You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book describes a circle of Eastern European Kabbalists that established Hasidism, an important movement that has influenced Jewish Mysticism, Yiddish culture and Hebrew literature. It uncovers the messianic motivation, concealed in Hasidic writings after the failure of their 1740-1781 attempts to hurry redemption. The book opens with the Besht, the legendary founder of Hasidism, and continues with the first Hasidic court, founded by one of his prominent disciples, the preacher of Zlotshov. The group’s redemptive activities are revealed through their mystical rituals, their self-image as representatives of the ten Sefirot, and the status of their leader, “the Righteous One,” as a vivid symbol of the divine influx. The book is especially important for scholars and students of Judaism as well as scholars of mysticism and messianism, seeking to comprehend the transformation of a messianic circle of devotees into a mass movement that changes the culture of an entire nation.
Scholars have long argued that early Hasidic teachings introduced a psychological dimension to kabbalistic traditions and revitalized modern Judaism. Focused on the inner soul, Hasidism encouraged worshippers to experience joy and delight through their enthusiastic practices. In this new work grounded in the historical study of emotions, Leore Sachs-Shmueli shows that Hasidic teachers and preachers also nurtured and even promoted the negative emotions of yirah, an emotional cluster that encompasses fear, apprehension, anxiety, and awe. Exploring their roots in classical texts of Kabbalah, including the Zohar and works of Safed Kabbalah, Sachs-Shmueli demonstrates how early Hasidic masters li...
Historical and Literary Approaches
'Probably the most important analytical study of the Hasidic movement ... can be read by anyone seriously interested in Jewish history.' - Jewish Historical Studies
In Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, bishop and social activist John Shelby Spong argues that 200 years of biblical scholarship has been withheld from lay Christians. In this brilliant follow-up to Spong’s previous books Eternal Life and Jesus for the Non-Religious, Spong not only reveals the crucial truths that have long been kept hidden from the public eye, but also explores what the history of the Bible can teach us about reading its stories today and living our lives for tomorrow. Sarah Sentilles, author of Breaking Up With God: A Love Story, applauds John Shelby Spong’s Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, writing that “pulsing beneath his brilliant, thought-provoking, passionate book is this question: can Christianity survive the education of its believers?…A question Bishop Spong answers with a resounding yes.”