For the followers of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, a famous Hasidic master (1772-1811), the hearing and telling of their founder’s stories is a mode of worship. Of course, all Hasidic masters—as Martin Buber, among others, has shown—beginning with Nachman’s great grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, were adept at clothing their ideas in parables. But the early Hasidic books are filled mostly with wonder stories that tell about the miraculous powers of a particular Rebbe. The stories of Rabbi Nachman (which according to Buber form an entirely new literary genre) contain very little of this miracle element. In them, a fine play of fantasy is coupled with a religious pantheism that blurs all distinctions between man and nature, animate and inanimate. Yet though birds, trees, and winds speak with human beings, the action evolves in terms which do not violate ordinary logic. The plot and the characters move on several levels of meaning. Poetry, ethical observations, shrewd psychological insights, and Cabbalistic doctrine—all are blended with a skill that gives the tales a dreamlike atmosphere, which has caused Nachman’s stories to be compared to Kafka’s.

Though the Rebbe told many stories, only thirteen were recorded in print. These were taken down by Nachman’s famous disciple, Nathan, who lived in a different place, the city of Nemirov, but came quickly when he heard that the Rebbe had begun a new tale. Nathan recorded not only the tales but the circumstances—a chance conversation, often, or an event—which prompted them.

The themes of the stories are rather similar. They deal with something not in its proper place—lost, or stolen, or captured. Children go astray in the forest, a king’s daughter is kept prisoner in a mountain fortress, two birds who are meant for each other live at opposite ends of the world—and the plot evolves out of the search to adjust what has been put out of place, to redeem what has been lost. Always there is this search and the yearning for the “adjustment” which in Hasidic terminology is known as tikkún. There is also a similarity in the characters that move through the stories. They are usually opposites, like the wise man and the simpleton, the weak beggar and the powerful hero. The beggar is a favorite, and Nachman’s most famous story is called “The Tale of the Seven Beggars.” A young boy and girl lost in the forest, hungry and alone, encounter, on seven different days, seven different beggars. The first one is blind, the second one deaf, the third dumb, and so on. Each of the beggars gives the children a blessing that “they might be as he is.” Later the beggars explain the true nature of their blessings. The blind beggar, for example, is not really blind, but has “seen” the source of all that is seen in this world, which the mystics call ayin—nothingness—and is hence blind to lesser realities. The deaf man is deaf only to the foolish sounds of the world. The beggar with the crooked neck is crooked only because he refuses to stand straight in a world which is not yet straight and pure, and so forth.

Within the “Tale of the Seven Beggars,” which Nachman never finishes, telling his Hasidim that the identity of the seventh beggar cannot be known until the coming of the Messiah, there is found a poetic passage which has often been translated.

And there is a mountain,
And on the mountain is a stone,
And from the stone there goes forth a
    well;
And everything has a heart.
And this mountain on which rests a stone
From which goes forth the well,
Stands on one side of the world.
But the heart of the world
Is placed on the other side of the world.
And the heart which is placed opposite
    the well
Is drawn towards and yearns greatly
To come to the well.
The well also greatly desires the heart. . . .

The intricate Cabbalistic symbolism here is of the same kind that runs through all the stories, Nachman tells his listeners that he is “clothing” Cabbalistic doctrine in a form which will make it more attractive to the ear and mind. But he also says his stories should be printed because “in any event they are pretty tales.” Many of the stories read like classic folktales and may indeed be enjoyed purely as literature.¹

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Rabbi Nachman’s followers—unique among Hasidic sects for never having replaced their founder with another leader—still read their Rebbe’s stories every Sabbath morning. It was during a visit to Israel last summer that I went to a story session in the central synagogue of the Bratzlaver Hasidim, in the Mea Shearim quarter of Jerusalem. When I arrived at nine o’clock on Saturday morning, the service was well along. Everyone in the congregation was engaged in “work of the heart”—as the Talmud calls prayer—in his own personal way, some walking about, others facing the wall, or seated and rocking over their books. There were occasional handclappings and groans, somehow not disturbing to the subdued yet bright mood which prevailed in the synagogue. By ten, the service was finished, and the men began to fold their prayer shawls. A lad with a shaved head and long earlocks passed among the congregants giving out some small books, which the men immediately opened and began reading aloud. The book was a tikkún—the word we have before translated as a “fixing up” or “adjustment.” The title page stated that this particular tikkún was designed for the “covenant”—a euphemistic term referring to the male sex organ. The introduction explained further that Rabbi Nachman had revealed to his Hasidim ten psalms which, when coupled with inner repentance, were helpful in all kinds of spiritual and bodily healing, and especially propitious for dealing with the trouble of seminal emissions. The ten psalms were reprinted in the little book, and the introduction reminded the readers that since the “thought was also a deed,” sinful thoughts of concupiscence must be controlled by deliberate effort; but, in any case, those evil thoughts which had evaded the effort of a person to turn from them could be “fixed up” by the heartfelt recital—“as one speaks his heart to a dear friend”—of the designated ten psalms. Around me I could hear the Hasidim quietly chanting the psalms which Rabbi Nachman had chosen. They were among the most beautiful in the Bible, and there did seem to be an almost perverse juxtaposition here—the deeply spiritual outpourings and the “sin” of seminal emissions.

After the reading of the tikkún, about twenty of the congregation remained, taking their seats around a wooden table near the Ark. Wine and bread were passed along, first to the man with the thick eyeglasses who was evidently going to read to us, then to the others. Some of the little children in the synagogue were called over by their fathers to join in the blessing. It occurred to me that the scene of these men sitting around the table sharing bread and wine could not be much different in appearance from the actual last supper of Jesus and his disciples, though it would be hard to recognize the resemblance from the paintings by Christian artists.²

Sighing with pleasure at the “sweetness” he was about to savor, the black-bearded reader began right in the middle of the tale of the “Master of Prayer.” There was no need to recapitulate what had gone before: the Hasidim all knew the story by heart.

Nathan of Nemirov has written down about the “Master of Prayer” that: “Our Rabbi has said that this whole story is hinted at in the 31st chapter of Isaiah, beginning with the words, ‘Woe unto those who go down unto Egypt for help, who lean on horses, trust in many chariots and strong horsemen. . . .’” Evidently, in this instance, a verse in the Bible with its train of mystical associations gave Nachman his initial artistic impulse and provided a basic structure for the story. But then the tale moves with its own logic, weaving together literary fancy, quiet humor, even sarcasm. “Once there was a Master of Prayer,” it begins, “who lived outside the settled areas of the land.” The Master of Prayer is a Hasidic pseudonym for a Baal Shem—a leader like Nachman or his great-grandfather—who preserves a measure of isolation. This Master of Prayer tries to “seduce” men to the service of God, adjusting his technique to each individual. If one needs “rich clothes” for his worship, he is given rich clothes. Another may need “torn clothes,” and he is given his chance to worship in utter poverty—each according to “the root of his soul.” The majority, however, are led by the Baal Shem to find in fasts and self-mortification “their greatest joy.”

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There was a kingdom in those days, the story proceeds, where “money was everything, and the station of each man was determined according to his wealth.” There follows a description of a community with startlingly modern overtones: in this land, every individual displays a “banner” to indicate the measure of his wealth, and from time to time he must produce proof of his fortune. A person in this kingdom, to be classed as a “human being,” must have acquired a certain amount of wealth. Whoever does not have that minimum is not human, but animal, and the animals are further classified according to their wealth: the richer ones are lions or bears, the poorer may be cows or lowly roosters.

The Master of Prayer is sorry for the inhabitants of this land and tries to make them understand that man’s tachlit, his ultimate purpose—an important concept in Nachman’s stories—is only “to serve God with prayers, song, and praises.” But they are too busy to hear him—in fact, everybody is making plans to move to another land, where they have heard that “gold can be made from the very dust.” Here, the community has settled “on the hills” where they will not be contaminated by ordinary people, and the roads leading up are guarded by individuals hired from the lower levels.

When the Master of Prayer comes to this kingdom, he speaks first to the lowly guards. But even they are not open to the Master’s words, for they, too, worship the icons of wealth. And if one is finally persuaded by the Master of Prayer that he is missing the ultimate purpose of life, he answers, “But what can I do alone against the majority?”

But a rumor comes of a “hero” who is conquering all lands, and who possesses a wonder-working sword. The leaders of the kingdom of money try to buy this hero off, but, to their consternation, he is uninterested in wealth. The story hints mysteriously that all that the hero wants is “submission.” And at this point, some of the people in the kingdom begin to listen to the Master of Prayer, who has been till now a “heretic” and in danger of imprisonment. For the Master of Prayer has “hinted” that he knows this “hero,” that indeed they once served the same King. And he tells about an incident that occurred when they were both with the King—a story within a story. The reader who finds this distracting must remember that the Rabbi related his tales over many days, in Scheherazade fashion.

The second story is, in turn, interrupted by yet another tale. This tale involves a king, his queen, and an only daughter, who is married to the aforementioned hero. Disastrous earthquakes and storms strike this kingdom and scatter its inhabitants, who cannot find their way back and who have also lost the “map” even though its “impression” remains in their memories and hearts. Again, the images here are conventional Cabbalistic symbols. The King of course is the King of Kings, his daughter is the Shekhinah, the presence of God, and so forth. The great disasters may refer both to the historic exile of Israel from the homeland and to the primal catastrophe which, in Cabbala, precedes the creation of this world. The basic longing of all elements in this world is for the “return,” or the great tikkún—the mending—that will come about in the days of the Messiah.

It was at this point in the “Master of Prayer” that the Hasidim in Mea Shearim had taken up the story on the Sabbath when I was with them.

“After the great earthquake which brought confusion in all the world, men agreed to appoint themselves a King. . . . They took counsel and decided that inasmuch as the most important thing was tachlit, the ultimate purpose, therefore they would find someone to help them achieve this ultimate purpose, and they would make him King.” Slowly, with an occasional sigh, a meaningful shake of the head, the reader went on.

“One group decided that the tachlit of life was to get honor . . . for not only during his life but even after his death a man cares for his honor and reputation.” The Hasidim around the table nodded and the reader interrupted himself to quote the Talmudic axiom “He who pursues honor—honor flees from him.”

“A second group,” the story went on, “held that killing was the main purpose of existence.” Proof for their view was the fact that everything, “people, animals, plants, grass, were finally annihilated—hence, the end of everything was destruction.” Therefore, they decided to find a person whose monstrous temper and capability for destruction made him suitable to be their King. “So they went out in search of such a person, and on their way they heard great crying. ‘Why is there crying?’ they asked. ‘A man is killing his father and mother,’ they were told. Then they said, ‘This is our man, for is there anybody more cruel than one who kills his father and mother? He is truly a master of the essential purpose of this world.’”

At this point, the reader was interrupted: “There are lands today like that,” an elderly man who had recently arrived from Russia said cheerfully, and all nodded. Another person suggested that anybody who wanted to know what kingdom he had chosen, need only ask himself, “What do I consider an important day?” If his great day was one which had been filled with prayer and good deeds, then he belonged to a different kingdom from one whose great day was that on which he had accumulated money, or honor. The bearded leader spoke of the sin of suicide, the greatest of all, since the suicide has no faith in the reality of the world to come. A young man sitting near me reminded us of a saying of the holy Rabbi Nachman: “There are those who claim that there is a ‘this world’ and a ‘world to come.’ That there is a ‘world to come,’ we believe and must believe, said the Rebbe, and maybe also there exists a ‘this world’—but certainly it cannot be this hell that we’re living in now!” The Hasidim around the table laughed appreciatively.

The reader, continuing the story, described how the Master of Prayer met other groups who tried to pick for their kings exemplars of wisdom, of beauty, even of the ability to “talk a lot.” Yet another group decided that joy was the essential purpose of life, and they settled on a foolish but happy drunkard and went to live in a country where they had vineyards; they had difficulty rejoicing, however, because they didn’t have “with what to rejoice.”

Finally, the Master of Prayer came upon a group who believed that “the study of Torah, and prayer, and the bended knee” were the important purposes of life.

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Here the reader interrupted himself again to offer some comments about the relative importance of study and prayer. Both were essential ways of “reaching the King.” But the difference could be illustrated by a Hasidic tale of men who tried to approach a certain village which they thought could only be reached by going along tortuous and difficult paths. One day there came someone who decided to be bold and strike directly across the field to the village. This was the Baal Shem Tov, who came along to say that one could reach the court of the King not only through fastings and self-castigation, but directly through fervent prayer.

“Which means, that one can be an upright Jew and not have such a bad time, either!” one of the men commented, smiling. He had used the Yiddish expression “leben a guten tag.”

The reader now pointed out that the power of prayer in a Hasidic Rebbe was not passed on as a birthright. The place of the Baal Shem in the Hasidic movement had not been occupied by any of his children, but by Rabbi Dov Baer, and from him it had passed to other individuals worthy of it by virtue of their spiritual power. In this respect, Rabbi Nachman was unique, possessing the necessary spiritual virtue while being also in the “royal” line of birth.

Resuming, the reader came to the end of the passage for the day. “The Master of Prayer finally met the powerful hero,” whom all feared. Though the one was very weak and the other strong, they immediately recognized each other and their coming together was an occasion for great joy and tears, “for they knew that each served the same King, though in a different way,”

Again the reader explained. “In the Cabbalistic scheme of the world’s spiritual structure, the sphere of gvurah—strength—was always paired with the opposite sphere of hesed—kindness and grace. Both are necessary. When true strength and true humility meet—they know each other.

“But the point of what we have been reading is to tell us that the Master of Prayer was able to come to each of these various kingdoms and through his prayer show them how to bring their conception of truth to a higher level. For there is a truth in each of the conceptions held by the people in these kingdoms—only it is not the whole truth. A real Master of Prayer is one who does not deny the truth a person sees, but shows him a way of including it within the larger and greater truth, Rabbi Nachman thought that it was a mistake to insist that everybody follow the same way in serving the King.” The Hasidim nodded, agreeing.

The worshippers rose from their seats around the table, and one of the elders began singing a quick little tune, “Sing to Him, Rejoice in Him.” Soon everybody in the room, including the children, had formed a circle, a kind of chain with hands locked in front and in back. This was the famous Bratzlaver dance I had heard about—a simple kind of quick step in the rhythm of the sprightly tune which all were now singing. Now the words had changed: “Nevertheless, despite this, He pours grace, abundant grace into all the worlds.” It was a thought typical of Bratzlaver Hasidim and of their Rebbe who often remarked that atheism and faith were separated from each other by a hairsbreadth. The singing and the dancing were rather sedate, A few of the Hasidim had smiles on their faces, others simply looked peaceful: The mood was altogether different from the strong outburst of the modern Israeli circle dance; and it was different, too, from the hypnotic emotionalism worked up in the dancing of other Hasidic groups. The Bratzlaver dance is inner-directed, soft—designed for ghetto walls. In a few moments it was over, and everyone left the synagogue to return home to breakfast and the Sabbath nap which if missed is supposed to leave an Orthodox Jew tired all week. I walked back through the quiet streets thinking about what I had seen and heard.

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Bratzlaver tradition attaches a specific mystical “intent” to the dance performed after prayers. Like the clapping of hands, it is supposed to “sweeten the judgments”—the decrees emanating from the “left side” of the world’s primordial spiritual structure, according to Cabbala. But the circle dance is an important expression in all Hasidic groups. The Westerner particularly is unaware how the inhibition of bodily movement inhibits the religious mood; the impulse to move one’s limbs in response to elemental emotions like love, fear, and awe, is, after all, primary—words came later. In their primal phases, religions combine bodily movements (such as the lifting of arms), prostration, or communal dance, with prayer. The Hebrew word for holiday, chag, some scholars claim, may be related to chug—meaning circle. Surely the Hasidic dance was a return—opening up again wells of emotional expression long closed. In other ways, also, the Hasidic movement “returned.”

The communal third meal, for example, at the close of the Sabbath, with its mystic song and sharing of bread and wine, and the white robes of some Tsaddikim—are these not reminiscent of rites described in the Dead Sea Scrolls? The 19th-century historian, Heinrich Graetz, in fact described the Hasidic movement, which was then spreading in Eastern Europe, as a “new Essenism.” He denounced it as “grossest superstition” in the era of Enlightenment and said of the Baal Shem Tov that he was himself as “ugly” as both the name “Besht” (by which he was sometimes called) and the movement which he had created. But the pendulum of historical evaluation has come a full swing since Graetz’s disapproval—a new appraisal for which Martin Buber can take much credit. More than fifty years ago, Buber turned from his interest in art and theater to religious scholarship, and announced that he knew of no “teaching” which could so well remind man of his purpose on earth as Hasidism. “Therefore I carry it into the world against its will,” he said.

There is ample evidence—in philosophy, theology, and the arts—that Hasidism has indeed been carried into our contemporary world. Sophisticated theologians and philosophers see it today as a variety of existentialism. Influential psychoanalysts and rabbis use its parables as examples of a “healthy” and “humanistic” faith. Only one is reminded of a song by which the “opponents”—as they were called—of Hasidism used to parody the exaggerated faith of the Hasidim in their Rebbe. “Miracle and wonder,” goes the song, “the Rebbe goes into the water and comes Out wet!” Something like this seems to have happened to Hasidism itself. Its immersion in the world has caused it to emerge dripping with sophistication. But is it Hasidism? One would scarcely guess from Buber’s selections of Hasidic tales that half the pages of a source book like the Praises of the Besht are dedicated to the wonder-working powers of the Baal Shem Tov—his ability to open wombs, forecast the future, heal with magical herbs, and travel hundreds of miles in the twinkling of a second. We find even scholarly Jewish historians disregarding source material which can be traced to within a few years of the Baal Shem’s death in order to make a hypothetical, historically false difference between the original “pure” Hasidism, and the later, degenerate Tsaddikism. Buber himself does not make such a clear distinction. But his Rebbes tend to be figures of refined religiosity whose spiritual activities hardly remind one of the frenzied pneumatics who not only clapped hands in their synagogues but often fell into epileptic-like trances during their devotions. It may of course be that only a Hasidism strained of its primitive, queer, unmodern elements can be brought “into the world.” But then an encounter with real Hasidim is likely to be a disillusioning shock—as to some of my American friends who visited the Bratzlaver.

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Any onlooker who troubled to take more than a superficial glance, seeing the quiet joy on the faces of the men and children as they circled in their famous dance, could surely sense the remarkable and positive aspects of life in Mea Shearim. These Hasidim who accept the “yoke” of the 613 Commandments of the Law have received much more than a legalistic burden. The people I saw in the Bratzlaver synagogue were almost all of them poor, uneducated by worldly standards, yet obviously even the children among them were imbued with a sense of purpose and mystery in a universe to which they felt related. Sitting at that wooden table, listening to the stories of the dead Rabbi Nachman, the simplest workman was feeding his mind and emotions on a fare of the imagination, moral insights, and poetic imagery, which is hard to come by in the “outside world.” And even if the vision they received must be named myth, it provides the Bratzlaver Hasidim with a purpose—tachlit—and a technique for dealing with such realities as pain, or death, or evil—realities before which we see the so-called rational mind often enough helplessly dumb.

On the other hand, the “shell,” layer on layer, around the innermost “fruit”—the essence—is still there: grotesque clothes and movements, endless preoccupation with details and descriptions of the Law. Moreover, the winecup which had been passed from mouth to mouth for the blessing and the sanctification had really been dirty. My American friends might well have complained about holiness associated with dirt. Cannot the “pure” elements of Judaism be separated from its impure “shell”—the lofty spiritual movements of the psalms moved away from discussions about seminal emissions? A dualistic approach to life which would separate higher spirit from lower body, the eternal from the trivial, is attractive, and has even profoundly influenced Judaism, especially post-Biblical Judaism.

But in Judaism such a dualism encountered a primary monism: a Biblical insistence that body and spirit were not meant for alternate separation. The classical Jewish faith clings to the idea of bodily resurrection, not just immortality for an abstract soul. We may almost say that the Biblical Old Testament view is that holiness and dirt should indeed go together, that the coming of the kingdom of heaven upon earth means just such an interpenetration. Why should any natural functions of the body be placed outside the possibility of being “lifted up,” transmuted by holiness? Orthodox Judaism refuses, moreover, to recognize any distinction between lesser and greater in terms of religious law. The lofty commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” is given no more attention in its Biblical context than the injunction against wearing an admixture of wool and cotton, or eating forbidden foods. It may seem wrong—it has seemed wrong—to some of the prophets that “essentials” and “details” should be allowed equal importance. But classical Judaism sees the tremendous as mysteriously interwoven with the trivial, and chooses to regard the trivial incident as a mystery whose seeming insignificance opens up to dimensions of reality beyond our comprehension.

But if the Bratzlaver do not reject dirt with their holiness, one must, nevertheless, not have an exaggerated notion of the actual amount of real dirt to be found in Mea Shearim. In fact, the countless purifications and cleansing of body and home enjoined by Jewish law, its holy days and its Sabbath, leaves very little dirt either in Mea Shearim or in that quarter of Jerusalem called Sharey Chesed, the Gates of Mercy, where the family of my young Bratzlaver friend Arele lived.

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The room in Arele’s home into which I was ushered on Saturday night was small but spotless. His father, Rabbi Wolf Chessin, received me cordially and introduced me to the male members of his family, including a bearded young man, his son-in-law. Several of Rabbi Chessin’s grandchildren, along with Arele and his brother, took their seats around the dining-room table still covered with its white Sabbath cloth. Rabbi Chessin’s wife, a sturdy, good-looking woman wearing a kerchief on her hair, served us tea as we talked.

I asked Rabbi Chessin’s son-in-law about the loyalty of his Hasidic group to a dead Rebbe—was it not paradoxical? Rabbi Nachman had himself talked so much about the importance of a Rebbe to the life of Hasidim.

“Rabbi Nachman never forbade us to have another Rebbe,” he said. “He only hinted that we would not need one after him.” As to the way in which Bratzlaver Hasidim were different—apart from their loyalty to Rabbi Nachman—the son-in-law knit his brow. The belief that “there is no place empty of Him,” or the commandment to “serve the Lord with joy” or the emphasis on kavannah, the inner movement of the heart, and dvekut, constant clinging to God—these were all elements found in traditional Judaism as well as in Hasidism. Perhaps the one quality which Hasidism particularly emphasized was freshness—frishkeit, as he said in Yiddish. This thought also was not new in Judaism, but Rabbi Nachman had given it new force with his constant reminder: “It is forbidden to be old.” Everyone and everything must be engaged in constant renewal. Oldness—sameness—is sin.

Some other members of the family ventured their opinions about Bratzlaver Hasidism. Rabbi Chessin’s grandson, a handsome blond boy of ten, told a story while the others in the room proudly listened. He stumbled a bit, but the point was clear. A King had once invited guests to his garden, which contained trees bearing golden fruit. Everyone came, delighted at the King’s invitation to pick the golden fruit, but the King had prepared a surprise for them. He had invited also to the garden a most marvelous orchestra, and they played wonderfully enchanting music. All the people, when they heard the music, began dancing to it, and soon forgot the invitation to pick the golden fruit. Then a man came who was deaf and could not hear the music. He started picking the fruit. In the eyes of those who were enjoying themselves dancing to the music, he appeared crazy. But he kept on picking the fruit. Suddenly the King announced that the party was over. The orchestra stopped playing, and it turned out that not he who had been picking the fruit was crazy—for he had the golden fruit—but the others who had been diverted by the music.

“Will you sing us a song?” Rabbi Chessin’s blond grandson asked his sister Dvorele, a little three-year-old dressed prettily in a Scotch plaid, with long sleeves. The boy held out some sunflower seeds as a reward. Without hesitation the little girl began to sing “Let the Heavens rejoice,” while her grandfather kept time by tapping on the table.

“Don’t forget to make a blessing,” said Rabbi Chessin quickly as Dvorele suddenly finished her song and reached for a piece of cake on the table. But the grandfather’s warning was too late. The cake was already in the little girl’s mouth. “She forgot,” said Rabbi Chessin indulgently. Before I left, Rabbi Chessin asked me rather bashfully whether I wouldn’t like to visit an institution for orphans in the neighborhood. He nodded regretfully when I told him I had no time.

Later, Arele walked with me back to the hotel. “The Rebbe says that when the Hasidim came into the world, Satan neglected the rest of the world to concentrate on the Hasidim. When Rabbi Nachman appeared, Satan left the other Hasidim to work only on the Bratzlaver.” Arele was proud of the special attention he and his group received from Satan. “That one,” as he called Satan, “knew of whom to be afraid.”

At the door of the King David Hotel, Arele gave me a book which I had asked him to obtain for me, a collection of prayers written by Nathan, the scribe of Rabbi Nachman. “They are sweet, are they not—our prayers?” Arele asked again. And he reminded me that Nachman in Gematria, the Cabbalistic science which equates letters with numbers, spells Shimon bar Yochai, the author of the Holy Zohar. “Incidentally, if you should be in Jerusalem the week after the holiday of Succoth—for the festival of the drawing of the water, you could see us really dancing.” Arele’s eyes sparkled and he hesitated a moment, then told me that he was one of the best dancers in town. “That night I take five flashlights and balance them on my head. We know how to rejoice,” he added, and he bade me a “good week.”

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I walked across the lobby, and I could hear the lady singer in the bar as she crooned something about “love and joy.” Her voice seemed sad, though, and the melody was sad—like the people in Nachman’s story who wanted to rejoice but didn’t know “with what.” Upstairs in my room I glanced through the book Arele had just given me, and found some lines captioned “A Prayer for Joy.”

Master of all the worlds, Fountainhead
    of all happiness. . . .
Help me to immerse my meditations and
    all the impulses of my heart, and the
    depths of my thought in the mysteries
    of joy, and let me remember ever and
    well
That thou art my Rock and my Creator.
And grant, O my Creator,
That I believe with a complete faith that
    all fires of suffering
And all the nine measures of destitution
    and illness and pain, and the heaps of
    trouble in this world, and punishment
    in the next world, and
All the deaths—
That they are as nothing;
As absolutely nothing
Against the wondrous joy of clinging to
    Thy Godliness,
And the sweetness of the Torah. . . .
Therefore does my prayer stretch itself
    before Thee,
My Father in Heaven,
Save me and help me from this moment
    to be alone in the fields every night. . . .
To cry out to Thee from the depths of
    my heart. . . .
To set forth all the burdens and negations
    that remove me from Thee,
Light of life.
And give strength to strengthen myself in
    spite of everything—
To strengthen myself with great happiness,
With happiness that has no end,
Until my heart lifts up my hands to clap,
    to clap, to clap,
And my legs to dance until the soul
    swoons, swoons, swoons.
And help me ever to make a new beginning,
    and to be a flowering well of
    Torah and Prayer,
To work always with quickened spirit
And to stand with powerful strength
    against the scoffers and mockers
Who go about in our days—days of double
    darkness. . . .
But oh, against all the troubles and burdens,
Thy joys, and Thy delights, are strong
    and powerful. . . .
Oh, our great Father, home of delights
    and wellspring of joys.

The Bratzlaver Hasidim, whatever their material condition, have continued to rejoice in spirit, as their dead Rebbe taught.

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¹ S. Z. Setzer [see the November 1952 isue of COMMENTARY for an article on Setzer by Rabbi Weiner—Ed.] edited an excellent Yiddish edition of the stories.

² Anyone seeking to study parallels between Hasidism and Christianity would find Nachman's emphasis on the need for private confessions before the Rebbe of interest.