Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

About Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was born on the first of Nisan 1772 in Medzhybizh, the Podolian town where his great-grandfather Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, had lived and taught and was buried twelve years earlier. He died on the eighteenth of Tishrei 1810 — the fourth day of Sukkot — in Uman, Ukraine, of tuberculosis, at the age of thirty-eight. The thirty-eight years between those dates produced the most existentially anguished and theologically distinctive corpus in early Hasidism, the foundation of a school that to this day has no living rebbe and no formal succession but continues to attract Jews from every background, including baalei teshuvah from secular Israeli and American backgrounds, to its center at his grave in Uman.

His maternal grandmother Adel was the Besht's daughter, and his mother Feiga was a known visionary who reportedly inherited her grandfather's spiritual gifts. His father Simchah, a learned man, was a son-in-law to Nachman of Horodenka, one of the Besht's senior disciples. The Besht's blood and the Besht's house both shaped him, and from childhood he understood himself to be carrying forward a particular spiritual lineage. Stories from his early years — preserved by his disciple Rabbi Nathan of Nemirov in Shivchei HaRan and Chayei Moharan — describe a child of intense religious imagination who would weep at the grave of the Besht, who would lock himself in the family attic to pray, who underwent severe ascetic practices in early adolescence, who would speak alone to God in the fields and forests, and who experienced cycles of intense spiritual ecstasy and dark depression that would mark his entire adult life.

In 1798 he undertook a pilgrimage to the Land of Israel that became one of the central events of his biography. The journey was dangerous — Napoleon was campaigning in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean was a war zone — and Nachman traveled with a single companion, Shimon, with very little money. He spent a few months in Tiberias, Safed, and Haifa, met with the leading Hasidic figures of the Galilean community (most of whom were disciples of the Maggid of Mezeritch who had emigrated under Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk), and returned to Ukraine convinced that the journey itself had been the spiritual achievement and that what he had received in the Land of Israel could not be expressed in words. The pilgrimage marks the beginning of his public emergence as a teacher.

He moved between several Ukrainian towns — Medvedevka, Zlatopol, Breslov (the town from which the school takes its name), and finally Uman — in the years that followed. In 1802 he settled in Breslov and gathered the disciples who would become the core of his community. The most important of these was Rabbi Nathan of Nemirov, who became Nachman's secretary, scribe, principal disciple, biographer, theologian, organizer of the post-mortem Breslov community, and the editor and transmitter of the entire Breslov literary corpus. Without Nathan, almost nothing of Nachman would have survived.

The teaching that emerged in Breslov was distinct from anything else in early Hasidism. Where the Maggid's school emphasized contemplative bittul ha-yesh, where Lizhensk and the Galician courts emphasized the tzaddik's intercession, where Chabad emphasized the philosophical analysis of doctrine, Nachman emphasized something closer to what a later age would call existential struggle. The disciple's life, he taught, is a constant alternation of faith and doubt, ascent and descent, joy and despair. The work is not to escape this alternation by reaching a stable plateau but to keep returning, to refuse to give up, to find God again after each fall. His most famous saying — that there is no despair in the world at all — has to be heard against the dark background of his own depressions and the realism of his teaching about how often the soul falls. The point is not that despair is unjustified but that despair must not be permitted as a final resting place.

The contemplative practice he developed and made central was hitbodedut, secluded conversation with God in one's own words, in one's mother tongue, preferably in the fields or forests at night. This was not a form of structured prayer but a kind of spontaneous outpouring — a Jew speaking to God as a person speaks to a friend or a parent, telling God everything in the heart, asking for what he or she needed, complaining, weeping, falling silent, beginning again. Nachman taught that an hour a day of hitbodedut was the foundation of all spiritual work, and that even if no words came, the silent waiting in God's presence had its own value.

He taught in two forms. The lessons preserved in Likkutei Moharan are dense Kabbalistic discourses on biblical and Talmudic texts, often very long, with elaborate structures of interpretation that connect surface texts through esoteric layers. The other form is the storytelling that produced Sippurei Ma'asiyot, the Tales. The Tales — thirteen of them, told over a period of years and recorded by Rabbi Nathan — are unlike anything else in Jewish literature. They are folkloric on the surface, with kings and princes, lost princesses, hidden palaces, beggars with mysterious gifts. Beneath the surface they encode (according to the consistent Breslov interpretation) the deepest teachings of Lurianic Kabbalah and Hasidic theology, transposed into narrative form for an audience that could not access the discursive teaching directly. The Tales are studied in Breslov to this day with the same care given to the discursive lessons, and they have been the subject of major scholarly attention from outside the Breslov world, especially Joseph Weiss and Arthur Green.

Nachman also developed the doctrine of the Tikkun HaKlali, the General Remedy. He taught that there were ten specific Psalms whose recitation, with proper intention, could repair the spiritual damage caused by improper sexual emissions and certain other transgressions for which there was no other remedy in the rabbinic literature. The ten Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150) are recited daily in some Breslov communities and serve as a focal practice with both penitential and contemplative significance. He revealed the Tikkun HaKlali to two of his disciples in 1810, the year of his death, and the practice has remained central to Breslov ever since.

The opposition to Nachman during his lifetime was severe and came from other Hasidic leaders, not from the Mitnagdim. The principal opponent was Aryeh Leib of Shpola, called the Shpoler Zeide, the Old Man of Shpola, an established and venerated tzaddik whose territory Nachman entered. The conflict between them — the substance of which combined personal jealousy, theological disagreement, and territorial rivalry — was bitter and persistent. It shadowed Nachman for the rest of his life and contributed to the marginalization of Breslov within the broader Hasidic world after his death.

In 1808 Nachman moved to Uman, a town with a particular significance: in 1768 the Haidamak Cossack uprisings under Ivan Gonta and Maxim Zheleznyak had massacred the Jews of Uman, and the survivors were buried in a mass grave in the local Jewish cemetery. Nachman chose to settle near this cemetery and explained to his disciples that he intended to be buried among these martyrs. He died of tuberculosis on the fourth day of Sukkot 1810. Before his death he made several statements that became foundational for the post-mortem Breslov community: the promise that whoever came to his grave on Rosh Hashanah, recited the ten Psalms of the Tikkun HaKlali, and gave a coin to charity, would have his help even from the grave; the statement that his fire would burn until the Messiah came; and the instruction not to appoint a successor. The Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman — interrupted by Soviet repression for most of the twentieth century and resumed after 1989 — now draws tens of thousands of pilgrims annually from around the world.

Contributions

Nachman's contributions are devotional, contemplative, narrative, and pastoral. Devotionally, his greatest contribution is the practice of hitbodedut as the central spiritual discipline. Setting aside an hour a day to speak alone to God in one's own words, in one's own language, in a private place, has become the defining Breslov practice. The practice is open to anyone, requires no prior learning, and can be conducted in silence if no words come. It validates the religious life of the worshipper who cannot follow the formal liturgy with full intention and who needs a more direct way of speaking to God. Hitbodedut has been adopted, in modified forms, by many Jews outside Breslov who have read Nachman's teachings on it.

Contemplatively, his lessons in Likkutei Moharan are dense, multi-layered Kabbalistic teachings that work in characteristic Breslov fashion. A typical Lesson begins with a verse from Tanach, expounds it through several apparent digressions involving Talmudic, Midrashic, and Kabbalistic material, and weaves the strands together into a pattern that illuminates a particular spiritual problem the disciple faces. The lessons are studied in Breslov on a regular schedule, and they continue to repay close attention from contemporary readers because the conceptual material they contain is genuinely original — not merely a restatement of received Hasidic doctrine.

Narratively, his thirteen Sippurei Ma'asiyot are among the most original works of Jewish literature. They are folkloric in form, with kings and princes and lost objects and hidden places, but they encode (in the consistent Breslov reading) the doctrines of Lurianic Kabbalah and the conceptual structure of his discursive teaching. The most famous tales — The Lost Princess, The Master of Prayer, The Seven Beggars, The King and the Emperor — have been read as great works of world literature by readers without any Hasidic background, and they have influenced modern Jewish writers from S.Y. Agnon to Cynthia Ozick.

Pastorally, he developed the Tikkun HaKlali, the General Remedy, as a focused practice for the repair of certain transgressions. The recitation of the ten Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150) became a central Breslov daily practice and has been adopted by many Jews outside Breslov who have heard about it.

He developed an aphoristic teaching collected in the Sefer HaMidot, an alphabetically organized book of brief practical instructions on prayer, faith, joy, business, marriage, child-rearing, and many other topics. The book is designed for daily reference and provides a practical complement to the discursive Likkutei Moharan and the narrative Sippurei Ma'asiyot.

He composed personal prayers later collected and arranged by Rabbi Nathan in Likkutei Tefilot, a substantial book of prayers based on the lessons of Likkutei Moharan. The prayers are read in Breslov as study texts and as actual liturgy.

He developed the doctrine of the perpetual newness of the spiritual life — that one must begin again each day, each hour, each moment, and that yesterday's spiritual achievement is irrelevant to today's task. This doctrine, central to the Breslov sensibility, addresses the experience of the disciple who feels he has failed to maintain whatever level he attained the previous day.

Works

Likkutei Moharan, the principal collection of Nachman's discourses, was published in two parts. The first part appeared in Ostrog in 1808, while Nachman was still alive, and contains 286 lessons (or sections of lessons) that he gave between approximately 1798 and 1808. The second part (Likkutei Moharan Tinyana) was published posthumously in Mohyliv in 1811, edited by Rabbi Nathan from Nachman's later teachings, and contains 125 additional sections. Together the two parts form the central textual corpus of Breslov and are studied on a regular schedule by Breslov communities worldwide. The discourses are dense, multi-layered, and require careful attention; many editions include the running commentary Parparaot LeChochmah by Rabbi Nathan and other Breslov authorities to assist the reader.

Sippurei Ma'asiyot (Tales) collects the thirteen narrative tales Nachman told between approximately 1806 and 1810. The first edition was published in Berlin in 1815 by Rabbi Nathan, in a bilingual Hebrew-Yiddish format, with an introduction explaining the tales' Kabbalistic meaning. The thirteen tales are: The Lost Princess, The King and the Emperor, The Lame Man, The King Who Had a Son, The Prince Made of Precious Stones, The Humble King, The Fly and the Spider, The Rabbi and the Only Son, The Sophisticate and the Simpleton, The Burgher and the Pauper, The Exchanged Children, The Master of Prayer, and The Seven Beggars (the longest and most elaborate, told in Nachman's last year and left incomplete).

Sefer HaMidot (Book of Traits) is an alphabetically organized collection of brief aphoristic instructions on practical and spiritual matters. Compiled by Nachman from his early years and edited and supplemented by Rabbi Nathan, the book is designed for daily reference and provides a practical complement to the discursive Likkutei Moharan.

Likkutei Tefilot (Collected Prayers) is a substantial book of personal prayers composed by Rabbi Nathan based on the lessons of Likkutei Moharan. Each of the 210 prayers takes a particular Lesson as its starting point and translates the conceptual content into the form of personal supplication. The book is one of the central daily practices of Breslov.

Likkutei Halachot is Rabbi Nathan's monumental halachic-Hasidic commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, working out the inner spiritual meaning of the laws in the framework of Nachman's teaching. It is the principal halachic-mystical work of Breslov and runs to many volumes.

Tikkun HaKlali (the General Remedy) is the collection of ten Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150) that Nachman revealed in 1810 as a remedy for certain transgressions. The recitation of the Psalms with proper intention is a central Breslov daily practice.

Chayei Moharan (Life of Our Master Rabbi Nachman) and Shivchei HaRan (In Praise of Rabbi Nachman) are biographical and hagiographical works compiled by Rabbi Nathan, containing accounts of Nachman's life, his sayings, his journeys, and his interactions with disciples and opponents. Together they are the principal sources for the historical Nachman and have been the basis for all subsequent biography.

Sichot HaRan (Conversations of Rabbi Nachman) records Nachman's informal sayings and teachings as remembered by his disciples.

Controversies

The controversies around Nachman began during his lifetime and have not entirely subsided. The most immediate was the long, bitter conflict with Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Shpola, the Shpoler Zeide, an established and venerated Hasidic figure on whose territory Nachman intruded. The substance of the conflict combined territorial rivalry, theological disagreement (the Shpoler Zeide objected to certain teachings of Nachman as dangerous), personal animosity, and the social dynamics of the Hasidic court system. The Shpoler Zeide's hostility followed Nachman from town to town and contributed to his decision to keep moving and ultimately to settle in the marginal town of Uman. Modern historians, especially Mendel Piekarz and Arthur Green, have analyzed the conflict and concluded that the Shpoler Zeide's objections were genuine and substantive, not merely petty, but also that they were sharpened by the threat Nachman posed to the established structure of Ukrainian Hasidism.

A second controversy concerns Nachman's claims about his own role. Several passages in the Breslov literature, particularly in the more esoteric sections of Chayei Moharan and in some of the recorded conversations, contain statements in which Nachman appears to claim that he is the unique tzaddik of his generation, that his soul is rooted in a particular cosmic source, that no one else can do what he does, and (in some readings) that he is a kind of messianic figure. The exact meaning of these statements is contested. Breslov tradition reads them as expressions of his unique cosmic role within the structure of the divine economy, not as claims of supernatural personhood. Critics — both contemporary opponents and modern scholars — have read them as claims that border on the heretical or, at minimum, the megalomaniacal. Joseph Weiss treated this question with particular seriousness in his essays on Nachman's psychology.

A third controversy concerns the question of Sabbatean and Frankist resonances in Nachman's teaching. Like the Besht and the Maggid before him, Nachman shared theological vocabulary with the discredited Sabbatean and Frankist movements, and certain doctrines — the descent into evil for the sake of redemption, the necessity of the tzaddik's involvement with sin in order to elevate it, the centrality of certain antinomian-sounding gestures — could be read as continuous with the most disturbing aspects of those earlier movements. Nachman explicitly rejected Sabbateanism and Frankism, but the resonances were close enough to feed the suspicions of his opponents and to provoke modern scholars including Yehudah Liebes (who has written extensively on Sabbatean motifs in early Hasidism) to investigate.

A fourth controversy concerns the structure of the Breslov community after his death. Nachman's instruction not to appoint a successor was followed but produced a community that has, ever since, lived in a state of unusual structural ambiguity. There is no living rebbe to consult, no formal authority to settle disputes about teaching or practice, no center of contemporary charisma. This produces both the freedom that has made Breslov attractive to baalei teshuvah and a recurring instability that has occasionally produced internal splits and external suspicion. The current global Breslov community is divided into multiple sub-communities (the Uman pilgrimage community, the Mea Shearim Breslov community, the Na Nach community founded on a teaching attributed to Nachman by his twentieth-century follower Israel Ber Odesser, the various baal teshuvah communities) that do not always agree with one another about what the founder taught.

A fifth controversy concerns Nachman's burning of his early writings. Several times in his life, most dramatically the Sefer HaNisraf (the Burned Book) and the Sefer HaGanuz (the Hidden Book), Nachman destroyed manuscripts of his own teachings. The reasons he gave varied. Sometimes he said the world was not ready; sometimes he said the teachings were dangerous in the wrong hands. Modern scholars have asked whether the burning was a deliberate gesture, whether the manuscripts contained antinomian material that Nachman recognized as too dangerous to circulate, or whether the gesture was a kind of self-imposed ascesis. The truth is unrecoverable. What survives is what Rabbi Nathan was able to record and preserve.

Notable Quotes

"Gevalt! Never give up!" — attributed by Rabbi Nathan in Sichot HaRan (cited in Likkutei Moharan II:78)

"It is a great mitzvah to be in joy always, and to make every effort to push aside sadness and depression with all one's strength." — Likkutei Moharan II:24

"The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to be afraid at all." — attributed to Rabbi Nachman in Likkutei Moharan II:48 (the famous Yiddish refrain Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tsar me'od)

"Know! that a person must cross a very, very narrow bridge. The essential principle and the main thing is not to make oneself afraid at all." — Likkutei Moharan II:48 (the original Hebrew of the saying)

Legacy

Nachman's legacy is the existence of Breslov as a continuing community without a living rebbe. Two centuries after his death, the Breslov community is one of the fastest-growing in the contemporary Hasidic world, drawing tens of thousands of pilgrims annually to his grave in Uman for Rosh Hashanah and supporting active centers in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Tsfat, Brooklyn, Lakewood, Beit Shemesh, and many other locations. The post-Soviet reopening of Ukraine in 1989 made the Uman pilgrimage possible again after seventy years of Soviet repression, and the pilgrimage has grown from a few hundred participants in the early 1990s to forty thousand or more in recent years.

The textual legacy is the Breslov library: the writings Rabbi Nathan edited and published, the works of subsequent Breslov teachers (Rabbi Avraham Sternhartz, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Rosen, Rabbi Yaakov Meir Schechter, Rabbi Shalom Arush in the contemporary period, and many others), the Breslov Research Institute publications coordinated by Rabbi Chaim Kramer, and the academic and Neo-Hasidic readings produced by Joseph Weiss, Mendel Piekarz, Yehudah Liebes, Arthur Green, Ada Rapoport-Albert, and Tsippi Kauffman.

The institutional legacy includes the network of Breslov yeshivas, kollels, schools, synagogues, and outreach organizations that have grown over the last century. Unlike other Hasidic groups, Breslov has been particularly successful at engaging with the baal teshuvah movement — secular Jews returning to traditional observance — for whom Nachman's existential, struggle-oriented teaching has been more accessible than the more conventionally pious teaching of other schools.

The cultural legacy reaches well outside the Hasidic world. Martin Buber's German translations of the Tales in the early twentieth century brought Nachman to European literary attention; Franz Kafka, according to Max Brod, read them with intense interest. Twentieth-century Jewish writers from S.Y. Agnon to Cynthia Ozick to David Grossman have engaged with Nachman as a literary as well as a religious resource. The contemporary Israeli singer Ovadiah Hamama and many others have set Nachman's prayers and tales to music. The Na Nach phenomenon — the offshoot community founded on a teaching that Yisrael Ber Odesser claimed to have received from Nachman in a vision in 1922 — has produced its own distinctive culture of street singing, dancing, and mystical pamphleteering.

Within the broader Hasidic world, Nachman's influence is paradoxical. Most of the major Hasidic dynasties have remained at a distance from Breslov for the historical reasons connected to the conflicts of his lifetime. But individual teachings of Nachman — particularly the practice of hitbodedut and the doctrine of the perpetual return after each fall — have been quietly absorbed by teachers in many other courts. Outside the Hasidic world, his influence on twentieth-century Jewish thought has been substantial. Arthur Green's Tormented Master remains the standard scholarly biography in English and has introduced Nachman to two generations of academic readers.

Significance

Nachman's significance within Hasidism is the existence of Breslov as a distinct school. Where the other major Hasidic dynasties depend on a living rebbe whose authority descends through inherited succession, Breslov is a Hasidism without a current rebbe. Nachman explicitly forbade his disciples to appoint a successor, and the community has honored this instruction for more than two centuries. Rabbi Nathan of Nemirov, his principal disciple, organized the Breslov community after his death and edited and published the literary corpus, but Nathan never claimed the role of rebbe. Subsequent Breslov leaders have been teachers, organizers, and elders, but never rebbes. This structural distinctiveness — sometimes called by outsiders the dead Hasidism, although Breslov Hasidim reject the phrase — is one of Nachman's most consequential institutional innovations.

His theological significance is the recovery of doubt, despair, distance from God, and existential struggle as serious religious categories. Earlier Hasidism, including the Beshtian and Maggidic streams, treated joy and dveikut as the normal condition of the worshipper, with periods of sadness or distance treated as obstacles to be overcome. Nachman took the alternation between presence and absence, between faith and doubt, as itself the structure of the spiritual life. This makes his teaching strangely modern. Twentieth-century existentialist thinkers, both Jewish and Christian, have read him with surprise and recognition. He addresses the experience of the doubting believer, the seeker who has lost the certainty of childhood, the worshipper who can no longer pray with conviction, in a way that prefigures Kierkegaard, Buber, and Heschel. The contemporary baal teshuvah movement — secular Jews returning to traditional observance — has found in Nachman a teacher whose realism about the difficulty of the return matches their own experience.

His significance as a storyteller is the existence of Sippurei Ma'asiyot, a body of literature that has no parallel in earlier Hasidism and that has been read by scholars and writers — including Franz Kafka, who according to his biographer Max Brod read Buber's German translations of Nachman's tales with intense interest — as among the great works of modern world literature. The tales recover the Kabbalistic content of Hasidic theology in a form accessible without prior contemplative training, and they preserve a folk register of mystical narrative that links Hasidism to the older traditions of Jewish storytelling.

His significance as a contemplative teacher is the recovery of hitbodedut, secluded personal prayer in one's own words, as a daily practice. Nachman did not invent the practice — there are antecedents in earlier Jewish mystical literature, including in the Spanish and Safed Kabbalists, and in the older sources of personal prayer — but he made it central in a way no previous Jewish teacher had. Hitbodedut as Breslov practices it is open to anyone, requires no learning, can be done in any language, and bypasses the question of whether the worshipper is in a state of dveikut or distance. Its only requirement is that the worshipper try to speak honestly to God. This made Breslov uniquely available to Jews without learning and to those whose relationship to traditional prayer was attenuated.

His significance as a controversial figure is bound up with his radical claim about his own role. Several passages in the Breslov literature, especially in Chayei Moharan and in some of the more esoteric Likkutim, contain statements in which Nachman appears to claim a unique cosmic role for himself — sometimes described as the role of the tzaddik of the generation, sometimes more sweepingly. Subsequent commentators have debated how to read these statements: as conventional rhetoric of Hasidic praise, as a serious theological claim, or as expressions of a particular contemplative state. Whatever their exact meaning, they were enough to make Nachman a divisive figure during his lifetime and to feed the persistent suspicion that Breslov was theologically aberrant.

Modern Jewish thought has rediscovered him repeatedly. Joseph Weiss made him a central subject of his pioneering academic studies of early Hasidism. Arthur Green's Tormented Master remains the standard scholarly biography in English. Mendel Piekarz produced major Hebrew studies. The current Breslov publishing operation, run primarily by Rabbi Chaim Kramer's Breslov Research Institute and other publishers, has produced Hebrew, English, and other translations of the entire corpus.

Connections

Nachman is the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov through the Besht's daughter Adel and his mother Feiga. He is also a descendant on his father's side of the Besht's close disciple Nachman of Horodenka. Although he was not a direct disciple of Dov Ber of Mezeritch, the Maggid, who died when Nachman was an infant, he was raised in the Hasidic milieu the Maggid had built and his teaching presupposes the conceptual world of Hasidism.

His relationship to the contemporary Hasidic courts is complex and frequently antagonistic. His chief opponent during his lifetime was Aryeh Leib of Shpola (the Shpoler Zeide), and he had distant relationships with most of the other major figures of his generation, including Schneur Zalman of Liadi (who founded Chabad), Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and Elimelech of Lizhensk's successors. His teaching draws on the same Lurianic substrate that the others drew on — the Lurianic Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria as transmitted by Chaim Vital — but he develops it in distinctive directions.

His own school, Breslov, is part of Hasidism but distinct in its refusal of dynastic succession. His principal disciple Nathan of Nemirov edited and published his major works, including the Likkutei Moharan, the Sippurei Ma'asiyot, the Sefer HaMidot, the Tikkun HaKlali, Likkutei Tefilot, Likkutei Halachot, and the biographical Chayei Moharan and Shivchei HaRan. The Lithuanian Mitnagdim, organized around Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin and the Nefesh HaChaim tradition of Mitnagdism, were largely uninvolved with Nachman, who was geographically and culturally distant from Lithuania.

The textual roots of his thought reach back through the Etz Chaim and the Zohar to the early Sefer Yetzirah, and his theology presupposes the Kabbalistic framework of the divine emanations and the sefirot. The court of Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, established a generation later, shares with Nachman a temperament of radical truth-seeking and impatience with religious complacency. The aristocratic court tradition of Israel of Ruzhin represents an opposite pole within nineteenth-century Hasidism.

The Neo-Hasidic revival of the twentieth century — Buber, Heschel, Carlebach, Schachter-Shalomi, and especially Arthur Green — drew heavily on Nachman as a resource for contemporary spiritual practice. The historian Gershom Scholem studied him as a major theological figure. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook read him with attention.

Further Reading