Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales (The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) [Paperback]

Nahman of Bratslav (Author), Arnold J. Band (Technical Editor, Translator, Introduction), Joseph Dan (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Paulist Press (December 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809121034
• ISBN-13: 978-0809121038
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #210,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Jewish

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Torah Scholars and Lost Princesses, November 7, 2008

By 

Lawrence (Christchurch NZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales (The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) (Paperback)

Do you want to read a book of fairy-tales written by by a little-known Hassidic Rabbi, eccentric even by the standards of Hassidic Rabbis, a tormented soul in spite of his deep Jewish faith, absorbed in abstruse Kabbalistic speculations, and possibly subject to Messianic delusions?

It may not sound very attractive, but believe it or not this is one of the most beautiful, haunting, profound, mysterious, re-readable and unforgettable books I have ever discovered. Although I've known these stories for 20 years, some episodes still move me to tears.

It's an open secret that traditional fairy-tales are spiritual teachings in costume. All children know this, and absorb these teachings at an early age without being able to explain them. The authority here was the Sri Lankan scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy, if you can find his wonderful essays.
"Thumbelina" is the most beautiful, concise, complete outline of the spiritual life you could hope to find. "Beauty and the Beast", "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", are also outstanding. (Let's not get carried away. You'd have a hard task to find mystical significance in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".)

Rabbi Nahman takes over the set vocabulary of Eastern European fairy-tales, with their Princesses and Emperors, speaking animals and magical objects, complicated quests and royal children exchanged at birth with commoners, and adds some stock characters from Jewish folklore. The stories are said to contain concealed meanings referring to the Kabbalistic universe of Rabbi Isaac Luria: but given that no two commentators agree on what these meanings are, you can safely ignore them and just read for the story.

A warning. These stories are like those transcribed by field-workers, stories from oral tradition never subjected to literary reworking. They can be oddly inconsequential, leaving out crucial matters while including the seemingly irrelevant. They often have a "Suddenly! ...nothing happened" quality, and they don't so much end as just stop.

The Story of the Heart and the Spring, in part 5 of "The Seven Beggars", made me gasp and drop the book the first time I read it. You finish these Tales with a sigh, feeling, like the narrator of "The Ancient Mariner", sadder but wiser, having learnt something heart-rendingly true you'll never forget... but unable to explain what it is.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tales of a great teacher of Judaism, April 30, 2010

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales (The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) (Paperback)

Rabbi Nachman is one of the legendary figures of the Jewish world. He has a unique, if not quite understandable position in a number of ways. When he died no leader was allowed to replace him and for the Bretslav Hasidim even today he is the leader. He had a problematic and short life and his teachings bear the mark and wisdom of having suffered much, and learned much from the suffering. Still as a Hasidic master his Torah is a Torah of joy in depth in living in the life of Torah. His stories are mystical and mysterious. They seem to have both a fairy- tale quality and an enigmatic yearning tone. I personally have always had difficulty understanding the tales. This volume contains explanation by the translator Arnold Band and commentary by philosophy professor Joseph Dan.
For me the Tales however wondrous have always been secondary to the discursive homiletic teachings. I would recommend to anyone who reads these tales and is in some way moved by them to examine the thought of Rabbi Nachman in depth. He is a tremendously inspiring spiritual teacher, one of incredible depth and beauty.

6 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extra ordinary!, August 1, 2001

By 

David V. Miretsky (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales (The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) (Paperback)

The tailes of Rabbi Nachman contain the deepest secrets of the universe,as well as secrets of our own existance. This book is "must" for every one in search for Truth and Peace.