Table Of ContentTormented Master
A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
A G
rthur reen
Tormented Master
Judaic Studies Series
General Editor
Leon J. Weinberger
Advisory Board
Alexander Altmann
Nahum N. Glatzer
Jacob R. Marcus
Tormented Master
A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Arthur Green
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS
Copyright © 1979
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
00
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of Ameri
can National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green, Arthur, 1941-
Tormented master.
(Judaic studies series ; 9)
1. Nahman ben Simhah, of Bratslav, 1770?-181O? 2. Rabbis-Poland
Biography. 3. Hasidim-Poland-Biography. I. Title. II. Series: Judaic studies; 9.
BM755.N25G73 296.6'1'0924 [B] 78-16674
ISBN 0-8173-6907-4
ISBN 978-0-8173-8447-0 (electronic)
Contents
Introduction / 1
1. Childhood and Early Years: 1772-1798/23
2. Nahman's Journey to the Land of Israel / 63
3. Conflict and Growth / 94
4. Bratslav: Disciples and Master / 135
5. Messianic Strivings / 182
6. Nahman's Final Years / 221
Appendix: The Death of Rabbi Nahman / 275
A Brief Chronology of Nahman's Life / 283
Excursus I. Faith, Doubt, and Reason / 285
Excursus II. The Tales /337
Note on Transliteration and Orthography / 373
Abbreviations Used in Notes / 375
Glossary / 377
Bibliography / 381
Index / 389
Acknowledgments
As this work reaches completion, I am overcome by a sense of gratitude to
the many whose teaching, counsel, criticism, and patience have helped to
make it possible. While work on this book from the outset was a com
pletely individual and highly personal endeavor, and responsibility for its
contents is thus entirely my own, there are a great many influences to be
traced here. A few inadequate words of thanks are in order.
An earlier version of the present study, here much revised, was a
doctoral dissertation under the direction of Professor Alexander Alt
mann. Dr. Altmann has been my teacher for many years, and I am
grateful to him for much more than his careful reading of this manuscript
and his many suggestions. Another important teacher whose influence
is, I hope, to be felt in this work, though he died just as the writing of it
was beginning, is the late Abraham Joshua Heschel. In his death as in his
life he remains a source of inspiration to me.
My serious study of Nahman began in connection with a course on
Bratslav which I taught at the Havurat Shalom Community Seminary in
1971/72. The students in that course taught me a great deal about how to
read the Bratslav texts, indeed about how to read a text altogether. Each of
them contributed his or her unique understanding, and all are deserving
of thanks: Jonathan Chipman, Larry Fine, Janet Wolfe, Gershon Hun
dert, Joel Rosenberg, and David Roskies. Various other students, in
cluding Danny Matt, Jeffery Dekro, and the participants in a seminar on
Nahman's Tales which I taught with Zalman Schachter in the spring of
1977, have further contributed to my understanding.
Having turned to both teachers and students, there remain colleagues
and friends. Zalman Schachter is one with whom I have had many a
fruitful argument over the meaning of a passage in Nahman's writings; I
cherish the sharing of those arguments. Everett Gendler has been friend,
teacher, and source of encouragement for many years now. His help in
the publication of this volume is deeply appreciated. Van Harvey, though
viii Acknowledgements
far removed from the subject matter of this work, was a colleague from
whom I learned much at the time I was writing on Nahman; his ever
questioning presence is also to be felt here. I am grateful to Rivka
Horwitz, Max Ticktin, and Joseph and Gail Reimer for having read parts
of the manuscript and for their many helpful suggestions. For a very
different sort of learning I am indebted to Tom Gruner, Mark Goldenthal,
and several others. Wherever they are, my thanks reach out to them.
Though I know he would be uncomfortable to see his name in this
context, I cannot help but express my appreciation to Rabbi Gedaliah
Koenig, one ofthe leaders of the Bratslav community in Jerusalem, for the
kindness and warmth he showed me on a visit there. I can only pray that
he somehow understand thatI, too, ina way so different from his, stand in
close relation to his master.
My wife, Kathy, has been a constant source of support and under
standing throughout the years in which this book was written. Without
her help and patience its accomplishment would have been unthinkable.
In love and gratitude I dedicate this study to her.
PHILADELPHIA
2l;IoI ha-Mo'ed Sukkot, 5738
September 30, 1977
Tormented Master
Before I became close to our master, of blessed memory, I could not picture in
my mind how it was that Moses our Teacher was a human being like others. But
once I had become close to our master and had seen how human he remained
despite his greatness, I was able to understand how it was that Moses, too, was
still a human being.
RABBI NATHAN of Nemirov
In the case of great young men ... rods which measure consistency, inner
balance, or proficiency simply do not fit the relevant dimensions. On the contrary,
a case could be made for the necessity of extraordinary conflicts, at times both felt
and judged to be desperate. For if some youths did not feel estranged from the
compromise patterns into which their societies have settled down, if some did not
force themselves almost against their own wills to insist, at the price of isolation,
on finding an original way of meeting our existential problems, societies would
lose an essential avenue to rejuvenation and to that rebellious expansion of
human consciousness which alone can keep pace with the technological and so
cial change. To retrace, as we are doing here, such a step of expansion involves
taking account of the near downfall of the man who took it, partially in order to
understand better the origins of greatness, and partially in order to acknowledge
the fact that the trauma of near-defeat follows a great man through life.
ERIK ERIKSON
Young Man Luther
