A Litvak Looks at Reb Zadok Hakohein of Lublin and a Well-Known Teaching of His

(Today is the yahrzeit of Reb Zadok of Lublin, which makes it a good time to share some relevant thoughts.)

One of the Hasidic authors that has become popular among some in the wider Jewish world in recent decades is Reb Zadok of Lublin.

One big fan of Reb Zadok recently wrote a tribute to him, in which he claims that the line in Reb Zadok which people are mostly familiar with is his teaching that 'just as a man must believe in Hashem, he must believe in himself'. This fine writer, who described himself as having four American born grandparents and without any even remotely distant Hasidic relatives, describes how, hearing those words in his Modern Orthodox high school from neo-Hasidic leader Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, mashpia at Yeshiva University and Rabbi in Woodmere, turned him on to Reb Zadok/Hasidus (though he says that he is mainly interested in Reb Zadok, as opposed to Hasidism in general).

Now I have heard that before from others, that those words of Reb Zadok made a big impression on them. But I have some trouble understanding what the big deal is.

Didn't the משנה itself, eons before ר' צדוק, say that every person is obligated to say בשבילי נברא העולם, the world was created for me?

Don't believe me? Take a look at סנהדרין פרק ד (for greater clarity, see the words of רש"י there, either in a gemara volume - e.g. last Rashi, bottom of page - or in the תוספות יום טוב on the mishna).

So okay, Reb Zadok said a similar thing in a different way, but it seems that he basically reinvented the wheel here.

יגדיל תורה ויאדיר

Just don't tell me that he made the whole thing up יש מאין.

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