Classic Hassidic Tales: Marvellous Tales of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem and of His Great-Grandson, Rabbi Nachman, Retold from Hebrew, Yiddish and German [Hardcover]

Meyer Levin (Author)

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Language Notes

Text: English (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 258 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books; First edition & printing in this form edition (December 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880290374
• ISBN-13: 978-0880290371
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,243,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful tales, June 30, 2010

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Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Hassidic Tales: Marvellous Tales of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem and of His Great-Grandson, Rabbi Nachman, Retold from Hebrew, Yiddish and German (Hardcover)

People who enjoy reading short stories that have an aura of myth, fairy tale, supernatural, and the other-world, and which have thought-provoking ideas that titillate the mind, will delight in reading the forty tales that Meyer Levin translates in this volume. There are 27 fables of the legendary, mysterious, wonder-worker Rabbi Israel, known as the Baal Shem Tov, "the Master of the Good Name," the founder of the Hassidic movement (1700-1760) and 13 of his great-grandson Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlaw (1772-1810). The word "Hassid" implies intense piety, ardor, fervor, ecstasy.

The Hassid's piety does not lie in the scholarly study of the Bible or the Talmud, Baal Shem Tov taught, but in the simple joys of daily life, even in drinking a glass of vodka, if done with the right spirit. This is seen in the book's shortest tale:

Once Rabbi Israel passed through a house of prayer. An old Jew sat there huddled over a book, reading in a hasty mumble, reading faster and faster, hour after hour.
Rabbi Israel said, "He is so absorbed in his learning that he has forgotten there is a God over the world."

Baal Shem Tov's disciples told stories of how he had the power to do miraculous deeds. He could fly from one end of the earth to another. He could foretell the future and heal the sick. His legends were written - one can say, invented - by many people over many years, during and after his death.

The narratives of his great-grandson, in contrast, were composed by the man himself. While those of the first are obviously fables, those of the second are highly entertaining, but yet intensely meaningful parables.

Both were composed for the masses, yet the tales have been enjoyed by people of every level of society. The stories are not rational. They are filled with magic, with demons, with speaking animals, with conceptions of the universe that are clearly untrue, with wishful but unrealistic thinking of the coming of the messiah, of ways to conquer The Evil One, of elevating The Soul, of divine intervention to aid those in need, of unrealistic comforts. Yet, despite the falsehoods and lack of sophistication, there are underlying truths.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hassidic Faith which finds expression in retelling stories of Baal Shem Tov, December 2, 2006

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Didaskalex "Eusebius Alexandrinus" (Kellia on Calvary, Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Hassidic Tales (Paperback)

"... storytelling and conversation, dialogue, lie at the heart of changing the current course of this world of action...changing the nature of our conversations, finding meaning and connection with one another, entering into true dialogue... " Natalie Shell

Tales of Wise Men:
Like the teaching stories of other religions, the parables of Jesus, the sayings of the desert fathers, stories of the Sufis, Hasidic tales may offer analytical insights into the nature of religious wisdom and emotional spirituality, its absolving techniques, consciousness-raising, and the experience of confronting the unexpected reality. Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters cannot be conveyed in words, but can only be conveyed through a direct personal encounter. As the Hasidic master Rabbi Jacob Yitzhak affirmed, "The way cannot be learned out of a book, or from hearsay, but can only be communicated from person to person." Such an experience, explains Fr. Benedict Viviano, requires a narrative means, "precisely the story of a living person. A Hasidic tale of a cripple who gets so carried away while telling a story that he begins to dance about and is cured. This transformation, is what Schillebeeckx describes theologically, in a pregnant phrase, 'a faith which finds expression in telling stories' and in life-giving, effective, 'telling' deeds."

Hasidic Tales:
Ha·sid or Has·sid also Chas·sid (KHä's'd) a member of a Jewish mystic movement founded in the 18th century in eastern Europe by Baal Shem Tov that reacted against Talmudic learning and maintained that God's presence was in all of one's surroundings and that one should serve God in one's every deed and word.
Numberless tales have been told and retold for generations since the days of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760). He and his disciples employed the story or anecdote to inspire their followers with the love of God and man. The rise of the popular pietistic-mystical movement, became a host of legends concerning the lives, wise sayings, and miracles of such tzaddiqim, or masters, as Israel ben Eliezer (1700-60), and other Jewish mystics. These, however, are anecdotes rather than formally structured stories and often borrow from non-Jewish sources.
Dr. Alan Unterman, of the Jerusalem Academy of Jewish Studies, explain in his "Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics," the received yet ever-evolving tradition of mysticism stretching deep into the Jewish past. Hasidic sayings are drawn primarily from the great Hasidic masters of the eighteenth century onward, whose words are rooted in the life of the common man.

Master of the Good Name:
The tradition of Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) mentioned that young Israel was different from other children. He would often go into fields, woods and mountains, spending many hours alone, speaking to G-d. Not having parents, it's not surprising he would go into nature to seek out his Father in Heaven. At an early age he was aware of Divine presence of G-d in all aspects of life. He restored the spirit of Judaism with a sense of personal relationship with the Lord G-d.
The Baal Shem Tov taught his followers that God is to be worshiped with great joy -- enthusiastic singing and exuberant dancing -- and that the mystical approach to God (Kabbalah) was superior to the dry, legalistic scholarship of the Talmudic scholars of his day. He employed the power of the Divine Name to produce miracles. Critics of the Baal Shem Tov accused him of lacking Talmudic learning and scholarship, and for employing superstitious practices such as amulets. Indeed, later Hasidic legends depict him healing the suffering and exorcising evil spirits, but rarely teaching Torah or engaging in Talmudic discourse.
The Baal Shem Tov claimed to have visions of angels during his ascents, and even to have encountered the Messiah. The Baal Shem Tov asked the Messiah when he would come, and the Messiah replied that he would come when the Besht's teachings were revealed to the world so that others could ascend and achieve union with the godhead. Therefore, the Besht taught his followers to offer their prayers and engage in study in a spirit of pure joy and with the pure intention to achieve unity with God.

The Days of Awe:
The enemy did not forswear the battle, but came out openly and spread his iron wings between the earth and heaven. The wings were as thick as a mountain is high, and all through they were made of heavy iron. He wrapped his wings around the earth as he would enclose it within the two cups of his hand. On earth, all was darkness. The wings of the enemy pressed forever closer to the earth, and crushed the spirits of men.
When Rabbi Israel was about to enter into a synagogue, he stopped outside the door and said, "I cannot go in there. There is no room for me to enter." But the hasidim said, "There are not many people in the synagogue." "The house is filled from the ground to the roof with prayers!" said the master.
But as he saw the hasidim taking pride because of his words, he said, Those prayers are all dead prayers. They have no strength to fly to heaven. They are crushed; they lie on top of the other, and the house is filled with them." And he returned to Medziboz. He felt the weight of the wings of the enemy pressing ever closer upon him. He sought for a way to pierce that iron cloud, and make a path to heaven.

Hassidic Panentheism:
Early Hasidic masters adopted the Kabbalah concept of God's divine spark existing in humans, animals, vegetation, and all inanimate objects, without which all creation would cease to exist. Several early Hasidic sages expanded upon this idea of Divine sparks vitalizing all components of the environment. God's immanence, a firm Hassidic belief, concluded that all human encounters are meaningful. The Baal Tov applied this to all living creatures as well as vegetation and inanimate objects. Since everything contains a Divine spark, the environment is not only analogous to man, but assists his relationship with God. Lubavitch Hasidism, declare, "God gives life and He continuously brings all world's creatures ex Nihilo (from nothing) to existence through energy and vitality which empower them. Material body, and inanimate stones and earth, receive light energy and vitality from Him."

fine Hassidic Tales:
When Meyer Levin, a story teller himself (a 1920's journalist), first encountered those Hassidic tales in penny booklets left in his friend's Paris studio some Eigty years ago, he adapted them with the artful sketches of Marek Szwarc which made them so vivid. Although Buber's Early Masters tales, and Baal Shem Legend became more popular, Elie Wisel found meyer levin's the finest English version of the authentic hasidic tales.