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We’re laughing our heads off:
None of us wears a top-hat
We just go around with heads—or without heads—
But the Rabbi of Uman
Holds up a mirror to the sun.
We laugh our heads off
When a gang comes…
This is a night of vigil for me,
in the shudder of my soul
I shall conceal
the secret of my youth.
I shall stand on guard:
No sleep nor slumber!
And in just one moment
the veil was taken away.
A…
The new Rabbi pleased everybody, because he was beyond all doubt a righteous man. I was then a boy of twelve. My father received two letters from Rabbi Yukel on the subject of a good match for me in…
There are two sorts of biography: the biography a famous person writes for his admirers, because the public likes to know everything about celebrities, and [the] autobiography, usually written because…
Anyone familiar with our Russian Poland knows what Jews mean by a small shtetl, a little town.
A small shtetl has a few small cabins, and a fair every other Sunday. The Jews deal in liquor, grain…
You will assuredly regard it as wondrous, and it will gladden your heart that I too regarded as wondrous the vision vouchsafed to me by the Almighty in relation to the aliyot “ascents”—wondrous things…
I heard from the venerable rabbinic scholar, R. Nahman, an interpretation of the words of [the Besht] that one should intend in every word that he utters submissiveness…
In order to understand what is katnut (“smallness”) and what is gadlut (“greatness”), consider this example: If one studies Torah without understanding, he is in a state of…
Indeed, what is necessary is precisely to “cast away the mind,” because it is necessary to cast aside all rational processes and serve God simply. This is because a person’s deeds should outweigh his…
What would our ancestors have done if they had seen a Jewish community appointing a prayer-reader and a rabbi for themselves dressed in the vestments of a Christian priest, and setting up an idol in…