The Way to Walk is a collection of early Hasidic instructions for living a proper moral and spiritual life. These were written for an emerging new spiritual elite among the followers of R. Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, composed in the two decades following his death in 1760. Hasidism was not yet a popular movement: it began rather as a small community of those seeking a more intense spiritual path than could be expected of the general public. These are the key documents that defined that path, one that was to lead toward devekut, or intimate attachment to God.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
UPRIGHT WORDS OF TRUTH: TWO EPISTLES by R. Meshullam Feibush Heller of
Zbarasz
THE WAYS OF THE UPRIGHT by R. Menahem Mendel of Premishlian
THE WAYS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS by R. Zekhariah Mendel of Yaroslav
THE HOLY EPISTLE by R. Eleazar (Weissblum), the son of R. Elimelekh of
Lizhensk
YOM KIPPUR THE SYNAGOGUE OF R. SHMELKE OF NIKOLSBURG, 5536 [ = 1775] by a
disciple of R. Shmelke
UPRIGHT PRACTICES by R. Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl
Dr. Arthur Green is the retired founding dean and rector of the Rabbinical School and Irving Brudnick Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Religion at Hebrew College in Newton, MA. He is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University, where he occupied the distinguished Philip W. Lown Professorship of Jewish Thought. He is both a historian of Jewish religion and a theologian; his work seeks to form a bridge between these two distinct fields of endeavor. Dr. Green is author, editor, and translator of some thirty books. He is particularly well known for his translations and interpretations of Hasidic teachings.
