Martin Buber devoted forty years of his life to collecting and retelling the legends of Hasidim. Nowhere in the last centuries, wrote Buber in Hasidim and Modern Man, has the soul-force of Judaism so manifested itself as in Hasidim... Without an iota being altered in the law, in the ritual, in the traditional life-norms, the long-accustomed arose in a fresh light and meaning.These marvelous tales--terse, vigorous, often cryptic--are the true texts of Hasidim. The hasidic masters, of whom these tales are told, are full-bodied personalities, yet their lives seem almost symbolic. Through them is expressed the intensity and holy joy whereby God becomes visible in everything.

    Combines Bickerman's 'The Historical Foundations of Postbiblical Judaism,' originally published in 1949 in The Jews: Their History, Culture & Religion, edited by Louis Finkelstein & The Maccabees: An Account of Their History from the Beginnings to the Fall of the House of the Hasmoneans, originally published in English translation in 1947.Contains a chronology & genealogical tables.