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

Hasidism has attracted, repelled, and bewildered philosophers, historians, and theologians since its inception in the eighteenth 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 response. 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.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction I. Emergence, Challenge, and Renewal (1736-1815) 1. The Ba‘al Shem Tov: Disciples and Descendants 2. Yiddish Supplications (Tkhines) 3. Dov Ber of Mezritsh 4. The Brody Proclamation of 1772 5. The Maggid’s Family 6. Chernobil and Zhitomir 7. Shmuel and Pinhas Horowitz, Levi Yitshak of Barditshev, and 'Uziel Meizels 8. Hasidism in Lithuania, White Russia and Tiberias 9. Nahman of Bratslav 10. Beyond the Maggid’s Circle 11. Early Hasidism in Poland II. Ascendancy and Dominance (1815-1881) 12. Avraham Yehoshu‘a Heshel of Apt 13. The Dynasties of Ruzhin and Talna 14. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn 15. Kalonymous Kalman Epstein of Krakow 16. Hayim Halberstam and Sandz Hasidism 17. Malka Rokeah of Belz and Eydel Rubin of Brody 18. The Dynasties of Dinov, Zhidachov, and Komarno 19. The Dynasties of Pshiskhe, Kotsk, Izhbits, Warka and Ger III. Decline, Renaissance, and Destruction (1881-1945) 20. Ger in Warsaw: Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter 21. Sokhachev and Ger 22. Tsadok ha-Kohen of Lublin 23. Munkatsh Hasidism 24. Toledot Aharon 25. Sholom Dov Ber Schneersohn 26. The Hasidic Yeshivah 27. Sarah Schenirer 28. Three Hasidic Memoirs: Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, Yitshak Nahum Twersky and Malka Shapiro 29. The Belzer Rebbe’s Sermon and Holocaust Testimonies 30. The Rebbe of Piaseczno IV. Renewal and Reconstruction (1945–present) 31. Hasidic Theology and the Holocaust 32. Zionist Hasidism 33. Satmar Hasidism 34. The Seventh Rebbe of Habad 35. Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky 36. Slonim Hasidism in Jerusalem 37. Voices of Contemporary Hasidic Women Index

About the Author :
Ariel Evan Mayse is assistant professor at Stanford University and holds a 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 of A New Hasidism: Branches. Sam Berrin Shonkoff is assistant professor of Jewish studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He is the editor of Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy.

Review :
“The editors have done an extraordinary thing. Succinctly framed by recent scholarship, they have nevertheless allowed some of the most consequential thinkers in the history of Hasidism to speak for themselves. Their selection is impressive, the translations are always lucid and sometimes strikingly beautiful. Mayse and Shonkoff have demonstrated the sheer phenomenological range of this movement and, significantly, made more space for Hasidic women’s voices than any previous collection. This will be the indispensable volume for teaching and research at every level. It deserves all the praise I can heap on it.”  “In this latest addition to the beloved Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought, Mayse and Shonkoff address the distinctive modernity of Hasidic thought. In their inclusive vision, letters, memoirs, and responsa speak alongside homilies and works of theology. So, too, do they open the field of Hasidism to a strikingly diverse set of voices: women, neo-Hasidic thinkers, and ordinary Hasidim.” “This dazzling collection will stimulate and enlighten its readers. In addition to displaying gems of famous Hasidic masters, the editors include women’s voices, memoirs, anti-Hasidic polemics, and theological responses to the Holocaust and the State of Israel. A superb resource for intellectual and spiritual exploration.” “Mayse and Berrin Shonkoff have presented a historically contextualized cross-section of Hasidic literature, each with a brief introduction, including relevant annotations and notes. Especially welcome is the attention to gender, and the role of women, in Hasidic life and letters. An indispensable resource for those interested in Hasidism and its role in modern Jewish thought and a significant addition to the Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought.” "This source anthology spans Hasidic literature from the earliest generation of the mass spiritual movement through present-day writers, all occupied with a set of central questions. Principally: What is the relationship between God and the world and between God and humanity and the human individual? The final section is to be noted for its inclusion of more recent Hasidic women writers." "Mayse and Shonkoff’s masterful collection of texts recognizes that there is a wealth of literature extending into the nineteenth, twentieth, and even twenty-first centuries. As such, it is the most comprehensive of all the anthologies published to date and the most diverse in terms of the different schools of Hasidism....this reviewer can only applaud the remarkable erudition and discernment of these two scholars..." "Students and scholars have long needed access to a diverse set of Hasidic sources in English translation that allows an experiential entry into its emplacement and re-orientation within the skeptical landscape of the very modern world that birthed it—this volume is thus a welcome contribution in filling that need....Clearly this volume has its heart set on expanding the horizons of Hasidism, for both students and scholars, practitioners, and those perplexed by this remnant that keeps shining on. By continuing to carry forward central question of Jewish modernity, this volume provides new lenses—from an array of genres, including women’s supplications; sermons and homilies; personal diaries and memoirs..."