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During the weeks that Eleazar spent in pious contemplation in old Asia, the people of Barcelona took pains to persecute the Jews. It was they, once again, who made it hard for Spanish merchants to…
In the blessing “With a great love hast Thou loved us,” we say, “and unify our heart to love and fear Thy Name.” This is apparently in contradiction to the principle…
They [the hasidim] study Kabbalah and Talmud diligently and successfully, and consequently they have among them excellent Talmud scholars. They also comprise three groups, each of them under one chief…
A moon full of shimmering honey,
Exuding joy.
What bird beats in my heart?
Fly away—away, but not alone.
What am I shy? What?
Thick empyrean wine.
I’ll take a wicker bottle,
To the cemetery alone…
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1789–1866), the third rebbe of Chabad Hasidism, was a preeminent religious figure of nineteenth-century East European Jewry. The portrait is an early example of Boris…
A Difficult Passage in the Talmud is one of the many scenes of Jewish life in Hungary, Moravia, Slovakia, Galicia, Ukraine, and Russian Poland that Isidor Kaufmann was best known for. His idyllic…
Collection of writings, proclamations, and epistles related to the controversy between Hasidim and Misnagdim during the emergence of Hasidism (1772–1816)
Scenes from everyday life are scarcely to be found in these pages. Rather you will feel that you have been transported for a while to some far-off, exotic country where different flowers grow and…
The antiquarian who spends his time amid his old things may well have his moments of despair. He probably asks himself more than once: “What is the use of all these antiques, while…
Once there was a rabbi who had no children. Finally, he had an only son. He raised him and married him off. The son used to sit in an attic room and study in the manner of rich men and he always…