The various Hasidic "Tzaddiqim", mainly the Maggid's disciples, spread across Eastern Europe with each gathering adherents among the people and learned acolytes who could be initiated as leaders. The Righteous' "courts" in which they resided, attended by their followers to receive blessing and council, became the institutional centers of Hasidism, serving as its branches and organizational core. Slowly, various rites emerged in them, like the Sabbath "Tisch" or "table", in which the Righteous would hand out food scraps from their meals, considered blessed by the touch of ones imbued with godly Light during their mystical ascensions. Another potent institution was the "Shtibel", the private prayer gatherings opened by adherents in every town which served as a recruiting mechanism. The "Shtibel" differed from the established synagogues and study halls, allowing their members greater freedom to worship when they pleased, and also serving recreational and welfare purposes. Combined with its simplified message, more appealing to the common man, its honed organizational framework accounted for the exponential growth of Hasidic ranks. Having ousted the old communal model, and replaced it with a less-hierarchical structure and more individually-oriented religiosity, Hasidism was, in fact, the first great modern – albeit not modernist; its self-understanding was grounded in a traditional mindset – Jewish movement.