The Hasidic
rebbes themselves are reticent about the topic, addressing it only in unpublished homilies and personal letters, from which excerpts appear here in print for the first time.
There were notable Hasidic
rebbes, such as the Boyaner
Rebbe, Rabbi Shlomo Friedman, and the Melitzer
Rebbe, Rabbi Yitzchok Horowitz.
Horodetsky and the Maid of Ludmir tradition, the emergence of a female constituency in 20th-century Habad Hasidism, and from woman as hasid to Woman as tsadik in the teachings of the last two Lubavitcher
Rebbes. ([umlaut] Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR)
From Moses to the rabbis of the Talmud to the Hasidic
rebbes, Jewish authorities have agreed that the most important disposition to cultivate is annivut, humility.
He, as others before him, did not realize the full gamut of what can be called a schema of what Habad and its
Rebbes were undertaking: the bringing of the Messiah and redemption of the world in our day!
A niggun (devotional song), especially one associated with the first Lubavitcher
rebbes, can bring a Jew to a state of dveykus, a sort of spiritual fusion with God.
Thus, Lubavitcher musical ability has little to do with projecting one's voice or singing in tune but is rather "defined solely in relation to one's closeness to the living or historical
rebbes, to one's knowledge of Hasidim (Hasidism), and to the context in which one has learned the repertoire of nigunim" (p.
In his translation of the Tales of Nahman of Bratslav, Arnold Band relates the contention of Yosef Dan and Mendel Piekarz that "whereas the telling of tales had previously been frowned upon by Jewish authorities, it was regarded as a worthy pastime by Hasidic masters."(39) Wiesel's stories pick up a religious aura because they are designed for the same purpose that he ascribes to the
Rebbes: to bring people back to Judaism, to respond to a Judaism where creativity has dried up, leaving a tradition incapable of responding to new issues and, therefore, incapable of providing meaning.
In my case, the
rebbes gave me the hardest possible blessings so that I'd lose.