• Complain

Miriam Chaikin - Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk

Here you can read online Miriam Chaikin - Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2014, publisher: Arcade, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Miriam Chaikin Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk
  • Book:
    Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Arcade
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2014
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Passed down through generations, the insights of a renowned Hasidic master from a tiny Polish shtetl.
Whoever believes in miracles is an imbecile. Whoever does not is an atheist.
Rabbi Menahem Mendl was the spiritual leader of the Jews in a small village called Kotzk in a corner of Poland. Yet he became so famous that the wise sayings of the Kotzkerabout human nature, how to live, and the world of the spiritwere repeated and passed around. He kept no recordsbut his words were savored, and survived through the years. Now they are preserved in this book, which gathers them together and joins them with elegant cut-paper illustrations by the rabbis great-great-great-grandson, the illustrator Gabriel Lisowki, who has also provided an introduction about his ancestor.
Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life is a treasure for spiritual seekers or anyone who enjoys lifes lessons distilled into trenchant and memorable aphoristic gems.

Miriam Chaikin: author's other books


Who wrote Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Text copyright 2014 by Miriam Chaikin and Gabriel Lisowski Illustrations and - photo 1

Text copyright 2014 by Miriam Chaikin and Gabriel Lisowski Illustrations and - photo 2

Text copyright 2014 by Miriam Chaikin and Gabriel Lisowski Illustrations and - photo 3

Text copyright 2014 by Miriam Chaikin and Gabriel Lisowski Illustrations and introduction copyright 2014 by Gabriel Lisowski

First Edition

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Arcade Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or .

Arcade Publishing is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

Art editing: Michal Piekarski

Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62872-318-2
eISBN: 978-1-62872-387-8

Printed in China

For my grandmother, Regina Morgenstern

GL

For my great niece, Josie Alexandra Pearl

MC

Contents

I NTRODUCTION

The cities, towns, and villages of Europe were full of thriving Jewish communities before the advent of Hitler in the 1930s. Most Jews were religious, and most belonged to one of two main schools of Jewish thought, though there were also subgroups and splinters of one group or another.

One school, conservative, believed Jews ought to follow established Jewish law and to worship God with established prayer and by established custom. The other main school, known as Hasidim, which is Yiddish for the Pious, believed God should be worshipped more spontaneously, with joy and with song and dance.

Although large communities of Jews settled in most European cities Hasidim in - photo 4

Although large communities of Jews settled in most European cities, Hasidim in Eastern Europe tended to establish themselves in shtetls, Yiddish for little towns. These were self-contained communities, comprised of little wooden houses on unpaved streets, a main synagogue, smaller places of worship, a study house, schools, a court, a cemetery, and a busy marketplace. The head of the shtetl was a charismatic Hasidic rebbe, who was a tzadik or holy Jew, someone whom followers believed to have access to Heaven and whom they accepted as their undisputed leaderlike a little king.

Such a Hasidic master was my maternal great-great-great grandfather, Rabbi Menahem Mendl (17871859) of Kotzk, in Poland. He was famous throughout Europe as a wise and strong-willed spiritual leader and was often called simply the Kotzker or Reb Mendl. People came from everywhere seeking his advice. The advice he gave was not always welcome, though. He was a stern and demanding leader. He minced no words and peppered his speech with insults.

Despite his reputation for rigor, young Jewish scholars came from far and wide to study with him. They had heard that the rebbe disdained the material world, ate little, and cared nothing for refinements of any kind. Even so, it is likely their first impression was one of surprise. Greeting them in the rebbes study was not a neatly dressed man with a combed beard but a tall, thin man with a straggly beard, dressed in rags and wearing house slippers.

His reputation and appearance put no one off. The brightest and most committed remained to become his disciples. His Hasidim, as he called them, revered him and strove to be like him, to the point of dressing in shabby clothes and replacing their shoes with house slippers. Their rebbe did not disappoint them. His scholarship and his reputation as a teacher led to the establishment of his own school of Hasidism. He was one of the great religious leaders who made of Poland a Makom Torah, a place for masters in Torah to study.

Self-examination, truth, and the suppression of ego were central to the Kotzkers teaching. Some Hasidim in other cities and towns were opposed to him. The son of one rabbi, despite his fathers opposition, went to study with the Kotzker. When he returned, his father asked him what he had learned in Kotzk. He said he had learned that it is possible for a person to become higher than an angel, if he wishes it, and that while God created the Beginning, that was only a start and it was up to the rest of us to carry on and build further.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book A Passion for the Truth , finds similarities between the Kotzker and the Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegaard. Both advocated suppressing the ego, the love of self, which they believed led to corruption. To both, the inner life of a person was the main concern. Both sought to strip off the outer garment of belief, the ritual acts, and to strive for truth.

Heschel also compares the rebbe to other Jewish thinkers Vilna in Lithuania - photo 5

Heschel also compares the rebbe to other Jewish thinkers. Vilna, in Lithuania, was once the center of Jewish learning. Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon (genius) of Vilna, was famous for his work correcting classical texts. While the Gaon was antagonistic to the Kotzkers Hasidic movement, the Kotzker had a high opinion of the Gaon and openly admired him. According to Heschel, The Gaon attained tranquility through Torah study; the Kotzker delved into spheres where spiritual volcanoes erupt. His reward was restlessness and agitation.

The family name of my ancestor Reb Mendl, the Kotzker, was Morgenstern. He established the Kotzker dynasty, as such families were known. His eldest son, Rabbi David Morgenstern, succeeded him as the Kotzker rebbe and was in turn succeeded by other Morgensterns. The family kept the Kotzker rabbinate until the outbreak of World War II, when Hitlers troops invaded Poland and marched across Europe.

Hitler turned the known world upside down in his quest for world domination. His forces rounded up and killed most Jews in work or death camps. Jewish families who managed to escape slaughter were uprooted and scattered to any port or place in the world that would take them in. Members of my immediate family sought refuge in Palestine, a British protectorate. My parents met there and there I was born, in Jerusalem, in 1946.

My father became Polish consul in Palestine until our family returned to Poland in 1948. Ten years later we moved to Vienna, where my father worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Other members of our family remained behind, in Palestine, soon to be called Israel. My grandmother Regina was one of them. She made regular trips to Vienna to see us. As my Hasidic background always interested me, I would question her about Menahem Mendl whenever she came. My questions continued by letter when she returned home.

She told about the Rebbes fame and that he had always liked to be by himself, even when he was young. Later, when he became the Rebbe, he sought opportunities for solitude, to be rid of the mundane distractions that prevented him from basking in Gods light. One day, no one knows why, he isolated himself from the people and remained so for the last twenty years of his life. There are conflicting stories about what drove him to this, but there are no clear answers. An air of mystery remains.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk»

Look at similar books to Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk»

Discussion, reviews of the book Jewish Wisdom for Daily Life: Sayings of Rabbi Menahem Mendl of Kotzk and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.