Naḥman of Bratslav

Naḥman was born in 1772 in Medzhybizh, in Podolia (present-day Ukraine), a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. As a young man he practised intense solitary prayer and asceticism. In 1798–1799 he made a perilous journey to the Land of Israel, which he regarded as decisive for his spiritual life.

He settled in Bratslav in 1802, where his devoted disciple Nathan of Nemirov began to record his teachings. He was a controversial figure, in conflict with other Hasidic leaders, and suffered much, including the death of children and of his wife. In 1810, ill with tuberculosis, he moved to Uman, where he died that year at thirty-eight.

His teachings were collected in Likkutei Moharan, and his thirteen tales, among them “The Lost Princess” and “The Seven Beggars”, were published after his death. He appointed no successor; his followers, the Bratslav (Breslov) Hasidim, remain devoted to him alone, and every year thousands make pilgrimage to his grave in Uman at the New Year.

His teaching joins the most intense religious longing with a frank acknowledgement of doubt, depression and the sense of God’s absence; for him the very darkness, entered honestly, is a place where God can be found. This has made him one of the most read Hasidic masters in modern times.