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A Note to the Reader THIS WORK IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN TWO AUTHORS, a fact that raised numerous questions with regard to “voice” in our introductions and commentaries. In very objective studies, multiple authors are common and voice is less an issue, as most of an objective work is written in the third person. However, this is a very subjective and personal look at Hasidic teachings and stories; thus it was necessary to use a first person voice throughout. To create a mental continuity for the reader in the introductions and commentaries , we have chosen to use the first person singular (“I”) as much as possible. In most cases, we have not distinguished which author the pronoun refers to, finding it largely irrelevant to the subject of discussion and knowing that there was common agreement between us about the opinions and views included in the work. However, it can be said here that most (though not all) of the personal stories and reminiscences in the book belong to Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, while the commentary is fairly evenly distributed between both authors. Nevertheless, the use of the first person plural (“we”) was unavoidable in some places, especially in the introduction, in which the book itself is the subject of discussion. It is our hope that this will not create any obstacles for the reader and his or her enjoyment of this work. As much as possible, we have also attempted to use gender-inclusive language throughout, even bending the rules of grammar and historical accuracy on occasion to do so. These stories and teachings come from a culture and a time of patriarchal dominance, when the masculine “he” was thought to include and encompass the feminine “she.” Without making any value judgments about that time, we must nevertheless speak to the more diverse audience of today and for the needs of our own time. Today, women are as much a part of every aspect of spiritual life and discourse as are men. And though our language has not yet evolved a satisfactory gender-neutral proxiii noun, we must do our best to speak to women and men equally, considering the needs of both as “spiritual consumers” of the teachings in this book. We take some comfort in the fact that the grammatical rule bending we have done in this work is not without linguistic justification. For, as students of historical linguistics are aware, the evolution of language and grammar is primarily effected by common usage and slang invention, not by artificially imposed standards. In common usage, we are already beginning to speak in the gender-inclusive way that we have tried to represent in this work. We are grateful to The Jewish Publication Society for relaxing its high standards in this case to be sensitive to the needs of the readers we are hoping to reach. As regards God language, we have also avoided terms that would emphasize an era of patriarchal dominance. Instead of “king” and “kingdom,” we have most often sought to use “sovereign” and “sovereignty,” except where these words may apply specifically to the Divine Masculine (Godhead) in contrast to the Divine Feminine (Presence of God). Likewise, in the Hebrew transliteration, we have broken away from the conventional use of Adonai (Lord) for the Tetragrammaton (four-lettered name), Y-H-V-H, the unpronounceable name of God. Instead, we have chosen to represent the name in English letters as you see here. When this must be read aloud, we recommend replacing it with the name Yah, “Being,” which is used at various times in this book. For Yah is a part of the divine name and participates in its power and immediacy, but the letters yud-heh are not connected to the prohibition on pronunciation. Moreover, Yah is not an exclusively masculine name but has both masculine and feminine attributes, making it even more palatable for use by both men and women today. By special permission of The Jewish Publication Society, the translations from the TANAKH in this work are those of the authors and do not come from The New JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH (NJPS). This is because much of Hasidic teaching is based on a particular or alternative translation or interpretation of the Hebrew, and thus the English translations of the TANAKH in our Hasidic translations must be tailored to fit one another in ways that are not possible with a standard English translation. Instead, we give the NJPS translations along with the sources in our...

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