Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism

Contents

Contents Preface to the English-language Edition xi Translator’s Note xv List of Abbreviations xvii Introduction xix 1“Lies My Teacher Told Me”: Hasidic History as a Battlefield 1 Orthodox Historiography’s Strategies of Memory and Repression 7 “I Too Am Not Objective”: History as It Should Have Been 27 2 Apostate or Saint? In the Footsteps of Moshe, the Son of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady 29 “Would That My Parents Had Been Cruel”: Straying Children of Zaddikim and Rabbis 30 “And to Anger You I Will Convert”: Parent-Child Relations and Conversion 31 Polemic and Apologetic Memory 34 “He Has Regained His Former Strength”: Moshe Prior to His Conversion 35 Leon Yulievich or Piotr Aleksandrovich? The Archival Testimony 40 “He Had Done So in Sane, Sound Mind”: Maskilic Memory Traditions 48 “He Was in His Right Mind”: The Apostates’ Testimony 58 In the Historian’s Workshop 64 “The Time Has Come for Moshe’s Story to Be Revealed”: Hasidic Memory Traditions 76 “He First Lost His Mind and Then Left His Faith” 91 “It Never Happened”? The Ongoing Struggle over Memory Traditions 94 3 One Event, Multiple Interpretations: The Fall of the Seer of Lublin 97 “A Flame Hovering over His Head”: The Seer of Lublin in His Hasidim’s Eyes 97 “This Was No Simple Matter”: The Fall of the Seer in Hasidic Memory Tradition 99 “Foolish and Ignorant”: The Seer of Lublin in His Opponents’ Eyes 102 viii Contents Ma’asei harav or Sefer nekiyut uferishut: The Satire’s Transmission and Its Author’s Identity 104 Sefer nekiyut uferishut: Structure and Content 108 “From Drunkenness and Heavy-headedness I Fell”: Tracing the Maskilic Version of the Fall 111 The Seer’s Fall: A Suicide Attempt? 116 4“Happy Are the Persecuted”: The Opposition to Bratslav Hasidism 120 Three Waves of Persecution 120 “A Fearful, Soul-shaking, Bone-shattering, Dispiriting Scene”: The Maskilic Testimony 122 “Per the Hooligans’ Code”: The Talne Hasidim’s Anti-Bratslav Campaign 126 The Rzhishchev Affair and the Edict Forbidding Zaddikim to Travel 128 “The Bratslav Hasidim Eat Treyf ”: The Teplik Scandal 137 “They Are Not Beholden to Any of the Leaders of Our Time”: The Clash over Obedience 142 “God Seeks the Persecuted”: The Reflection of the Persecutions in Bratslav Historiography 144 The Persecutions Continue 149 “Legacy of a Mistake”: An Epilogue? 152 5“Excitement of the Soul”: The World of Rabbi Akiva Shalom Chajes of Tulchin 154 From Foe to Friend 154 Chajes’s Literary Legacy 155 “Out of My House, Impure One!” Rabbi Akiva Chajes in Light of Memoir Literature 157 Rabbi Akiva Chajes’s Change of Heart 164 Rabbi Akiva Chajes’s Appointment as Rabbi of Dubova and the Kadavar Controversy 170 In the Thicket of Memory 173 6“How Times Have Changed”: The World of Rabbi Menahem Nahum Friedman of Itscan 175 Hasidism and Philosophy 175 Biography 177 Literary Legacy 180 “Religious Zeal Is a Plague Recounted in the Torah”: Between Innovation and Conservatism 193 Disregard or Polemic? Hatov vehatakhlit 197 A Humanist among Hasidim? 200 “What Befell the Rebbes’ Grandchildren Who Left the Fold”? 202 “It Is Forbidden to Uphold This Book” 204 7“Confession of My Tortured, Afflicted Soul”: The World of Rabbi Yitshak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov 206 Shpikov Hasidism 206 Biography 207 “Freedom, Freedom!” The Twersky Sisters 210 “A Sacrifice on My Mother’s Altar”: Taking Stock of the Confession 213 “The Spirit of the Times”: The Confession’s Historical Context 216 “My Tiny, Ugly World”: The Text of the Confession 218 Notes 237 Works Cited 311 Index 325 Contents ix ...