In The Hasidic Moses, Aryeh Wineman invites readers to join him on a journey through various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hasidic texts that interpret the life of Moses. Such texts read their own accent on spirituality and innerness along with their conceptions of community and spiritual leadership into the biblical account of Moses. Wineman reveals the ways in which historical Hasidic voices interpreted both the Exodus from Egypt and the scene of Revelation at Sinai as statements concerning what occurs constantly in (...) our lives at all times. In addition, Wineman shows how Hasidic readers embraced the idea that Moses had to die in order that his soul might return to the world in the righteous and holy ones of every generation, and that the presence of Moses actually transcends time and is present in spiritual understanding as it unfolds at any moment in any period. ""Aryeh Wineman has written a clear and accessible book that serves as a delightful entry into the world of Hasidic thought. Using the template of Hasidic interpretations of the life of Moses, he takes the reader carefully through a broad range of Hasidic works, highlighting the Hasidic resistance to the plain meaning of scripture, opting instead for their penchant for devotional and spiritually deepening readings... The impulse toward spiritualizing both deepens the original text of the Torah and transcends it, stimulating the reader to read the Torah as an edifying document, rather than primarily a historical, legal, or even national work."" --Joel Hecker, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ""Aryeh Wineman's The Hasidic Moses is a triumph on every level... The figure of Moses is brought alive in the words of the classic Hasidic masters and is made available for a new generation of spiritual seekers hungry to find meaning in biblical models and mystical texts. The Bible tells us that no one knows where Moses is buried--but we can say that he lives robustly in Aryeh Wineman's sparking new book!"" --Nehemia Polen, Hebrew College, Newton Centre, Massachusetts ""Aryeh Wineman writes authoritatively as the scholar he is, but addresses himself--like the rabbi he also is--not to other scholars, but to readers and seekers who would like to understand. In this way he lives the humility of the teacher Moses and leads us through his writing into the depths of the Hasidic homily and parable... For those of us who don't have direct access to the hasidic texts he translates, his gentle and careful presentation of The Hasidic Moses is a gift from soul to soul."" --Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus and Burnt Books Aryeh Wineman has written many studies in the area of Hebrew literature and Jewish mysticism. (shrink)

The article analyses mystical teaching of Hasidism in the early works of Martin Buber (before publication of “I and Thou” in 1923) in the context of the concept of Orientalism by E. Said. Analysis is based on the M. Buber’s appeal to Hasidic sources in the 1900s-1910s (in particular, in his first two collections, “Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav” and “The Legend of Baal Shem”). Two factors allow examining Hasidism in the early Buber’s writings in the context of Orientalism: (...) a growing interest in the Orient in the circles of European Jewish intellectuals during late 19th cent, as well as the negative stereotype of traditional East European Jew (Ostjuden, “an Eastern Jews”) present in the modernized Jewish society. The article demonstrates that this stereotype is closely related to the criticism of Hasidism by representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah). In particular, the accusations of traditional Eastern European Jews of inclination to vanity and prejudice, as well as of subjugation to the infinite power of the miracle workers (tzadikim), clearly have a source in maskilic criticism of Hasidism. The Buber’s turn towards Hasidism took place in mid-1900s. It was connected with Buber’s interest in Oriental mysticism, and with his social activities as “cultural Zionist”. Overcoming the “Ostjude” stereotype turned out to be an essential part of Buber’s cultural program. Buber reconstructs Jewish mysticism as an integral phenomenon, the subject of academic study. According to Buber, the most striking manifestation of this phenomenon is the Eastern-Euro pean mystical movement of Hasidism. It is from Ostjuden that the source of Hasidic wisdom is linked, which in the essays of the cycle of “Judaism” is a true “light from the East.”. (shrink)

This groundbreaking volume bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary Jewish spirituality, offering fresh insights into Hasidic homilies as dynamic sources of meaning and renewal. Featuring nineteen scholars and educators, the book delves into the mystical depth and poetic imagination of these texts, revealing their power to inspire ethical and spiritual growth. Through close readings and practical reflections, the contributors explore innovative pedagogies for hermeneutical and existential transformation. With a programmatic introduction by Elie Holzer, this collection offers a rare look at the (...) lived experience of teaching Hasidic homilies, addressing classroom dilemmas and spiritual impact. Essential for seekers and educators, it opens new pathways to renewed Jewish spirituality and divine-centered living. (shrink)

The paper examines the dominance of narrative in Hasidic religious life through the discourse of narrative ethics and its implications for theology, specifically feminist theology, and for religion in general. I claim that the centrality of storytelling in Hasidism reflects and constructs an essential attitude toward religious life. This attitude directs one to narrative and contextual thinking, which both focus on the specific person, circumstances, and emotions, as opposed to law, norms, and abstract determination. This centrality of storytelling is (...) connected to a deep Hasidic awareness of the restrictive nature of normative religious life, a finite facet of the infinite paths to God. (shrink)

Hasidism is hardly known for its openness to non-Hasidim, yet the story is more complex. When Hasidism first emerged in the late eighteenth century as a populist mystical movement for (primarily) male Jews in Eastern Europe, there were fairly strong traditions of engagement with “the other”—non-Jews, as well as Jews who were deemed peripheral due to their gender, education level, or heterodoxy. However, such perspectives in early Hasidism must be understood largely in terms of mystical paradigms, such (...) as “worship in corporeality.” Starting in the nineteenth century, as Hasidic communities assumed more defensive postures against perceived threats of secularism and assimilation, their reflections on otherness grew more antagonistic on the whole and were more likely to reference social concerns rather than mystical processes. This chapter will present sources that both exemplify and defy the above-mentioned trends. (shrink)

Todat Yehoshua (1935), a Hasidic commentary on the Passover Haggadah by Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel Rabinowitz of Monastyrishche, Ukraine, later of Brownsville, New York, offers an important perspective on Orthodox experience in North America in the interwar period. On his reading, the Haggadah invites an understanding of history that recognizes and contends with all that is radically unholy: from secularism, enlightenment, and Zionism in the Jewish camp, to Marxism, communism, anarchy, Nazism, and contemporary antisemitism. As a Hasidic tsadik and émigré rabbi, (...) R. Yehoshua Heschel sought to revitalize religion as an existentially vital facet of being, while encouraging those around him to forge a Jewish identity loyal to the past and empowered to rise to the challenges of the present. (shrink)

In her important work, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, the late Rivkah Schatz-Uffenheimer depicted early eighteenth-century Hasidism as a movement with pronounced ‘quietist tendencies’. In this paper I raise several difficulties with this thesis. These follow from social-activist features of early Hasidism as well as from a selection from the writings of leading early Hasidic masters. I conclude that a major stream of thought in early Hasidim was not quietist in tendency. Finally, (...) I compare the intentions of the masters I cite to some non-quietist themes in Eastern mystical thought. (Published Online July 10 2006). (shrink)

The words 'hasid' and 'hasidism' have become so familiar to people interested in the Jewish world that little thought is given to understanding exactly what hasidism is or considering its spiritual and social consequences. What, for example, are the distinguishing features of hasidism? What innovations does it embody? How did its founders see it? Why did it arouse opposition? What is the essential nature of hasidic thought? What is its spiritual essence? What does its literature consist of? (...) What typifies its leadership? What is the secret of its persistence through the centuries? How have scholars explained its origins? Is hasidism an expression of mystical ideas, or a response to changing social circumstances? What is its connection to kabbalah? To Shabateanism? To messianism? What is its relationship to the traditional structures of authority in the Jewish world? This book aims to answer all these questions in a lucid and accessible manner. Rachel Elior focuses on the fundamental positions and the factors of primary importance: the substantial issues that recur in the hasidic texts, including how hasidim have seen themselves over the centuries, how they have constructed a new spiritual and social ideal, and how that ideal has stood the test of reality. The goal is to present the main characteristics of the hasidic movement and to examine the social implications of its mystical ideas. The text is fully supported by references to the relevant hasidic sources and academic literature. The book concludes with a list of the hasidic texts on which the discussion is based and a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly works on kabbalah and hasidism. (shrink)

Moshe Idel, Hasidism între extaz si magie Ed. Hasefer, Bucuresti, 2001.

Sam Lebens has written a richly inventive and thought-provoking book that contributes greatly to philosophy of religion and to contemporary Jewish philosophy. While there is much that merits response, I will focus here on one central theme of the book: the doctrine, dubbed (Extreme) Hasidic Idealism by Lebens, that we exist only in God’s imagination — accordingly that we are nothing but divine ideas. I will also argue that the book exceeds its self-presentation as a work in the “analytic style” (...) and illustrates the need to overcome the analytic/Continental divide. (shrink)

Sam Lebens has written a richly inventive and thought-provoking book that contributes greatly to philosophy of religion and to contemporary Jewish philosophy. While there is much that merits response, I will focus here on one central theme of the book: the doctrine, dubbed (Extreme) Hasidic Idealism by Lebens, that we exist only in God’s imagination — accordingly that we are nothing but divine ideas. I will also argue that the book exceeds its self-presentation as a work in the “analytic style” (...) and illustrates the need to overcome the analytic/Continental divide. (shrink)

Mordechai Rotenberg, who is well known for his work on the pessimistic impact of Protestant ethics on the Western social sciences, presents here a systematic study derived from, and based on, Judeo-Hasidic ethics. Proceeding from the cabalistic-Hasidic concept of contraction (tzimtsum), according to which God's voluntary withdrawal into Himself to evacuate space for the world serves as a model for human behavior, Professor Rotenberg shows that it is not personal-social construction, but self- and social contraction, that explains how the "is" (...) and the "ought" of society are developed and maintained. (shrink)

In this ground-breaking presentation of Neo-Hasidic philosophy, Green and Mayse draw together the writings of five great twentieth-century European and American Jewish thinkers--Hillel Zeitlin, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshu Heschel, Shlomo Carlebach, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, plus some of Green's own youthful writings -- sharing each of their reflections on the inner life of the individual and their dreams of creating Neo-Hasidic spiritual communities.

The present article argues that the Hasidic exegesis differs dramatically from most of the Kabbalistic schools that preceded it. Symbolic exegesis based upon the importance of a theosophical understanding of divinity was relegated to the margin. One major characteristic of the Hasidic masters is that they preferred binary types of oppositions that in their view shape the discourse of the sacred texts. They became much less interested in the Bible as a reflection of the inner and dynamic life of God, (...) than in the understanding of the text as referring to the inner spiritual development of the mystic. From this point of view, Hasidism was closer to the metaphorical approach of the ecstatic brand of Kabbalah, which also emphasized the paramount importance of inner transformation. What is also characteristic of Hasidic exegesis is the monadization: a combination of the atomization of the biblical text, with both magical and mystical understandings of the verbal human activity related to ritual. (shrink)

Review of David Patterson, Portraits: The Hasidic Legacy of Elie Wiesel.

Hasidism is a religious-mystical trend in Judaism that arose in the first half of the eighteenth century. among the Jewish population of Volyn, Podillya and Galicia. The emergence of a new movement in the Orthodox Jewish religion was driven by changes in the socio-economic and political status of Ukrainian Jews during that period. Cossack uprising under the leadership of B. Khmelnitsky 1648 - 1654, Gaidamachchyna and other national disturbances of the XVII - XVIII centuries. greatly undermined the well-being of (...) the Jewish population, led to a deepening of property and social stratification within communities, a weakening of intra-community discipline, a decline in the authority of religion and the prestige of rabbinic science. In Volyn, Podillya and Galicia, most affected by hostilities, the overall cultural level of the people is significantly reduced, Talmudic science is declining, and schools are being closed. (shrink)

A famous Hasidic tale that depicts the decline of mysticism in Hasidic circles also bespeaks the power of storytelling. This study tracks the metamorphosis of this classic tale over a century of its retelling by writers—including Martin Buber, S. Y. Agnon, Gershom Scholem, Walter Kaufmann, Elie Wiesel, and Abba Kovner—who each fashioned the tale in their own image. These authors affirmed but also challenged the tale’s message about the efficacy of storytelling. The use of the tale in Passover celebrations and (...) other contemporary trends are also considered. The question is raised as to whether transmitters have a duty of care not to corrupt the story. (shrink)

The sacred tales and aphorisms collected here by Martin Buber have their origins in the traditional Hasidic metaphor of life as a ladder, reaching towards the divine by ascending rungs of perfection. Through Biblical riddles and interpretations, Jewish proverbs and spiritual meditations, they seek to awaken in the reader a full awareness of the urgency of the human condition, and of the great need for self-recognition and spiritual renewal.

Arthur Green is currently Rector of the post-denominational Hebrew College Rabbinical School in Newton, Massachusetts, and has held several distinguished academic and rabbinic positions. A historian and interpreter of the Jewish mystical tradition, he has promoted neo-Hasidism as a contemporary Jewish spirituality.

Doctrine of the distant tzaddik: mysticism, ethic, and politics -- Self-image and the Father-figure: Rabbi Nachman of Breslov on repairing the souls of the dead -- Two tzsddikim, Two women in labor, and one salvation: reading gender in Hasidic story -- 'Outside of the natural order': Temrel, the female Hasid -- Hasidic women: beyond egalitarianist discourse -- The Hasidic story: a call of narrative religiosity -- The Yamima method as a contemporary- Hasidic- female movement.

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 60 - 94 One of the more astounding books produced by Bratslav Hasidism is _Liqquṭei tefilot_, composed by R. Nathan Sternhartz of Nemirov, which established a whole new genre in Bratslav literature. This article discusses the book’s genesis, publication, and primary goals, as well as the controversy it generated. The new Bratslav theology that emerged after the death of Rabbi Naḥman led to disputes, both internal and external, over the role and character (...) of R. Nathan. Examining this particularly obscure chapter in the early history of Bratslav Hasidism sheds light on the movement as it exists today in all its diversity, both ideological and social. (shrink)

Moshe Idel considers that the emergence of Hasidism is not the result of the confrontation between ancient and modern orientations. In M. Idel’s interpretation of the Hasidic phenomenon, a central point is ascribed to the inevitable encounter of the Hasidim masters with a variety of mystic literature. I have chosen to analyze three extremely complex and very important concepts regarding Jewish mystic phenomenon: mitzvoth, worlds, and community. In discussing these concepts I have tried to emphasize their practical and very (...) important nature. I have also described the relations that bring them together, in order to identify the special role of the Hasidic mystic in the process of influencing the superior and inferior worlds. This depends on the manner in which he respects and carries out the commandments. I would like to emphasize the blurred line between mystic and magic in the Hasidism of Southeastern Europe. (shrink)

This essay interrogates the legal discourse of Shulḥan ha-Tahor, a curious—and curiously understudied—work of Hasidic halakhah written by Rabbi Yitzḥak Ayzik Yehudah Yehiel Safrin of Komarno. The book is, at heart, a systematic reformulation of Jewish law in light of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and the quest for personal mystical experience. Shulḥan ha-Tahor offers a rare case study for the interface of mystical experience, Hasidic devotional values, and kabbalistic doctrine as they explicitly shape the codified forms—and norms—of halakhah. The essay reveals (...) a different side of Jewish modernity through a close reading of an exceptional nineteenth-century legal code. (shrink)

This book is an investigation into authenticity, certainty, and self-hood as they arise in the story of the binding of Isaac. Gellman provides a new interpretation of Kierkegaard with select Hasidic commentary. Contents: INTRODUCTION: Background to the Book; Hasidism and Existentialism; Preview of the Chapters; THE FEAR AND THE TREMBLING: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; The Problem of Hearing and the Problem of Choice; The 'Ethical' for Kierkegaard; The 'Voice of God' for Kierkegaard; The Resolution of the Problems; THE UNCERTAINTY: (...) Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica; Maimonides, Saadia, and Gersonides; The Existentialist Interpretation; The Theological Interpretation; SINNING FOR GOD: The Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; Averah Lishmah-Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin; Divine Determinism; Repentance from Fear and from Love; Averah Lishmah and the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; THE DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS: Abraham's Prophetic Utterance; Heavy and Light Double Mindedness; The Fire-Elimelech of Lyzhansk; Judah Aryeh Leib of Gur; Abraham's Double-Mindedness; THE PASSION: Abraham Issac Kook; Hegel and Kierkegaard on Religion and Philosophy; Abraham and Idolatry; The Akedah According to Rav Kook; God's Mercy; Rav Kook and Kierkegaard on the Self; Index. (shrink)

Is Judaism essentially a religion of laws and commandments? Or do its sources reflect significant attempts at addressing the individual's inner life, existential crises and spiritual experiences? Inner Religion in Jewish Sources offers a comprehensive exploration of inner life in the Jewish sources from the Bible to rabbinic literature, from Medieval Jewish philosophy to Kabbalistic writings and the Hasidic world, where it gained particularly potent expressions. Addressing the issue from the perspective of comparative religion, it seeks to emphasize the commonality (...) of processes of interiorization in various religious traditions, suggesting an innovative angle both in the study of religion and of religious thought. In doing so, it sheds new light on the inner aspect of Jewish religious life, which is all too often hidden behind the external and institutional aspects of the Jewish religion. (shrink)

In Nth power lottery, a lottery within a lottery, as envisioned by Deleuze, the frame, the pragmatic circumstances that surround the game (e.g., its rules), are also given to chance. I argue that both the ceremonial, Temple-based, Yom Kippur lottery in the Bible and Talmud, and the subsequent idea of Yom Kippur as a heavenly lot-casting day, as expressed in the Midrash, liturgy, Hasidic thought, and even folklore tales recounting games of chance during Yom Kippur, follow the Nth power paradigm. (...) Reading these texts in light of this paradigm, and analysing this paradigm in light of the phenomenology of mise en abyme—a mimetic double at the heart of the imitatee—reveals a unique process-theology, where the act of repentance is mise en abyme of a radically absent imitatee—the ‘Before God’—and eventually an incarnation of it. (shrink)

The sources to which one has to turn for information about the lives of Hasidic masters belong to the hagiographical tradition. During its first stage of compilation in the early nineteenth century, this tradition preserved much authentic historical and biographical material, in spite of the explicit disavowal of any historiographical intent by its editors. They were apologetic about the publication of "mere tales and histories" whose value lay not in the preservation of historical records but rather in their capacity for (...) moral and religious edification. Up until then, this material had been circulating orally but, in contrast to speculative-homiletical works, was not recognized as a legitimate and useful tool for the propagation of Hasidism. However, from the second half of the nineteenth century, in response to the challenges of Jewish Enlightenment, secularization, and most directly in response to the scornful critique of Hasidism and its hagiography which was emanating from the new school of modern Jewish historiography, Hasidic authors, like the exponents of other nineteenth-century ideologies, were beginning to appeal to history for validation. They were adopting the scholarly mannerisms if not quite the historical methodology of their critics. Since the hagiographical tales, and the chain of oral transmission which had traditionally preserved and authenticated them, were both losing their credibility in the new atmosphere of rationalistic skepticism and scientific rigor, Hasidic hagiographers were now eager to present their morally edifying oral traditions as reliable historical records by anchoring them in concrete documentary evidence. The forgeries of the Kherson Genizah supplied what appeared to be incontestable "archival" verification of the tales. The Admor Joseph Isaac Schneersohn exploited the Kherson "documents" in his extensive histories of early Hasidism which reveal his anachronistic, typological thinking and are often incompatible with the facts. As a leader of HaBaD Hasidism at a time of crisis, he saw it as his duty to harness the powerful historiographical idiom to the tasks of rehabilitating the HaBaD movement and of campaigning for the preservation of Orthodox Jewish life in conditions of unprecedented adversity. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In this book I have set myself two primary goals. First, to examine the overall role of mysticism in the thought of Martin Buber: the part it ...

Judaism is one of the oldest religions that has survived to this day. It is a religion of mostly ethnic Jews, a nation that, for many historical reasons, was scattered all over the world and for a long time did not have a permanent place of residence, its state. During the century of its existence Judaism has undergone a number of changes, but its main features - monotheism and the veneration of ancient religious books - have not lost yet.

Jewish parables from the Hasidic masters and their lessons are illustrated by the interactions of Fishel the beggar, the slick thief, the rich businessman, the fat governor, the Russian soldiers, and other village characters.

One of the distinctive literary genres of Bratslav Hasidism is the shir yedidot (Song of Endearment), a mystical poem concerning the stature of the soul of R. Naḥman of Bratslav. These poems, still sung by Hasidim today, contain esoteric traditions that reveal the multiple voices within Bratslav Hasidism. This article traces the development of this form from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the present, and argues that changes in emphasis within these songs reflect shifts in Bratslav (...) theology over the years. The study thus presents a more complex historical picture of Bratslav Hasidism, which has usually been seen as one monolithic unit. (shrink)

Whether extrovertive, introvertive, or some further hybrid, the process of the soul touching the fullness of its divine origins is itself undergoing transformation in the twenty-first-century cultural matrices of Israel. A remarkable exemplar of devotional Hebrew cultures can be found within the hybrid networks of haredi worlds in Israel today. R. Yitzhaq Maier Morgenstern, author of Yam ha-okhmah, Netiv ayyim, and De'i okhmah le-nafshekha, is arguably the most innovative mystical voice in Israel. Why are his works resonating so strongly both (...) inside and outside their haredi communities of origin? How is his innovative thinking affecting the devotional praxis of Devekut both inside and outside the unfolding Hasidic networks? This exploration of mystical apperception through Devekut builds upon studies of Garb, Huss, and Meir, while challenging the idea that Morgenstern's expanding impact is solely a function of his mystical-magical charisma and hypernomian spiritual practice. This study argues that it is Morgenstern's hybridized thinking through key theoretical issues in Kabbalah and Hasidism as they apply to the lived practice of a devotional life of Devekut that will likely remain his strongest innovation and contribution to contemporary Jewish mysticism. (shrink)