Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
This groundbreaking volume bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary Jewish spirituality, offering fresh insights into Hasidic homilies as dynamic sources of meaning and renewal. Featuring nineteen scholars and educators, the book delves into the mystical depth and poetic imagination of these texts, revealing their power to inspire ethical and spiritual growth. Through close readings and practical reflections, the contributors explore innovative pedagogies for hermeneutical and existential transformation. With a programmatic introduction by Elie Holzer, this collection offers a rare look at the lived experience of teaching Hasidic homilies, addressing classroom dilemmas and spiritual impact. Essential for seekers and educators, it opens new pathways to renewed Jewish spirituality and divine-centered living.
“In Israel and North America, much of the most vital, creative, and inspiring energy in Jewish life today finds its roots in the Hasidic tradition. This volume, which brings together an astonishing collection of scholars, practitioners, and teachers, is an extraordinary petal in this blooming flower. Readers, whether they are academic researchers, rabbis, educators, or laypeople, will find inspiration and illumination in these pages.”
— Rabbi Josh Feigelson, President & CEO, Institute for Jewish Spirituality
“Martin Buber was the first to transcend the rigid historical and scholarly approach to Hasidism, striving, in his own words, 'to recapture a sense of the power that once gave it the capacity to take hold of and vitalize the life of diverse classes of people.’ Guided by Elie Holzer’s vision, this volume brings Buber’s aspiration to life, pioneering a new field at the intersection of Hasidic homilies, Hasidic pedagogy, and Jewish spiritual renewal. Bringing together leading educators and scholars, this collection thoughtfully and critically engages with Hasidic teachings, bridging tradition and contemporary life to foster new forms of Jewish spiritual and intellectual vitality. With deep insight and practical wisdom, it lays the foundation for future scholarship in Jewish spiritual learning—an essential and transformative resource for educators, scholars, and all those committed to the renewal of Hasidic wisdom today.”
—Rabbi Dr. Haim O. Rechnitzer, Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, USA
“Teaching Hasidic Homilies in a Post-Secular World offers a treasure trove of scholars, scholarship, spiritual insights, and pedagogic frameworks to deepen our understanding of some of the central and defining figures and teachings of Hasidut and their breathtaking, layered, and emerging meanings within modern life today.”
— Dr. Erica Brown, Vice-Provost, Yeshiva University
Director, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership
“The study of Hasidic homilies is undergoing a renaissance in locations that are quite distant from the historical, geographical, and ideological milieux in which those texts were first written or uttered. The texts are notoriously challenging to understand, however, and typically require living teachers who themselves sat at the feet of teachers who came before. All of this makes the project of teaching Hasidic texts to contemporary audiences that much more fascinating and that much more complicated. In this volume, for the first time, some of the very best and most knowledgeable contemporary teachers of Hasidic texts offer thick descriptions and nuanced explorations of their own pedagogic practices. The result is a set of textured case studies of teaching—characterized by great subtlety, self-awareness, wisdom, and insight—which will be valuable not only to other teachers of Hasidic homilies but to teachers of difficult texts from any tradition in any setting.”
—Prof. Jon Levison, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Education Thought at Brandeis University
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Renewed Hasidism and the Teaching of Hasidic Homilies
Elie Holzer
1. Hermeneutics and the Hasidic Homily:
A Spiritual Phenomenology of Appropriation
Michael Fishbane
R. Dov Ber of Mezeritsh (?–1772), Maggid Devarav le-Ya‘akov
2. Wading into Infinite Waters: Mediation in Theology, Pedagogy, and Revelation
Ariel Evan Mayse
R. Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl (1730–1787), Me’or Einayim
3. The Me’or Einayim: Social and Spiritual Activism—Does God Really Care?
Mimi Flam
4. Neo-Hasidic Pedagogy: Bringing Awareness and Middot out of Exile
Nancy Flam
5. Teaching Jewish Values from the Me’or Einayim
Avraham Yizhak (Arthur) Green
6. Neo-Hasidic Approach to Working with Middot
Jonathan Slater
7. “What Goes Down, Must Come Up”: The Me’or Einayim on Spiritual Progress
Dena Weiss
R. Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717–1787), Noam Elimelekh
8. Learning from the Noam Elimelekh with Rabbinical Students
Ebn Leader
R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740–1809), Kedushat Levi
9. Moses at Meribah: Teaching a Hasidic Homily on Leadership in an Interreligious Context
Or Rose
R. Moshe Chayim Efrayim of Sudilkov (1748–1800), Sefer Degel Maḥaneh Efrayim
10. Torah from the Mountain, Torah from the Well: A Road Map for Standing at Sinai Today through Mindfulness Practice
Sam Feinsmith
11. Mystical Consciousness and Homiletical Method in Sefer Degel Maḥaneh Efrayim: Critical Hermeneutics, Theology, and Neo-Hasidic Pedagogy
Eitan P. Fishbane
R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica (1801–1854), Mei Hashiloach
12. Facing the Holy One
Ora Wiskind
R. Ya’akov Leiner (1839–1854), Beit Ya’akov
13. Mount Sinai. From Light to Darkness and Back Again: A Contemporary Reading of R. Ya’akov Leiner’s Beit Ya’akov, Parshat Mishpatim
Batya Hefter
R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira (1889–1943), Bnei Machshava Tova and Derekh ha-Melekh
14. From My Flesh I Will See God: Embodied Learning and Spiritual Practice as a Transformative Pedagogy of Hasidic Texts
James Moshe Jacobson-Maisels
15. Awareness (Da’at) and Working through Resistance: The Tough Effort That Precedes Self-Discovery and Bliss
Nehemia Polen
Hebrew Section
16. Teaching Hasidism in Academic Settings—Introductory Remarks
Dov Schwartz
R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), Likutei Torah and Siddur Im Dash and R. Nachman of Breslav (1771–1810), Likutei Moharan
17. From Niggun to Homily and From Homily to Niggun
Sarah Friedland Ben Arza
R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica (1801–1854), Mei Hashiloach
18. The Price and the Danger of Anarchistic Messianism: The Thought of Redemption of the Mei Hashiloach
Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel
Contributors
Index