You Don’t Have to be Chasidic to Love Chasidic Stories

People love stories because, as social animals, we are endlessly fascinated with one another. Every culture has its own distinctive story-telling traditions.

 

We Jews tell our own flavors of stories. There are Bible stories, stories from the days of the Sages and even modern Jewish storytellers who recast ancient Jewish stories in contemporary language while blending theatrics and Jewish education together in fresh ways.

 

Arguably, the most well-loved Jewish stories are Chasidic tales. Replete with miracles, glimpses into the spiritual dimension, heroics and rabbinic brilliance, Chasidic tales captivate the reader with hints of a world that exists beyond the world in which we live. If you can look past the relative absence of women characters (a flaw Yitzhak Buxbaum addressed when he originally published Jewish Tales of Holy Women in 2002), contemporary books of Chasidic stories are mystically intoxicating.

 

Saturday Night Full Moon by master story teller Yerachmiel Michael Tilles is one such contemporary collection. It’s the first volume of a planned trilogy. Rabbi Tilles doesn’t just retell the stories. The collection includes background resources for the general reader who may not be familiar with the Chasidic world, such as biographical notes about the main characters and an explanation of the significance of Saturday night storytelling in Chasidic custom. If you’re looking for a Chasidic story to match a Jewish occasion, each story has an index of topics and dates for which the story might be especially appropriate. The stories in Saturday Night Full Moon are organized historically.

 

When I finished reading “The Tenth Man”, about a woman who had a history of difficult births and the mystically strange advice the Lubavitcher Rebbe gave her husband, I blurted out, “Whoa! That was cool!” And then I retold the story myself.

 

Rabbi Tilles sends a new story to his readers each week. Email weekly@AscentofSafed.com to subscribe. Saturday Night Full Moon is available from Menorah Books.

 

Whereas Rabbi Yerachmiel Tilles, author of Saturday Night Full Moon is a traditional Jew, Hasidic Tales, translated and annotated by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, come through the pen of another kind of spiritual guide. Though ordained as a Reform rabbi, Rabbi Shapiro is influenced by other faith traditions, including Hinduism. His book, Hasidic Tales is a kind of universal spiritual work that transcends the Jewish experience. Each of the 80 stories is accompanied by a Rabbi Shapiro’s commentary, intended to drive home the core message of the story and how it can help us grow as individuals on a spiritual path. Hasidic Tales is published by Skylight Paths.