Enlarging the Canon--and the Soul

Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters

By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Edited by Nathaniel M. Miles-Yepez

334 pages. Wiley. $27.95.

Reclaiming Jewish Women's Wisdom

By Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

280 pages. HarperSanFrancisco. $24.95

One way to look at a text, writes Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, is to ask, "Does it make my soul bigger rather than smaller?" For his new book, "Wrapped in a Holy Flame," he has collected texts that he believes can inspire new understandings of Judaism and the world. This book, like a recent work by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, argues that one way to enlarge the soul is to expand the canon. Both "Wrapped in a Holy Flame" and Firestone's "The Receiving" demonstrate how widening our breadth of Jewish knowledge and history can improve our spiritual lives.

"Wrapped in a Holy Flame" summarizes and explores the teachings of the major Hasidic masters, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov and the origins of the Hasidic movement, and continuing through modern leaders like the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Schacter-Shalomi's personal friend, the Hasidic folksinger Reb Shlomo Carlebach. Schacter-Shalomi, the unconventional father of Jewish Renewal, ably explains the important themes and legacies of each of these Hasidic giants, and categorizes the teachings of the Hasids in a way that makes them easy to follow and digest. Known for dabbling in other religious traditions, Schacter-Shalomi weaves the Hasidic lessons with teachings from other faiths, including Hinduism, Sufism, and Catholicism. He pairs the teachings of Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the author of the Tanya, with those of Sri Ramakrishna; he compares the Hasidic concept of the soul coming down to the Tibetan notion of the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth. The author provides solid introductions to the lives of many masters, while peppering his thoughts on them and analysis of their teachings with his personal experiences and short vignettes on topics ranging from sex to tzaddiks.

Schacter-Shalomi wants his somewhat encyclopedic book to provide, for his readers, an encounter with God rather than just with the texts. He suggests that his readers speak the book's lessons aloud, and sing

(Hasidic melodies) before reading. These suggestions demonstrate his Jewish Renewal approach; Jewish Renewal is the expansion of each individual's spiritual canon to include the modern experience, more creativity, and even other faiths. Jewish Renewal rabbis and leaders describe the core of their approach as understanding Judaism--and life, for that matter--as a series of new encounters with the divine. Each teaching and tale in "Wrapped in a Holy Flame" can be understood as one of these new encounters.

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