Publisher's Synopsis
Torah has a range of meanings. It can most specifically mean the first five books (Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses) of the Hebrew Bible. This is commonly known as the Written Torah.
This book provides a new and essential scholarly contribution by placing Rabbi Shapira's writings in their immediate historical context. Using a wide variety of primary sources, the author situates the sermons within the daily experience of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, demonstrating that Rabbi Shapira's often enigmatic discourses contained veiled messages-opaque to later readers, but readily understood by his congregants at the time-that related directly to the traumatic events endured by his Hasidim. The author's reconstruction of the micro-history of the Ghetto reveals that Rabbi Shapira's work represents a sustained act of spiritual heroism, helping his followers place their individual tragedies within the cosmic meta-history of the Jewish people, as expressed in the Torah itself.
