Speaking Torah, Volume 1

The most powerful Hasidic teachings made accessible from some of the world's preeminent authorities on Jewish thought and spirituality. Hasidism, a great movement of spiritual revival within Judaism, began in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe and continues to have great influence on Jewish life today. A key tool of this revival was the oral sermon, using novel mystical readings of the Torah to open people's minds to thinking more profoundly about the texts and how the wisdom relates directly to their own lives. While Hasidic tales have become widely known to modern audiences, the teachings that stand at the very heart of Hasidism have remained a closed book for all except scholars. This fascinating selection presented in two volumes following the weekly Torah reading and the holiday cycle, and featured in English and Hebrew renders them accessible in an extraordinary way. Volume 1 covers Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus, and includes a history of early Hasidism and a summary of central religious teachings of the Maggid's school. Volume 2 covers Numbers and Deuteronomy and the holiday cycle, and includes brief biographies of the Hasidic figures. Each teaching is presented with a fresh translation and contemporary commentary that builds a bridge between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. And each teaching concludes with a dynamic round-table discussion between distinguished Jewish scholar Arthur Green and his closest students the editors of this volume. They highlight the wisdom most meaningful for them, thus serving as a contemporary circle's reflections on the original mystical circle of master and disciples who created these teachings.