The Hasidic Rabbi's Chair

CHAPTER 8 The Hasidic Rabbi’s Chair

R. Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1810) was the great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht). His mother was Feige, the daughter of the Besht’s daughter Edel, and his father, R. Simha, was the son of R. Nahman of Horodenka (1680–1765), a descendant of the Maharal of Prague, Judah Loew ben Bezalel (c. 1520–1609) and a member of the Brody kloiz, where he met R. Nahman of Kosov (d. c. 1746) and, through him, the Besht.1 This descendant of the Maharal was one of the Besht’s first Hasidim. R. Nahman of Horodenka immigrated to Eretz-Israel twice; the first time in 1740. Within the year, he returned to be with the Besht, but four years after the latter’s death in 1760, he immigrated again. R. Simha was born in Miedzyboż, the home of the Besht, as was R. Nahman of Bratslav himself, who is considered to be the fourth generation of Hasidim. In the late summer of 1808, R. Nahman of Bratslav received a chair with ornately carved and painted decorations of flora and fauna. Most Bratslav Hasidim believe that this is the chair that is presently in the Great Bratslav Yeshiva in the Me’a She’arim quarter of Jerusalem (Fig. 146a–c). The chair stirred the rabbi’s imagination, and after receiving it, he had a dream in which he saw a chair encircled by fire. Later that year, in the fall of 1808, he composed a New Year’s sermon: “Tik’u Memshalah” (Sound [the Horn] of the Kingdom), the first three sections of which expound on the chair he saw in his dream. During the fall of 1809,1 he recounted “The Tale of the King’s Son and the Servant Woman’s Son Who Were Exchanged,” at the close of which he described a wondrous chair, carved of wood, with cut-out wooden figures of animals and birds. The sermon and the tale were approved for publication by R. Nahman through his trusted disciple, R. Nathan Sternharz of Nemirov (1780–1844), who, “endeavored greatly until I wrote it out and I showed it to him [to R. Nahman] and it found favor in his eyes.”2

1 Kaplan, Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, Sichos HaRan, 231. For the date of the tale, see Nahman of Bratslav, Ḥayyei Moharan (The Life of Our Teacher and Master Rabbi Nahman), “Regarding the Tales,” 30–31 (fols. 15b–16a), no. 2. For other dates, including the dream and sermon, see Ibid., 28 (fol. 14b), no. 59. 2 Nathan Sternholz of Nemirov, Yemei Maharanat, I, 41 (fol. 20b). R. Nathan always sought his master’s approval, as for example, when he compiled the Likutei Moharan (Sayings of R. Nahman): “In 1805 … he directed me to gather his Torah sayings … and at first I wrote a bit

Figure 146a