Tales of the Hasidim

This new paperback edition brings together volumes one and two of Buber's classic work Takes of the Hasidim, with a new foreword by Chaim Potok. Martin Buber devoted forty years of his life to collecting and retelling the legends of Hasidim. "e;Nowhere in the last centuries,"e; wrote Buber in Hasidim and Modern Man, "e;has the soul-force of Judaism so manifested itself as in Hasidim... Without an iota being altered in the law, in the ritual, in the traditional life-norms, the long-accustomed arose in a fresh light and meaning."e;These marvelous tales—terse, vigorous, often cryptic—are the true texts of Hasidim. The hasidic masters, of whom these tales are told, are full-bodied personalities, yet their lives seem almost symbolic. Through them is expressed the intensity and holy joy whereby God becomes visible in everything.