WHAT IS A MAGGID?

What is a MAGGID?

Maggid (mah-geed) is the traditional title for a Jewish inspirational speaker or preacher. A maggid is not merely a storyteller, but fills a religious role: to draw people closer to God. Storytelling is only one way to accomplish the maggid’s goal: inspirational speaking, preaching, leading Torah study, and even one-on-one conversations are other means to the same end. So is filling a room with holy melodies.

Maggidim (plural of maggid) were first established during the sixth to eleventh centuries, C.E. Back then, rabbis were teachers and judges for the Jewish community, and the maggidim were itinerant preachers. The rabbis focused mainly on deciding religious law and gave sermons only twice a year: on Shabbat HaGadol (before Passover) and Shabbat Shuvah (before Yom Kippur). The teachers who aroused the people to renewed devotion and fervor were the maggidim; it was they who gave the sermons, who told the parables and stories.

Stories!  Melodies!  Adventure!

Some of the early hasidic rebbes  (18th century) were known by the title of maggid, (the Maggid of Mezritch, of Tchernobil, of Kozhnitz, of Trisk). It seems that before the new designation of hasidic "rebbe"  became accepted, the closest title that fit these new inspirational teachers was "maggid."  All the early rebbes were at first called maggidim. Essentially, the Baal Shem Tov himself was a traveling maggid  who inspired the Jewish masses.

Rabbi Sholom Schwadron, the Maggid of Jerusalem, was considered by many to be the greatest of the modern maggidim. The most famous and effective 20th-century maggid, and an important figure in contemporary Judaism was the legendary Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Shlomo was both a maggid and Jewish troubadour, although he didn’t use those terms.

Now, under the general rubric of neo-hasidism, programs to train and offer s'micha (ordination) as a maggid  are being offered in the United States, most notably the school led by my teacher, Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, a teacher, storyteller and prolific author on Jewish spirituality. To date, a growing number of maggidim  have been granted smicha  in the US. Most carry on in the tradition of traveling inspirational speakers, but many also function as pastoral counselors, and some as leaders of congregations.