National Jewish BookAwards Finalistfor the Nahum N. Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship, 2018. Hasidism, a movement of religious awakening and social reform,originated in the mid-eighteenth century. After two and a half centuries ofcrisis, upheaval, and renewal, it remains a vibrant way of life and acompelling aspect of Jewish experience. This book explores the profoundintellectual and religious issues that the hasidic masters raised in theirTorah commentary, and brings to the fore the living qualities of their sermons(derashot). Ora Wiskind-Elper addresses a spectrum of topics: creation,revelation, and redemption; hermeneutics, epistemology, psychology,Romanticism, poetry and poetics, art history, Hebrew fiction, cultural history,and tropes of Jewish suffering and hope. Fully engaged in the texts and theirspirituality, she brings them to bear on postmodernist challenges totraditional spiritual and religious sensibilities. This is a comprehensive study, unique in pedagogy, clarity, andoriginality. It uses the full range of critical scholarship on hasidism as asocial and ideological movement. At the same time, it maintains a strong focuson hasidic Torah commentary as a conveyor of theology and value. Each of itschapters presents a fundamentally new approach. Wiskind-Elper’s translationsare in themselves an innovative moment in the tradition and spiritual historyof the passages she offers.
