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A non-Jewish friend of mine doing graduate work at Princeton just sent this to me

 Subject: Invitation to Sefer Hasidim celebration

 

Please forward this message to the faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students in your department:

 

On Monday, October 12, at 4:30 pm, we will celebrate the inauguration of the new Sefer Hasidim website.

 

Sefer Hasidim ("Book of the Pious") is one of our most important sources for the religion, history, and culture of medieval German Jewry. This Hebrew book originated between the late 12th and early 13th centuries in the Rhineland. Thereafter, it circulated widely, influencing the distinctive religious practices and Hebrew literary style of Jews in Ashkenaz but also shaping the discourse about Jewish ethics in medieval Europe and beyond.  For the historian, Sefer Hasidim offers a treasure trove of information about the daily lives of medieval Jews under Christian rule. Particularly significant are its detailed descriptions of the encounters between Jews and Christians. Although written in the wake of the Crusades, Sefer Hasidim attests to a surprising range of contacts between Jews and Christians, spanning the continuum from their common participation in a shared cultural context to their interpersonal interactions, both polemical and routine. In effect, this book preserves a poignant snapshot of a pivotal stage in the history of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe.

Despite the significance of this source for modern scholars and its popularity among medieval Jews, there is has been no edition that integrates all of the available Hebrew manuscripts. This task proves particularly crucial insofar as Sefer Hasidim circulated in multiple versions, which varied in shape, scope, and content. Thus, in 2003, a large-scale textual project was initiated and organized to be pursued at Princeton University. After the images of Sefer Hasidim manuscripts were acquired, undergraduate students engaged in the process of transcribing the manuscripts from medieval Hebrew into a modern database. All the transcriptions were reviewed and corrected, and further preparations were made for the issue of the Sefer Hasidim database. Finally, the Microsoft Word documents were converted into a digitalized interactive web database, a major technological advance for scholarly study and interaction. The Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database (PUSHD) is now free and available to all who go to the website (registration required).

To celebrate the inauguration of the new web site and the research done to make it possible, we will be having a reception at 4:30 pm on Monday, October 12, in the Lounge of the Department of Religion, room 140, 1879 Hall.  As part of the celebration, we will have demonstrations of how the web site operates.  Please join us.

This letter was sent by the Rebbe Reb Bunim to one of his Chasidim who couldn’t make to him for the holiday. It was also signed by some of his other Chasidim as well as Reb Bunim’s son Avraham Moshe.

Sunday, Ki Savo, 1826 – here in Pershuschah.

Life, peace and joy to his honor, the friend of my soul and heart, the brilliant and sharp rabbi of renown, the perfect sage, his name is known at the gates, his honored name, our teacher the Rabbi Alexander Ziskind, may his light shine.

Since it is a number of years (until the coming of the Redeemer) that ‘the honor of his torah’ resides within the chamber of my heart, and is a friend in the hidden reaches of my thoughts’ legacy, I will speak this time as to my own heart.

It is written (II Kings, 4:13) “I dwell in the midst of my people” and it is written (Jeremiah 31:3) “God appeared to me from afar” – and this is the secret of Rosh Ha-Shanah. The joy and the anxiety are concealed in fear (ha-simchah ve-ha-da’agah musteres be-pachad) may god grant us both together. The understanding grows from the deed; for the deed is “mystery” and the understanding is “light,” and they resemble each other (ha-binah tigdal me-ha-ma’asah ki ha-ma’asah “raz” (=207) ve-ha-binah “or” (=207) ve-sh’neihem domim).

And bless God, who has preserved and sustained us, that we rise in remembrance before the Lord of all, so that perhaps it arouse mercy to take us from darkness to light. With God’s help, ‘the honor of his torah’ will not be forgotten from our hearts and from the hearts of all the members of our group, for a good remembrance. And may God in His mercy give him joy and life and a “writing and sealing of good” to him and his household and his entire city.

Thus the words of his soul and heart which yearns with love,

Simchah Bunim.

We too, his loved ones and friends, seek his welfare with love and may the blessing of our Rabbi (may he live) be fulfilled and may we merit to hear from him good tidings and rejoice together always, with his soul and the souls of his friends,

The small one, Yitzchak of Zarik (Vorker Rebbe)

The small one, Yitzchak Meir (Chidushey Ha-Rim)

The small one, Menachem Mendel of Tomishov (Kotzker Rebbe)

Meir Kvaller

R. Yaakov Vorker (Radzminer Rebbe) and R. Shlomo Zalshiner indicate his welfare as they are in the middle of praying.

I, the young one, too seek his welfare and I ask of him that he preserve this letter and bring it with him, god willing, when he travels here and then we shall study it together in an in-depth seminar.

The words of his beloved friend, the small one,

Avraham Moshe

-atgate231

I was nineteen years old in the fourth class of Oholei Torah, the year students went on shlichus. For the first time in my life I had not been at a farbrengen in four months. These were the beginnings of me leaving Chabad, and the Ultra-orthodox community in which I was bred. I’d lie at home for weeks reading books and not leaving my bedroom. This new entry into the world of books was not so much an escape or even a hope but more of a desperate attempt by me to block out the confusion and ugly states of mind that I was experiencing

My entire class had been selected to go on shlichus to various yeshivas throughout the world but I was not selected to go to Sydney, Australia, the one venue I wanted to go, since my chavrusa of the past two years was going there.

So I did not attend the farbrengens until one shabbos I decided to go. I entered 770 at 1:30 pm and walked to my place but as the farbrengen began I was feeling depressed and decided to leave. My place, to the Rebbe’s left on the raised platform, five people behind Rabbi Chodokov, was great for listening, being so close, but not great for viewing the Rebbe’s face. Throughout all the years which I stood there, it did not even enter my mind that the Rebbe knew who I was or where I stood. In those years there were thousands of Chassidim at the farbrengens and in no way would he know where I stood tucked behind people, out of view.

Fifteen minutes after the farbrengen began I left 770 and walked along Eastern Parkway, then under construction. I walked in the direction of the Brooklyn Public Library and was feeling very despondent about my life etc. For some reason I decided to turn back and walk home, passing 770 again. I was drawn back and walked to my place at the farbrengen as the Rebbe was finishing the first sicha.

Between sichos married men and non-Lubavitchers raised small 1 ounce cups with wine and wait until the Rebbe saw them and nodded his head, bestowing a blessing. Unmarried Lubavitchers did not do this, and one waited until one was married.

As I walked back to my place, a full eight-ounce cup of wine was on the table and I raised it towards the Rebbe. The Rebbe’s head turned all the way around towards me and two large beams of blue light began shaking my body. This went on for several seconds and I remember sweating and shaking as I drank down the full cup of blessed wine.

For years I never repeated this story. I was living an irreligious lifestyle and was perhaps embarrassed about what I took to be a miraculous occurrence. But I would always ask myself privately, “how did the Rebbe know what I was going through?”

Five years later I was eating the shabbos meal at Gershon Jacobson’s home and Meir Abbesera was there. He told a story about being in 770 in the 70’s and how the Rebbe looked at him, and the two blue beams of light threw him up against the wall. The people who were with him witnessed this and he was taken outside etc.

Four months later I wrote to the Rebbe that I wanted to go to University but would follow the Rebbe’s advice if he told me to go on shlichus to one of the other yeshivas. The Rebbe responded three hours later that I should go to college with great blessings. One year later the Rebbe agreed that I should leave Crown Heights and move to  a campus apartment. The Rebbe knew and guided me to leave and enter on a new road, a road that seemingly is fraught with everything the secular world offers, but with the dire consequences as well. I walk on this road, but I always turn to him, for in this world of confusion, I always did and always will have, my Rebbe.