Meditation from the Heart of Judaism

Meditation from the Heart of Judaism is an excellent compilation of essays on different varieties of Jewish meditation, how they are performed, and how meditation fits in the very large tent that is Judaism.

This book does not go into great detail.   But it is a fine signpost for further study.

The Problem of Distillation

Rebbe Nachman left behind much writing, and his followers dutifully copied much of what he said, including his famous stories, leaving behind what would become a kind of canonical Bratslav corpus.

Rebbe Nachman made little attempt to systematize his writing (a common trend in early Chasidic, with the exception of Chabad) .  Topics flow as the need arises, is dropped, only to be taken up again many pages, or another book later.

This has led to a cottage industry of books which select passage from the Rebbe’s work.  The Chambers of the Palace:  The Teachings of Rebbe Nachman, edited by Y. David Shulman is just such a work.  Shulman culls Bratslaver books and arranges them by topic.

This is excellent, as it brings a sometimes difficult writer to a wider audience.  It is unfortunate in that it strips the bewildering complexity from the Rebbe’s teaching.  Shulman is quite honest about this in the introduction, explaining how difficult it is to distill Bratslav teaching. 

So, keep this in mind when reading such works.  We are getting the Rebbe, but just a piece of him.

Death as a Way of Life - David Grossman

David Grossman should never write for the Israeli tourism board, or worse yet, be a spokesman for any Israeli government.  In the series of hard hitting essays in Death as a Way of Life, Grossman handles the intractable problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following the collapse of the Oslo Accords.

The essays are deep, penetrating, have small rays of hope, but are largely brimming with despair of finding a solution to the problems of the small patch of the Middle East that is Israel and Palestine.  His analysis of the bloodshed on both sides constantly plunges into black despair.  

The book, published in 2003, has added pathos, as Grossman’s son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War.  Reading it is a chilling reminder that this conflict leaves no person immune.

Looking Back at the Language Wars

Aharon Megged’s Foiglman takes a long look back at the debates between the Hebraists and Yiddishists from the early days of the twentieth century, in the novel and character of Foiglman.  Am agingYiddish poet and Holocaust survivor, Megged uses Foiglman’s particular dilemma of a poet writing in a dying language to highlight the drama of the wrenching internal change in Jewish identity in modern times.

This is also a novel about people meeting and seemingly connecting on some deeper level, but actually not.  It is a sad commentary on the loneliness of the human experience.  Abiding connections are difficult.  And all relationships have dark, ulterior motives.  Sadness creeps around every corner.

Garden of Souls - Rebbe Nachman

Rebbe Nachman’s Garden of Souls is devoted to the age old question of how there can be evil in a world presided over by a good God, who created a good world.

The Bratslav answer to this question is complex, and is handled in this slim volume.  The editor has culled these responses from various sources, arranging them by topic and theme

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Ultimately the answer to this weighty question rests with the expectations of the person who suffers.  If he or she has a great many attachments to the things of this world, its people, objects, luxuries and even bare necessities, then a lack of these give the impression that the world is a place riddled with evil.

For those who are free of those connections, there is nothing that can cause pain.  Being so detached from the world, they are close to God, the only existent, the only thing that is stable and permanent.  This replaces the sham joy of objects and things with an eternal joy and a total lack of the perception of evil.