In the Realm of Authors and Literature

Reviewed by Milton Steinberg

Few phenomena of modern Jewish life are quite so paradoxical as the fact that Hasidism, once regarded as the despised doctrine of the untutored classes of the Ghetto, should have become in recent years a matter for scholarly study. Indeed, in some Jewish circles, Hasidism has become almost a fad. This vogue of Hasidism springs in part from the quaintness of the Zaddik, his devotees and his mode of living. (Nothing so intrigues the contemporary mind as that which partakes of the romantically bizarre.) In part, the fashion represents a reaction against the cold intellectualism of the Maskilic tradition and the frozen relationalism of German reform of the nineteenth century.

But the current interest in Hasidism is more than a vogue. It rises from deeper, more positive and honorable motives than those which determine intellectual styles. In an age when theologies are broken, when belief-attitudes are shaken and when moral values are uncertain. Hasidism is a positive affirmation of a faith and an ethic. And the contemporary soul, impotent because of its perplexities and sicklied over with doubt, finds in the confidence of the Hasid and in his healthy vigor, religious and moral certainty. Concern with Hasidism moreover springs from a thirst for a significant Jewish content. Hasidism is the last authentic expression of Ghetto Judaism. The world in which it was created was both temporally and socially close to the modern Jewish scene. Hasidic tradition as a result, possesses a pertinence and an immediate relevance. The modern Jew, striving to make his Judaism culturally meaningful, turns naturally to that tradition which is nearest to him and most directly meaningful. And in Hasidism he finds a body of doctrine which is not only pointed to a setting like his own but one also which in itself is intellectually stimulating ethically rich and poetically beautiful.

BROUGHT LORE INTO REACH

Despite all the inherent significance of Hasidism and all the interest in it recently exhibited, there has been virtually no bibliography on the subject in English. The curious reader was compelled to content himself with an article by Schechter or a chapter by Sholem Spiegel. Of that vast literature which the Hasidim created but little was available to the American Jew. Doctor Louis I, Newman is to be congratulated on his Hasidic Anthology. He has put the wealth of Hasidic lore within reach of all. To this volume he has brought a deep love for his subject, a sympathetic understanding of it. The result is a monument of scholarly research, a splendid contribution to Anglo-Jewish literature and a work indispensable to every Jewish scholar and to every Jew who is interested in the heritage which the past transmits to him.

The Hasidic Anthology is exactly what its title purports. It is a collection of tales, epigrams, and ethical parables of the Hasidism. The body of the book is prefaced by an introduction that is brief but adequate to its purpose. In it Dr. Newman discusses succintly the history of Hasidism, its central characters, its literature and its significance. He lays out the principles which the anthology follows, the sources on which it draws and the problems involved in its preparation.

SCHOLARLY ACHIEVEMENT

The anthology proper represents an achievement of intelligent and useful scholarship. Literally thousands of ethical tales and epigrams have been collected and arranged by topic, alphabetically. The material has been limited deliberately to passages of a moral import. Wonder tales and folk legends have been excluded. Each passage has been carefully translated and documented with a reference of its source. Careful indices conclude the volume and make its general content immediately accessible.

For rabbis especially, this book is a boon. They now have available for pulpit use a collection ### genuinely Jewish parables and epigrams, a mass of pointed stories to make preaching more truly Jewish and more vivid. But if the most immediate practical use of the volume is an aid to public speakers, its value is by no means limited to that field. This is a book which can be read with pleasure and profit by those who are not concerned with texts, illustrations and parables for use on the platform. It is one of those unusual anthologies which make good reading for and in themselves. One can open this book at any point and find himself fascinated and instructed at the same time. Unless this reviewer misses his guess, The Hasidic Anthology will prove as popular with laymen as it is useful to preachers.

IN RABBINIC TRADITION

Rabbi Newman has done more than compile a serviceable and interesting anthology. A work such as his is in the best rabbinic tradition. Historic Judalism has never been especially concerned with eloquence or social grace in its ministry. It has, however, always insisted on scholarship. This qualification for the rabbinate has come to be a minor one in recent years. With publications such as this one takes hope that the American rabbinate may yet become what the rabbinate generally has always been—a body of scholars, experts in Jewish learning and expounders of it.

But, over and beyond these considerations, there is one of greater importance. Among the factors which have contributed to the collapse of Jewish life in America not the least is the fact that American Jews have been alienated from Jewish tradition. Even when the individual Jew sought communion with his past, he found it inaccessible to him. The reestablishment of an intimate relationship between the Jew and his heritage is then a sine qua non for the survival of Judaism.

Rabbi Newman has written a useful book, an interesting book, and a scholarly book. In doing so he has conformed to the best standards of rabbinic activity. But, most significantly, he has made it possible for American Jews to make contact with an aspect of their past. To that extent he has made an enduring contribution to the development in America of a living Judaism.