From Tiberias, With Love: A Collection of Tiberian Hasidism Volume 1: R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk

From Tiberias With Love is a journey to rediscovering the magic and mystery, the intimacy and depth of a lost moment in the history of a remarkably relevant, conscious community in the Galilee that still has much to teach us. In the year 1777, a group
of spiritual seekers from Eastern Europe set sail in search of a promised land, far away from the internal and external conflicts plaguing those souls seeking the infinite within this finite world. Weathering challenges both socio-economic and geographic, this emigrating group sought to establish a center for a burgeoning hasidic ethos that would radiate to the Diaspora from its renewed center in the Holy Land in Palestine. Tiberean Hasidism provides a model of an intensive contemplative life that is particularly appealing to contemporary spiritual seekers for many reasons, including: its deep focus on mystical theology, devotional practice, and the ecstasy of deep friendship rather than allegiance to an institutionalized religion. This neglected field of spiritual life remains ripe for excavation, with great insight and inspiration ahead as in the unfolding of this project. The theology, devotion, and social structure offer an authentic roadmap to future contemplative pathways ripe for our age.

Aubrey L. Glazer’s most recent books include: A New Physiognomy of Jewish Thinking: Critical Theory After Adorno as Applied to Jewish Thought and Contemporary Hebrew Mystical Poetry: How It Redeems Jewish Thinking. Nehemia Polen,
professor of Jewish Thought and director of the Hasidic Text Institute at Hebrew College, is a leading expert in Hasidism and Jewish thought.