Hasidism, Suffering, and Renewal : The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seeman, Don, 1968-

Contributor:

Reiser, Daniel, 1976-

Mayse, Ariel Evan.

Series:

SUNY Series in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ḳalonimus Ḳalmish ben Elimelekh, 1889-1943--Influence.

Ḳalonimus Ḳalmish ben Elimelekh.

Rabbis--Poland--Piaseczno (Piaseczno)--Biography.

Rabbis.

Hasidim--Poland--Piaseczno (Piaseczno)--Biography.

Hasidim.

Hasidism--Influence.

Hasidism.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Sources.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Suffering--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Suffering.

Piaseczno (Piaseczno, Poland)--Religious life and customs.

Piaseczno (Piaseczno, Poland).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (388 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, 2021.

Summary:

Reconsiders the legacy of an important Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator who confronted the dilemmas of modernity after World War I and whose writing constitutes a unique testimony to religious experience and its rupture in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What Is Hasidism, and Who Is R. Shapira?

Renewal, Vitality, and the Human Subject

Rupture, Efficacy, and the End of Meaning?

Hasidism, Neo-Hasidism, Hasidic Modernism

Notes

Part I: Hasidism and Renewal

1 The Place of Piety: Piaseczno in the Landscape of Polish Hasidism

Hasidism in Piaseczno

Tsaddikim in and of Piaseczno

Piaseczno in Warsaw

Piaseczno in Hasidism

Small Is Beautiful

Limitations

Toward Counter-Reformation

Conclusions

2 The Rebbe of Piaseczno: Between Two Trends in Hasidism

Between Ecstasy/Prophecy and Magic

Spiritual Techniques and Prophecy

On Hasidism before and after Shapira: Some Observations

3 The Devotional Talmud: Study as a Sacred Quest

Renewing the Talmud

Sacred Study

Sacred Knowing

Sacred Self

Conclusion

4 Mystical Fraternities: Jerusalem, Tiberius, and Warsaw: A Comparative Study of Goals, Structures, and Methods

The Goals of Benei Mahshavah Tovah

The Society: Structure and Activities

Pre-Hasidic Mystical Fraternities

Hasidic Mystical Fraternities in Eighteenth-Century Tiberius

Hillel Zeitlin and his Mystical Fraternities

Postscript and Conclusions

5 Self-Creation through Texts: Kalonymus Kalman Shapira's Incarnational Theology

Holy Stones, Divine Bodies

Irreducible Letters, Irreducible Bodies

Engraving the Self

Self-Creation through Writing

The Ingathering of Alterity

Alterity and the Body

Self-Creation and the Divine Creator

6 Hasidism in Dialogue with Modernity: Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira's Derekh ha-Melekh

The Historical Backdrop

Facets of the Self

Developing a Language of Mindfulness

Real Presence

Readers and Authors, Bones and Books

Notes.

Part II: Text, Theodicy, and Suffering

7 A New Reading of the Rebbe of Piaseczno's Holocaust-Era Sermons: A Review of Daniel Reiser's Critical Edition

8 Creative Writing in the Shadow of Death: Psychological and Phenomenological Aspects of Rabbi Shapira's Manuscript "Sermons from the Years of Rage"

Sermons from the Years of Rage

A Philology of Suffering

A Psychology of Suffering: Writing in the Shadow of Death

A Phenomenology of Suffering

9 Miriam, Moses, and the Divinity of Children: Human Individuation at the Cusp of Persistence and Perishability

Introduction and Section One

Section Two: Eternity Realized through Children

Section Three: Time and Individuation

Section Four: Schoolchildren as the Face of the Shekhinah

Section Five: The Omnipresence of God, the Preciousness of Individuals, the Suffering of Children

Section Six: Miriam as Model for Bold Religious Initiative

Moses as Model of Leadership through Imperfection

Summary and Discussion

Coda: Miriam Shows the Way of Leadership to Moses

10 Raging against Reason: Overcoming Sekhel in R. Shapira's Thought

Setting the Stage for Dealing with Za'am

A Hasidic Rebbe Reads Maimonides

Maimonides in the Warsaw Ghetto

The Evil of Philosophical Wisdom

The Maimonidean Path to Emunah Peshutah

11 At the Edge of Explanation: Rethinking "Afflictions of Love" in Sermons from the Years of Rage

October 5, 1940: Forcing God's Hand

January 31, 1942: On Suffering, Song, and Silence

July 11, 1942: At the Edge of Explanation

Concluding Remarks

12 "Living with the Times": Historical Context in the Wartime Writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira

Reading History in Sermons from the Years of Rage

Annotations as Historical Markers in R. Shapira's Oeuvre.

Annotation to Ekev 5701 (August/September 1942)

Annotation to Hanukkah 5702 (November 27, 1942)

Last Will and Testament, January 3, 194341

Conclusion: "Living with the Times"

13 Covenantal Rupture and Broken Faith in Esh Kodesh

Holocaust Theology and Post-Holocaust Theology

Esh Kodesh as Holocaust Testimony

The Final Sermon: Marginalia, Addendum, and Revision

Rabbi Shipira, Yosl Rakover, and the Holy Hunchback

14 Pain and Words: On Suffering, Hasidic Modernism, and the Phenomenological Turn

Hasidic Modernism and the Phenomenological Turn

Bodies, Letters, and Texts

Words Fail, Bodies Destroyed

Toward a Post-Holocaust Theology?

Contributors

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781438484020

143848402X

OCLC:

1227861726