“Maggid” is the traditional title for a Jewish inspirational speaker or “preacher.”
Some people mistakenly confuse a maggid with a storyteller. Instead, a maggid fills a spiritual role: to draw people to a deeper spirituality / closer to God. A Jewish storyteller can be purely secular, even if only Jewish religious tales are told. Without the motive to bring people to a deeper spirituality / closer to God, such a person would not be a maggid.
Storytelling is only one way to accomplish the maggid’s goal: inspirational speaking in the form of preaching, leading scriptural study, and even one-on-one conversations are other means to the same end.
Maggidim (pl) were first established in Geonic times – roughly the five centuries from the sixth to eleventh centuries, C.E. Then, rabbis were teachers and judges for the Jewish community, and the maggidim were itinerant preachers. During the last few centuries in Eastern Europe, 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 itinerant maggidim. It was they who gave the sermons, who told the parables and stories.
During the time of the Baal Shem Tov (the Besht), maggidim caused the people to repent by terrifying them with fire and brimstone sermons. The Besht disapproved of frightening and depressing people, and instead promoted encouraging and inspiring them. In this way, the Besht was able to bring people back to God.
Storytelling particularly contributed to the rapid spread of Hasidism among the Jews of Eastern Europe. Some of the early hasidic rebbes were known by the title of maggid, such as the Maggid of Mezritch, the Maggid of Tchernobil, of Kozhnitz, and of Trisk. Perhaps some of these teachers were at some time actually traveling maggidim, but it seems that before the new title of a hasidic rebbe became accepted, the closest title that fit the new hasidic inspirational teachers was maggid. All the early rebbes were at first called maggidim. It was maggidim who spread the Jewish revival movement called Hasidism.
Essentially, the Baal Shem Tov himself was a traveling maggid who inspired the Jewish masses. One of the most famous among the 18th-century maggidim was not a hasid, however, but Rabbi Yaakov Kranz, the Dubner Maggid, who was a master of parables.
One great 20th-century maggid was Rabbi Sholom Schwadron, the Maggid of Jerusalem. But the most famous and effective 20th-century maggid and one of the most important figures in contemporary Judaism was the legendary Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Shlomo – as he was known by most people – was a maggid, although he also didn’t use that term. The epitome of hain (holy charm, charisma), he traveled around inspiring tens of thousands of Jews to return to their Root.
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 Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, a prolific author on Jewish spirituality and in the line of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (Z”L) and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Z”L). To date, a growing number of maggidim have been granted s’micha 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.
This page is adapted from an article written by Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, and is used with his kind permission.