I’m a tremendous enthusiast for the work of Rabbi Arthur Green, so it is really no surprise that I found his Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachings from Around the Maggid’s Table a deeply informative and engaging book.
For years Rabbi Green has been a leader in the so-called Neo-Chasidic movement. Deeply engaged in Chasidic texts, this group of rabbis and writers find the spiritual teachings of Chasidism informative, but downplay their firm commitment to halakah, religious law, and the social organization of their lives. Green and others are trying to capture the original commitment of Chasidism, which was designed to innovate and stir Jews to reaching higher spiritual levels by radically reinterpreting Jewish teachings and life.
So for Green and his co-editors, the spiritual in the subtitle is a very operative term. They take elements of Chasidic teaching where Torah portions are given "spiritual" rather than strictly phyiscal interpretations. Really, it is fascinating to watch the interpretative work that Green lays out for us. It is part allegory, part metaphor, a strong element of Hebrew wordplay (which is pointed out in the text) and a dose of religious creativity.
After every chapter there is a short explanatory paragraph laying out the salient points of the passage. After each major section, Green and his editors break out and discuss the text, sharing their sometimes conflicting opinions. This adds yet another layer to the book: modern scholars of the Torah are taking nineteenth century Chasidic texts meant to be applied to real life and applying them to our time.
This book is an excellent way to navigate the difficult realm of early Chasidic literature. If you can’t read Hebrew and catch the wordplay, a book like this (in two volumes) is essential to understanding what is going on.
And what is going on? Simply put, that God is everywhere, that his Torah is everything, and we are all connected. If we understand the Torah correctly, if we obey not just its physical demands but also its spiritual meaning, this door opens up for us. Of course this sounds easy. Getting to this understanding and living with it is the challenge.
For years Rabbi Green has been a leader in the so-called Neo-Chasidic movement. Deeply engaged in Chasidic texts, this group of rabbis and writers find the spiritual teachings of Chasidism informative, but downplay their firm commitment to halakah, religious law, and the social organization of their lives. Green and others are trying to capture the original commitment of Chasidism, which was designed to innovate and stir Jews to reaching higher spiritual levels by radically reinterpreting Jewish teachings and life.
So for Green and his co-editors, the spiritual in the subtitle is a very operative term. They take elements of Chasidic teaching where Torah portions are given "spiritual" rather than strictly phyiscal interpretations. Really, it is fascinating to watch the interpretative work that Green lays out for us. It is part allegory, part metaphor, a strong element of Hebrew wordplay (which is pointed out in the text) and a dose of religious creativity.
After every chapter there is a short explanatory paragraph laying out the salient points of the passage. After each major section, Green and his editors break out and discuss the text, sharing their sometimes conflicting opinions. This adds yet another layer to the book: modern scholars of the Torah are taking nineteenth century Chasidic texts meant to be applied to real life and applying them to our time.
This book is an excellent way to navigate the difficult realm of early Chasidic literature. If you can’t read Hebrew and catch the wordplay, a book like this (in two volumes) is essential to understanding what is going on.
And what is going on? Simply put, that God is everywhere, that his Torah is everything, and we are all connected. If we understand the Torah correctly, if we obey not just its physical demands but also its spiritual meaning, this door opens up for us. Of course this sounds easy. Getting to this understanding and living with it is the challenge.
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