First published in 1943, Eim HaBanim Semeichah remains the most comprehensive treatise on Eretz Yisrael, redemption, and Jewish unity. Much of this remarkable work has been proven prophetic by the passage of time. It is truly a priceless treasure.

The author analyzes ever reference to the Land of Israel in the 54 Torah portions read on Shabbat and the Jewish Holidays. He shows how living in the Holy Land is a fulfillment of the deep yearnings of millennia of Jews who come to Israel to perform all of God's commandments, especially those that depend on the Land.

The Holocaust, 1944; creation of the State of Israel, 1948... a paradoxical and overwhelming connection!

Based on documentation from various archives, discusses religious and halakhic issues which affected the lives of observant Jews during the Holocaust. Includes chapters on the reactions of rabbis in various towns to reports on the extermination of Jews; the persecution and suffering of rabbis and the rescue of some hasidic rabbis; halakhic rulings in ghettos and camps, e.g. concerning the desire of individual Jews to sacrifice themselves for others; rulings on problems involved in posing as a non-Jew; marriage, prayers, and the sanctification of God's name during the Holocaust; responsa of Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aronzon, a rabbi in Sanniki, Poland, who survived Nazi camps; sermons delivered by Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapira in the Warsaw ghetto; diaries, memoirs, and letters of survivors.

Peninei Halakha is a comprehensive series of books on Jewish law applied to today¿s ever-changing world. In this series, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed¿s well-organized, clear, and concise writing style brings the halakha, from principle to practical detail, to readers of all backgrounds. With over 400,000 copies in circulation, Peninei Halakha stands as one of the most popular and useful halakha series in Israel today.

"Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook zt"l had brilliance and depth of knowledge that were simply otherworldly; his devotion to God was supernal; and his character traits were heavenly. At the same time, however - and perhaps more important - he was an exemplary human being. Although he strove for personal, spiritual perfection, he was more concerned with helping others come closer to God. He was constantly involved in the affairs of his people, doing everything in his power to ease their pain, raise their pride, and pave the way for their ultimate redemption in their ancestral Land."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Publisher description

Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889–1943) was a remarkable Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator. He confronted the secularization and dislocation of Polish Jews after World War I, the failure of the traditional educational system, and the devastation of the Holocaust, in which he lost all his close family and eventually his own life. Thanks to a new critical edition of his Warsaw Ghetto sermons, scholars have begun to reassess the relationship between Shapira's literary and educational attainments, his prewar mysticism, and his Holocaust experience, and to reexamine the question of faith—or its collapse—in the Warsaw Ghetto. This interdisciplinary volume, the first such work devoted to a twentieth-century Hasidic leader, integrates social and intellectual history along with theological, literary, and anthropological analyses of Shapira's legacy. It raises theoretical and methodological questions related to the study of Jewish thought and mysticism, but also contributes to contemporary conversations about topics such as spiritual renewal and radical religious experience, the literature of suffering, and perhaps most pressingly, the question of faith and meaning—or their rupture—in the wake of genocide.