Chassiduth.

<<The only extant copy of an early unpublished Chassidic work.>> The original autograph copy of this text was in the library of the Grand Rabbi of Gur, R. Abraham Mordechai Alter, who permitted a copy to be made. As a result of the ravages of the Holocaust the Gerer Rebbe’s entire library was destroyed - of course including R. Yoseph Yehuda’s manuscript - and only the present manuscript copy, that had been buried for safekeeping, was retrieved after the war. Active toward the end of the 18th century, Yoseph Yehuda of Balta was one of the earliest proponents of the thought of the Baal Shem Tov, yet little is known about this great Chassidic Master. A son was R. Ephraim Fischel of Strikov, from his citations in the present manuscript we may conclude that he studied under the Maggid of Mezeritch and R. Moshe the Maggid of Ladziyon. For an analysis of this manuscript, see Y. Tzvi in Nachaliel (1965) pp. 90-4.