Chasid?

[Professor L. Levine]

The following is from Letter 15 of RSRH's Nineteen Letters  I note that there is no mention of a chasid wearing a particular kind of dress,  speaking a particular language,  etc.  Indeed,  there is no mention of externalities at all. YL


Unfortunately, the term "chasid," meaning a pious person,
has become misunderstood because of misconceptions foisted
upon us from without.  A "chasid" is a person who totally gives
himself in love, does not look out for himself but relinquishes
his own claims on the world in order to live only for others,
through acts of loving kindness. Far from retiring from the
world, he lives in it, with it and for it. For himself, the chasid
wants nothing; but for the world around him, everything. Thus
we find the term applied to David, a man who, from his
earliest youth, labored ceaselessly for the spiritual and material
welfare of his people and left the shaping of his own destiny,
including redress of the wrong done to him by Sha'ul, entirely
to God. No doubt you are familiar with the saying shelach shelach v'sheli  shelach
- -"He who says 'That which is yours is yours and that
which is mine also is yours' is called a chasid." Again, a life
of seclusion, of only meditation and prayer, is not Judaism.
Torah and Avodah (study and worship) are but pathways meant
to lead to deeds. Our Sages say, Talmud Torah gadol she'mavi l'y'day maaseh-
"Great is study, for it leads to action" - the practical fulfillment
of the precepts.

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