Tormented master : a life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav.

Introduction. 1 Childhood and early years: 1772-1798. 2 Nahman's journey to the land of Israel. 3 Conflict and growth. 4 Bratslav: disciples and master. 5 Messianic strivings. 6 Nahman's final years. Appendix: The death of Rabbi Nahman. A brief chronology of Nahman's life. Excursus 1 - Faith, doubt, and reason. Excursus 2 - The tales

'Of the various masters whose personalities and teachings lay at the core of Hasidism, a mystical revival movement that swept through East European Jewry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps no figure is so well known and controversial as Nahman ben Simhah of Bratslav (1722-1810). Arthur Green's book--the first full-length critical biography of the Bratslav master--is at once a study in the psychology of a religious personality and in the history of Jewish mystical theology.'

Hardcover