ABSTRACT
The author of this story is Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who was a prominent Hasidic leader in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rabbi Nachman’s stories were a great novelty in the arena of Hasidic ideas and teachings. Replete with supernatural figures and mythic themes and pertaining to all kinds of human conditions that are seemingly unrelated to ordinary Jewish religious issues, these stories are unique and awakening. The stories or tales were told by Rabbi Nachman over a period of four years from 1806 to 1810. They have drawn the attention of western intellectuals and scholars, especially from the first stage of the twentieth century, and ever since have been a source of thought about Man, God, and modern times. Within Breslov Hasidic scholarship, the stories have always been, to this day, a central key to unraveling the ideas and personality of Rabbi Nachman.
