you still haven not shown even one instance where you can show that the baal shem took an idea from shat"z .AS i said before all the ideas from the baal shem are based on the kabablah of ari ,which came to Poland thru reb meir papurs when he came to Krakow and printed eitz chaim and thru reb Yisreol Surik .The Baal shem did not base any of his ideas on shatz.
Like i mentioned earlier shatz stole his ideas from the same source that the bal shem took them and that is the arizal ,and therefore you might find similarities .but that proves nothing .just like I mentioned above the similarities of Jewish law and Christians (lehavdil) are in some way similar because the Christians stole from our source .
As i mentioned above there might be ideas that are similar which is not a problem on it own since the Arizal was the one that brought these ideas ,but the question is what do you with these ideas .Do you tell people that they can live a normal life and don't need to be in depressions and fast all day ,like baal shem did .or you go like shatz did and you say that chazir is now kosher .
Ideas on there own only mean what you actually do with them ,and there is a HUGE difference what the baal shem and all Chasidim did and what shatz and the frankistim did .
prove me wrong by showing me what bad ideas and ways did the baal shem bring to his followers that he took ONLY from shatz not from his own sources or the arizal?
The answer is NONE
shalom and lieb and all these scholars are busy reading books and comparing ideas ,instead of looking at what these leader actually did to there followers life style .Who brought a refreshing energy to follow the torah and who was the one that bought his follower to the most lowest levels of human kind ??
kabablah is like fire those that used it right were warmed up and those that abused it got burnt .but BOTH used fire
There were many false messiah in Sefarad and in Yemen much before the Arizal .Look in the knows igeres harmab"m,how many people believed in that crazy guy in Yemen.
Shatz has nothing to do with the ari ,he would call himself messiah without him as well .he just used the arizal as a convient tool
shatz was the one that brought kabalah to Europe ?
what you are claiming is an outrageous lie .
No one not even gershon shalom says that .
Shatz was a talmid of kabbalah and not the rabbi (he had no serious stundents ,and certianly was NOT the one that brought kaballah to europe)that went off the way just like J went out of Judaism 2000 years ago ,his influence on all the other talmidim was ZERO
