A major contribution to the

understanding of Hasidic Wisdom and thought; it brings the

reader closer to Hasidism’s greatest teller of

tales.
-Elie

Wiesel

The search for spiritual meaning drives

great leaders in all religions. This classic work explores the

personality and religious quest of Nahman of Bratslav

(1772-1810), one of Hasidism’s major figures. It

unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a

figure of universal religious importance.

In this major biography, Dr. Arthur

Green-teacher, scholar, and spiritual

seeker-explores the great personal conflicts and inner

torments that lay at the source of Nahman’s teachings. He

reveals Nahman to have been marked at an early age by an

exaggerated sense of sin and morbidity that later characterized

his life and thought. While subject to rapid mood swings and

even paranoia, Nahman is a model of spiritual and personal

struggle who speaks to all generations. Green’s analysis

of this troubled personality provides an important key to

Nahman’s famous tales, making his teachings accessible

for people of all faiths, all backgrounds.

If there is any single feature

about Nahman’s tales, and indeed about Nahman’s

life as well, that makes them unique in the history of Judaism,

it is just this: their essential motif is one of quest. Nahman,

both as teller and as hero of these tales, is Nahman the

seeker. He has already told us, outside the tales, of his

refusal ever to stand on any one rung, of his call for constant

growth, of his need to open himself up to ever-new and more

demanding challenges to his faith. The tales now affirm this

endless quest…
-from

Excursus II. The Tales