Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World

H-Judaic Edited Volume TOC: Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World

Discussion published by Sylvia Fuks Fried on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 The Tauber Institute at Brandeis University is pleased to announce the publication of Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World Edited by Ariel Evan Mayse and Sam Berrin Shonkoff

August 2020/ 275 pages/Brandeis University Press ISBN 9781684580170/ $26/Paperback

Summary: Hasidism has attracted, repelled and bewildered philosophers, historians and theologians since its inception in the 18th century. In “Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World,” Ariel Evan Mayse and Sam Berrin Shonkoff present students and scholars with a vibrant and polyphonic set of Hasidic confrontations with the modern world. In this collection, they show that the modern Hasid marks not only another example of a Jewish pietist, but someone who is committed to an ethos of seeking wisdom, joy and intimacy with the divine.

While this volume focuses on Hasidism, it wrestles with a core set of questions that permeate modern Jewish thought and religious thought more generally: What is the relationship between God and the world? What is the relationship between God and the human being? But Hasidic thought is cast with mystical, psychological and even magical accents, and offers radically different answers to core issues of modern concern. The editors draw selections from an array of genres, including women’s supplications; sermons and homilies; personal diaries and memoirs; correspondence; stories; polemics; legal codes; and rabbinic responsa. These selections consciously move between everyday lived experience and the most ineffable mystical secrets, reflecting the multidimensional nature of this unusual religious and social movement. The editors include canonical texts from the first generation of Hasidic leaders up through present-day ultra-orthodox, as well as neo-Hasidic voices and, in so doing, demonstrate the unfolding of a rich and complex phenomenon that continues to evolve today.

About the Editors:

Ariel Evan Mayse, assistant professor at Stanford University, holds a Ph.D. in Jewish

Citation: Sylvia Fuks Fried. Edited Volume TOC: Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World . H-Judaic. 09-30-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/28655/discussions/6506727/edited-volume-toc-hasidism-writings-devotion-community-and-life Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Judaic

Studies from Harvard University and rabbinic ordination from Beit Midrash Har'el in Israel. He is the author of From the Depth of the Well: An Anthology of Jewish Mysticism and coauthor with Arthur Green of the forthcomingA New Hasidism: Branches.

Sam Berrin Shonkoff is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He is the editor ofMartin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy. His book on Buber's interpretations of Hasidic sources is forthcoming.

Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Emergence, Challenge and Renewal (1740-1815) Introduction The Ba‘al Shem Tov: Disciples and Descendants Yiddish Supplications (Tkhines) Dov Ber of Mezritsh The Brody Proclamation of 1772 The Maggid’s Family Chernobil and Zhitomir Shmuel and Pinhas Horowitz, Levi Yitshak of Barditshev, and Uziel Meizels Hasidism in Lithuania, White Russia and Tiberias Nahman of Bratslav Beyond the Maggid’s Circle Early Hasidism in Poland

Part II: Ascendancy and Dominance (1815-1881) Introduction Avraham Yehoshu‘a Heshel of Apt The Dynasties of Ruzhin and Talna Menahem Mendel Schneersohn Kalonymous Kalman Epstein of Krakow Hayim Halberstam and Sandz Hasidism Malka Rokeah of Belz and Eydel Rubin of Brody The Dynasties of Dinov, Zhidachov and Komarno The Dynasties of Pshiskhe: Kotsk, Izhbits, Warka and Ger

Part III: Decline, Renaissance, and Destruction (1881-1945) Introduction Ger in Warsaw: Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter Sokhachev and Ger Tsadok ha-Kohen of Lublin Munkatsh Hasidism Toledot Aharon Sholom Dov Ber Schneersohn The Hasidic Yeshivah Sarah Schenirer Three Hasidic Memoirs: Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, Yitshak Nahum Twersky and Malka Shapiro The Belzer Rebbe’s Sermon The Rebbe of Piaseczno

Part IV: Renewal and Reconstruction (1945–present) Introduction Hasidic Theology and the Holocaust Zionist Hasidism Satmar Hasidism The Seventh Rebbe of Habad Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky Slonim Hasidism in Jerusalem Ruth Lichtenstein and Feige Twerski