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1. We have now obtained a preliminary articulation of reason and religion; we turn now to the sources of Judaism, out of which the religion of reason should be derived. We ought…
54. There are two paths toward faith; one is the absolutely true one, and the other is the rational one. The latter changes in accordance with the times. There are occasions when, if there is some…
The night draws in around my eyes
Its ring of haze.
My pulse has sent my blood into a blaze
Though all about me a gray coldness lies.
O God, that I by living day
Should dream I’m dead,
Drink it in…
When the cool, colorful, gentile Sundays come,
both sit—Valenti, the watchman from my courtyard
and his pock-marked, redmouthed, piggish old lady
back-to-back on a wooden bench.
Both of them gaze…
Vilna, my great matriarch, an established Jewish city,
Jerusalem of the Exile, an ancient nation’s consolation in the north!
This [poem] is your patched kerchief, like the roof of the old synagogue,…
My most pious songs have I written
On rising from my sinful bed.
God has given me a wealth of sins,
And God alone has saved me from my sins.
Translated by David Soeterndorp.
Once, at night, after the seven days of mourning, while I lay on the sacks dozing, someone came to me, the Evil One himself, and said to me, “Gimpl, why are you sleeping?”
“What should I be doing,” I…
40. When the tradition concerning the opposition of the sea and its confederates to the will of the Creator of the…
To Section I, which deals with the Haggadah itself, I have added six other sections.
Section II, entitled “Moses, our Teacher,” is a collation of midrashim, which discuss his attributes…
Before continuing my story about the events in Pinsk in the summer of 1940, I would like to digress briefly into the realm of the miraculous. Let us imagine the impossible—something fantastic and…