Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle against Melancholy

Elie Wiesel

The Ward-Phillips Lectures in English Language and Literature

“Elie Wiesel is one of the great writers of this generation.” — New York Review of Books

“Wiesel brings a journalist’s optimism to his studies of the Hasidic saints who set Eastern European Jewry alight in the 18th century with the faith that brought it through the last, worst centuries of persecution.” — The Boston Globe

“As always, Wiesel’s characters are infused with the breath of life; these extraordinary men are fully human, whether reeling in spiritual ecstasy or pondering their existential melancholy, the loneliness that accompanies vision and greatness. . . . These tales make inspiring and fascinating reading for all.” — Library Journal

“‘Friendship’ and ‘concern’ are the key motifs of this book. For Wiesel, Hasidism is not a theology or a philosophy. It is not an abstract system of ideas or a conception of the Deity. It is a friendship and a concern for people and for God. Hasidism is the opposite of solitude. It is a sense of begin bound up together with all other human beings in their joy and in their distress and of being bound up with God in his joy and in his distress.” — Commonweal