Tormented Master: The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav"A major contribution to the understanding of Hasidic Wisdom and thought; it brings the reader closer to Hasidism's greatest teller of tales." The search for spiritual meaning drives great leaders in all religions. This classic work explores the personality and religious quest of Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810), one of Hasidism's major figures. It unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a figure of universal religious importance. In this major biography, Dr. Arthur Green--teacher, scholar, and spiritual seeker--explores the great personal conflicts and inner torments that lay at the source of Nahman's teachings. He reveals Nahman to have been marked at an early age by an exaggerated sense of sin and morbidity that later characterized his life and thought. While subject to rapid mood swings and even paranoia, Nahman is a model of spiritual and personal struggle who speaks to all generations. Green's analysis of this troubled personality provides an important key to Nahman's famous tales, making his teachings accessible for people of all faiths, all backgrounds. "If there is any single feature about Nahman's tales, and indeed about Nahman's life as well, that makes them unique in the history of Judaism, it is just this: their essential motif is one of quest. Nahman, both as teller and as hero of these tales, is Nahman the seeker. He has already told us, outside the tales, of his refusal ever to stand on any one rung, of his call for constant growth, of his need to open himself up to ever-new and more demanding challenges to his faith. The tales now affirm this endless quest..." |
From inside the book
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... Medzhibozh , the home of the Ba'al Shem Tov and the original capital of the Hasidic world , and into the family of the Ba'al Shem Tov himself , a family still trying to maintain its place as the first family of the Hasidic community ...
... Medzhibozh court , and it thus seems likely that the young Nahman was the focus of a good deal of family and community attention . In the absence of documentation , a certain degree of conjecture as to Nahman's childhood situation is ...
... Medzhibozh any more than he was his spiritual heir . Barukh's place was inherited rather by such figures as Abraham Joshua Heschel of Opatow ( 1755-1825 ) , who settled in Medzhibozh after Barukh's death , Mordecai of Chernobyl ( 1770 ...
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
17721798 | 23 |
Nahmans Journey to the Land of Israel | 63 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
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Tormented Master: The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav Arthur Green No preview available - 1992 |