re: Luzi and Sruli:

the others did accuse the Breslovers of such activities, but let's not go there, i don't think Der Nister did.
HirshelTzig | Homepage | 05.18.08 - 6:46 pm | #

ok, I am just saying that there are strange things about the pair, not fully explained in the 2 volumes. Like where is Luzi's wife, we know they didn't have children. May be Sruli is just a Malach, perhaps that is it?
Tzemach | Homepage | 05.18.08 - 7:26 pm | #

Der Nister writes that if not for the fact the Reb Nachman was Beshts grandson he most certainly would have been put in Herem. Is there any evidence for that???

On the other hand if not for the fact that he was an enikle of Besht he would have be stam a meshuge. And nobody would have listened to him.
Tzemach | Homepage | 05.18.08 - 7:50 pm | #

MISHPOCHE MASHBER. There are at least 2 Yiddish editions of this work. A 1 volume edition published in MOscow in the 1970's or 1980's.I purchaes this in NYC at the bok store at the Forward many years ago.
There is a more complete version published in NY by IKUF after WW2(1940's) which is much longer.This manuscript I believe was smiggled out of the USSR.
The SOVETISH HEIMLAND published parts of the so called 3rd volume a number of years ago.
I plowed through this work in Yiddish first in the Soviet edition and then read the additions in the NY edition and then the material published in the HEIMLAND.
The book certainly is on par with anything my Vilner landsman Reb Chaim Grade wrote and DEr Nister is certainly right up there with Grade, the Singer brothers, Opatoshau, and yes Sholom Asch (who supposedly betrayed the Jewish people) as among the greatest OF YIDDISH LITERARY FIGURES.
Der Nister paints in my opinion a very realistic portrait of the Jewish community in the Ukraine. The alliance between the gvirim and the rabbis and the rebbes, the fact thta most Breslover followers were ".
and obgerisene"
But Der Nister is careful not to attack the religion itself.
If he was living in Poland, the book would have soared to even higher spirtual and theological realms, as one ses hints of this in the Yiddish original. But alas he was writing in a very restricted enviorement
The scenes in the cemetary and the Breslever asifos are memorable. But especially interesting is his portrait of the social , economic and family lifes of Ukrainian Jews especially the grvirim.
To me the Mashbers are probably a family like the Horensteins related by marriage to rebbes, rich and learned and well versed in th epaths of Chassidius.
schneur | 05.19.08 - 11:26 am | #