Tales of Rabbi Nachman [Paperback]

Martin Buber (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Humanities Press International; 2nd edition (1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573924539
• ISBN-13: 978-1573924535
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,209,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The resurrection of a great culture, September 3, 2003

By 

F. P. Barbieri "Fabio Paolo Barbieri" (London UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Paperback)

What an extraordinary enterprise this is: the reconstruction, largely from oral or late sources, of the celebrated fables or parables told by a once-famous rabbinical teacher and thinker from Eastern Europe, from a culture which, though European and Jewish, is as strange to the average Westerner as any alien civilization. These Jews believed in reincarnation; they developped complex historical schemes of interpretation; they had their own numerology and their own philosophy. Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav was, according to Buber, both the last and the greatest of this line of mystical philosophers. Always a controversial figure - he suffered the violent opposition of a whole opposing Jewish party in his own shtetl, which he seems to have taken with Gandhi-like non-violence - he was above all the author of a number of complex, elaborate and, dare I say, beautiful tales expressing his own view of the nature, origin and destiny of man and God. A later and rather different Jewish genius, the cartoonist Jack Kirby, has unhesitatingly ascribed the success of Jews in all the American arts and media to the influence of the Jewish tradition of storytelling, learned at home at one's mother's knee, and bearing fruit throughout life in a natural aptitude for putting complex ideas and views of life in narrative form. These tales show you where he came from; they are of a complexity that bespeaks an ancient and proud narrative culture, and they are capable of bearing the most profound intellectual meaning. As for their author, Rabbi Nachman himself, they reveal not only deep humanity and a visionary imagination, but also features very unexpected in a Chassidic Jewish teacher - a warm appreciation of human and animal beauty, and a temper to understand and forgive rather than condemn or exclude. However, this book is to be treasured not only, perhaps not even mainly, because of its own literary and intellectual excellence, but because it is the resurrection of the last testimony of a great European tradition, now vanished or changed out of all recognition, but fascinating and worthy of respect in its own right.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A master on a master, November 15, 2004

By 

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

This review is from: Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Paperback)

Rabbi Nachman is one of the great leaders of Hasidism. Even today there is a whole group of Hasidism who consider him their ' rebbe' and walk in his way. The great presenter of the Hasidic message as he interpreted it to the Western world , Martin Buber in this work presents an introduction to the life and work of Rabbi Nachman, and presents six of his tales which he translated to German and which have been translated from the German by Maurice Friedman. These tales are truly 'parable-like mystical tales' and compel the reader to seek new interpretations of them. The volume concludes with an essay by Buber on Rabbi Nachman's Journey to the Holy Land. This is an excerpt from the concluding chapter. "Herein the land of Israel, the purification of the imagination takes place.It is not for nothing that the sounds of the word adama soil, and medame imagination , resemble one another: the fullness of the elements comes to the imagination from the earth.But the purification of the imagination by faith can take place no other way than through the consecrated earth and the consecrated earth is here in the land of Israel".

4.0 out of 5 stars Love Buber, September 30, 2011

By 

Benny Rowe - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Paperback)

Martin Buber is one of my favorite authors. "The Legend of The Baal Shem" is one of the best reads I've ever encountered, and " Tales of Rabbi Nachman" is not far behind. The only reason 'Tales' is not 5 star is because of the subject matter. The Baal Shem Tov is such a compelling character, that almost nobody approaches his level of inspiration. Rabbi Nachman however comes close, and Buber's writing only enhances his story.

BR