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Although he himself would not recite “for the sake of the unification,” in keeping with the ruling of the Gaon—the Noda bi-Yehudah [R. Ezekiel Landau]—he was occasionally jealous of those who say it.…
Contributor:
Simon Sofer
Places:
Kraków, Austro-Hungarian Empire (Kraków, Poland)
Date:
ca. 1870
Subjects:
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The Birth of the Ba‘al Shem Tov
One of the greatest phenomena, running like a thread throughout the spiritual history of the Jewish people, is mysticism, a remnant of ancient mythology, which could…
Contributor:
Avraham Kahana
Places:
Zhitomir, Russian Empire (Zhytomyr, Ukraine)
Date:
1900
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A notated version of a wordless Hasidic niggun, melody, attributed to Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founder of Chabad Hasidism.
Contributor:
Shneur Zalman of Liady
Places:
Lyady, Russian Empire (Lyady, Belarus)
Date:
ca. 1800
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To be human is to remember. To lose memory is to lose a piece of ourselves. To lose all of memory is one of the great human tragedies; some part (though surely not all) of the divine light within us…
Contributor:
Arthur Green
Places:
Philadelphia, United States of America
Date:
2002
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This is no fairy tale, it really happened.
In our shtetl, there was a bright young man named Móyshele. He was as smart as a whip, and also a good-for-nothing. Then all at once he disappeared, and no…
Contributor:
Sonya the Wise Woman (Sonya Naimark)
Places:
Mogilev, Russian Empire (Mogilev, Belarus)
Date:
1908
Categories:
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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…
Contributor:
Ba‘al Shem Tov
Places:
Międzyboż, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Medzhybizh, Ukraine)
Date:
1752
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Now, aside from the fact that it is altogether impossible to interpret the matter of tzimtzum literally, for that would attribute corporeal events to the…
Contributor:
Shneur Zalman of Liady
Places:
Lyady, Russian Empire (Lyady, Belarus)
Date:
1797
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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…
Contributor:
Nachman of Bratslav
Places:
Bratslav, Russian Empire (Bratslav, Ukraine)
Date:
1809
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Devekut requires that there be no impediment between man and God; only then is devekut possible. As in the parable of the Besht, it is impossible to join silver coins together…
Contributor:
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
Places:
Vitebsk, Russian Empire (Vitebsk, Belarus)
Date:
1814
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This remarkable manuscript of practical kabbalah was written in Eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century; at the end of that century it was owned by the Radvil Hasidic dynasty. In contrast to…
Contributor:
Artist Unknown
Places:
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Ukraine)
Date:
ca. 1740