Here is the last paragraph of the Encyclopedia Judaica article about Jacob Joseph Ben Zevi Hakohen Katz of Polonnoye:
The "man of matter" must also support the zaddik financially to enable him to fulfill his duty successfully and devote himself to God through Torah study and prayer. Jacob Joseph taught the importance of the communal Sabbath "third meal" for the hassidic congregation, saying that he who does not participate in it with his brethren "makes the Sabbath profane" (Toledot Ya'akov Yosef, beginning of the section on Noah). Jacob Joseph's hostility to the ordinary type of rabbi is expressed in his denunciation of them as "Jewish demons, the equivalent of the Satan and the evil inclination itself, the whole of their Torah studies being for their personal aggrandizement."
So here is a comparison of Yaakov Yosef's (alleged) doctrine with some checklist items, for telling whether a religious movement is a cult, from
this Web page, "Checklist of Cult Characteristics", of cult recovery 101:
Checklist:
The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
zaddik:
The zaddik is likened to the head or eyes of the body, and the multitude to the feet. The congregation is thus conceived as a living organism, the zaddik being the life and soul of his generation.
Checklist:
The group is preoccupied with making money.
zaddik:
The "man of matter" must also support the zaddik financially to enable him to fulfill his duty successfully and devote himself to God through Torah study and prayer.
Checklist:
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
zaddik:
He is enjoined to believe in the zaddik with absolute faith, without any afterthoughts or doubts as to the zaddik's way of life, because all his actions are performed for the sake of Heaven.
Checklist:
The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should
think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from
leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what
types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and
so forth).
zaddik:
None of the members can adhere truly to God, so long as only one, even if an ignoramus, is non conscious of his need to be uplifted through the head (the zaddik). Hence it is the duty of the zaddik to exeert his influence over him.
Checklist:
The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
zaddik:
Jacob Joseph's hostility to the ordinary type of rabbi is expressed in
his denunciation of them as "Jewish demons, the equivalent of the Satan
and the evil inclination itself, the whole of their Torah studies being
for their personal aggrandizement."
Checklist:
The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for
example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis
of mainstream denominations).
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify
means that members would have considered unethical before joining the
group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
zaddik:
Moreover, for the sake of this unification with the multitude, and so as to be able to uplift it, the zaddik may sometimes have to descend from his own level and to sin for the good of his task.
Checklist:
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family
and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of
interest before joining the group.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
zaddik:
Jacob Joseph taught the importance of the communal Sabbath "third meal"
for the hassidic congregation, saying that he who does not participate
in it with his brethren "makes the Sabbath profane"
Hassidut, as defined by Yaakov Yosef according to the Encyclopedia Judaica article, sure looks like a cult!, It quacks like a cult, it has webbed feet like a cult, and it lays eggs like a cult.
OTOH the Encyclopedia Judaica article is a (probably biased) tertiary source, which is why I was doing quick and dirty keyword searches in בן פורת יוסף and
תולדות יעקב יוסף - בראשית שמות ויקרא: I want to know whether Yaakov Yosef really thought that way about the relationship between the zaddik and his followers.
The bibliography of the Encyclopedia Judaica article includes
The zaddik: the doctrine of the zaddik according to the writings of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoy, by Samuel H. Dresner. I perused that book at the Hebrew Union College library in Jerusalem. As I expected, it is a secondary source with lots of quotes from Yaakov Yosef's writings. Unlike the Encyclopedia Judaica article, that book is biased in favor of Hassidut. It presents the
zaddik as the Baal Shem Tov's proposed solution to the problem of the sterility of Jewish religious life in 18th century Eastern Europe. The book describes the character and mission of the
zaddik, including how the
zaddik is supposed to relate to ordinary Jews (and BTW the "sins" that the
zaddik commits in pursuit of his mission are limited to trivial matters like skipping Minha in order to help a fellow Jew), but says nothing about how ordinary Jews are supposed to relate to the
zaddik, so it is not useful in determining whether the Encyclopedia Judaica's cult-like description of Hassidut as envisioned by Yaakov Yosef is accurate. I need to look at other sources in the bibliography.
