This book includes translations of eight of the most interesting and developed narratives found in the Zohar, the central medieval Jewish mystical text. Wineman's artful translation, together with commentaries and notes, reveals the richness of the Zohar.

Originally published under the title Beyond Appearances, these 54 tales recapture a rich yet virtually forgotten chapter in the history of Jewish narrative, forming the important transitional link between the esoteric mystical teachings of the sixteenth-century Kabbalists and the popular tales of the eighteenth-century Eastern European Hasidim.

The teachers of Hasidism gave new life to the literary tradition of parable, a story that teaches a spiritual or moral truth. In The Hasidic Parable, acclaimed author Aryeh Wineman takes readers through the great works of the hasidic storytellers. Telling parables, explains Rabbi Wineman, was a strategy that the hasidic masters used to foster a radical shift in thinking about God, the world, and the values and norms of religious life. Although these parables date back 200 years or more, they deal with moral and religious themes and issues still relevant today. Each is accompanied by notes and commentary by the author that illuminate their ideological significance and their historical roots and background. These parables have been culled from classical hasidic homiletic texts, chosen because of their literary qualities, their explanation of key concepts in the hasidic world-view, and also because of what they say to us about the conflicts and tensions accompanying Hasidism's emergence and growth.

Letters of Light is a translation of over ninety passages from a well-known Hasidic text, Ma''or va-shemesh, consisting of homilies of Kalonymus Kalman Epstein of Krakow, together with a running commentary and analysis by Aryeh Wineman. With remarkable creativity, the Krakow preacher recast biblical episodes and texts through the prism both of the pietistic values of Hasidism, with its accent on the inner life and the Divine innerness of all existence, and of his ongoing wrestling with questions of the primacy of the individual vis-a-vis that of the community. The commentary traces the route leading from the Torah-text itself through various later sources to the Krakow preacher''s own reading of the biblical text, one that often transforms the very tenor of the text he was expounding. Though composed almost two centuries ago, Ma''or va-Shemesh comprises an impressive spiritual statement, many parts of which can speak to our own time and its spiritual strivings.

In The Hasidic Moses, Aryeh Wineman invites readers to join him on a journey through various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hasidic texts that interpret the life of Moses. Such texts read their own accent on spirituality and innerness along with their conceptions of community and spiritual leadership into the biblical account of Moses. Wineman reveals the ways in which historical Hasidic voices interpreted both the Exodus from Egypt and the scene of Revelation at Sinai as statements concerning what occurs constantly in our lives at all times. In addition, Wineman shows how Hasidic readers embraced the idea that Moses had to die in order that his soul might return to the world in the righteous and holy ones of every generation, and that the presence of Moses actually transcends time and is present in spiritual understanding as it unfolds at any moment in any period.

This book includes translations of eight of the most interesting and developed narratives found in the Zohar, the central medieval Jewish mystical text. Wineman's artful translation, together with commentaries and notes, reveals the richness of the Zohar.

Originally published under the title Beyond Appearances, these 54 tales recapture a rich yet virtually forgotten chapter in the history of Jewish narrative, forming the important transitional link between the esoteric mystical teachings of the sixteenth-century Kabbalists and the popular tales of the eighteenth-century Eastern European Hasidim.

The teachers of Hasidism gave new life to the literary tradition of parable, a story that teaches a spiritual or moral truth. In The Hasidic Parable, acclaimed author Aryeh Wineman takes readers through the great works of the hasidic storytellers. Telling parables, explains Rabbi Wineman, was a strategy that the hasidic masters used to foster a radical shift in thinking about God, the world, and the values and norms of religious life. Although these parables date back 200 years or more, they deal with moral and religious themes and issues still relevant today. Each is accompanied by notes and commentary by the author that illuminate their ideological significance and their historical roots and background. These parables have been culled from classical hasidic homiletic texts, chosen because of their literary qualities, their explanation of key concepts in the hasidic world-view, and also because of what they say to us about the conflicts and tensions accompanying Hasidism's emergence and growth.

Letters of Light is a translation of over ninety passages from a well-known Hasidic text, Ma''or va-shemesh, consisting of homilies of Kalonymus Kalman Epstein of Krakow, together with a running commentary and analysis by Aryeh Wineman. With remarkable creativity, the Krakow preacher recast biblical episodes and texts through the prism both of the pietistic values of Hasidism, with its accent on the inner life and the Divine innerness of all existence, and of his ongoing wrestling with questions of the primacy of the individual vis-a-vis that of the community. The commentary traces the route leading from the Torah-text itself through various later sources to the Krakow preacher''s own reading of the biblical text, one that often transforms the very tenor of the text he was expounding. Though composed almost two centuries ago, Ma''or va-Shemesh comprises an impressive spiritual statement, many parts of which can speak to our own time and its spiritual strivings.

In The Hasidic Moses, Aryeh Wineman invites readers to join him on a journey through various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hasidic texts that interpret the life of Moses. Such texts read their own accent on spirituality and innerness along with their conceptions of community and spiritual leadership into the biblical account of Moses. Wineman reveals the ways in which historical Hasidic voices interpreted both the Exodus from Egypt and the scene of Revelation at Sinai as statements concerning what occurs constantly in our lives at all times. In addition, Wineman shows how Hasidic readers embraced the idea that Moses had to die in order that his soul might return to the world in the righteous and holy ones of every generation, and that the presence of Moses actually transcends time and is present in spiritual understanding as it unfolds at any moment in any period.