Holy Fire
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The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto is a journey into the mind and spirit of a sublime hasidic master in his moments of joy and tranquillity, and later, in his time of personal and communal catastrophe. The reader takes a voyage into the rich and variegated world of twentieth-century Hasidism in Poland, a world destroyed by the Holocaust. This is a volume inspired by a deeply sensitive and poetic individual of faith who is grappling with an unfolding disaster. While the Holocaust has engendered a voluminous body of religious and philosophical writings attempting to probe the issues this unfathomable period raises in all their enormity, virtually all were written after the war, when a modicum of distance and reflection is possible. Contemporaneous diaries and chronicles written as the events were happening concentrate on the descriptive accounts of the horrors. The Holy Fire, however, engages a sustained theological reflection and stands alone as an extended religious response from within the heart of darkness itself while the catastrophe takes place, and is, for this reason, an extraordinary document and an astonishing personal achievement.
PrefaceA Note to the ReaderIntroduction1Rabbi Shapira's Origins, Life, and Work1The War's Outbreak6Activities During the War122General Characteristics of Esh Kodesh15Absence of Politico-Historical References17Teaching as Defiance: Noncontextual Derashot20Interpretive Approach213Writing in the Darkness23Derashot on the Creative Process244The Transformation of Suffering36Transforming Fear into Awe37Psychic Disintegration38Encouragement to Service42The Greatness of Israel44Mutuality and Relationship49Maintaining Joy53Overcoming Survivor's Guilt58Balancing Humility and Pride59Self-Control in the Face of Din61Suffering as Sacrificial Offering62Preparing for Martyrdom: The World of Pure Thought675Faith Secure, Faith Transfigured70Faith in Deliverance71Protest within Faith946The Mystical Vision of Divine Weeping106Sin and Chastisement106Divine Suffering1157Transmuting Evil122Jacob and the Struggle with Esau's Angel124Amalek126The Serpent127Sublimating Evil into Good130Confronting and Transcending the Enemy1338Conclusions136The Triumph of the Good139The Mutual Compassion of God and Israel141Epilogue147The Last Months152Notes157Bibliography189Index of Esh Kodesh Passages199General Index203
