What do you think?
Rate this book
Homens sábios e suas histórias: retratos de mestres da Bíblia, do Talmude e do hassidismo
"Comentar um texto é, antes de tudo, estabelecer com ele uma relação de intimidade: exploro suas profundezas para captar seu significado transcendental. Em outras palavras, ao comentar um texto, elimino distâncias. Leio uma frase formulada pelo rabino Akiba, talvez lá do outro lado dos mares e dos séculos e, a fim de penetrar seu intento original, deixo-me percorrer outras frases para emergir em minha mente."
413 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
28 people are currently reading
364 people want to read
About the author
Elie Wiesel
274 books4,549 followersEliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 5, 2010
I grew up hearing the stories of the Old Testament in Sunday School. Always it was a very Americanized 20th century take on what is in reality a very eastern, milleniums-old text. I very much enjoyed hearing Elie Wiesel's interpretation of the events that befell Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, among others.
After touching on various portions of the torah he moves on to the Talmud. I knew almost nothing of these stories, so it was very educational as well as insightful.
There are aspects of the Jewish perception of God and faith that are so fundamentally different from American Christianity, and I don't just mean the whole Jesus deal (though that would be the obvious major difference). In a way, learning about the Jewish roots of the faith I grew up in is somehow like getting to read the journal of a great-grandmother (hypothetically) who was a dancehall girl in the 20s or something like that. It was an insight that realigned perception.
Dry-ish but infinitely rewarding.
After touching on various portions of the torah he moves on to the Talmud. I knew almost nothing of these stories, so it was very educational as well as insightful.
There are aspects of the Jewish perception of God and faith that are so fundamentally different from American Christianity, and I don't just mean the whole Jesus deal (though that would be the obvious major difference). In a way, learning about the Jewish roots of the faith I grew up in is somehow like getting to read the journal of a great-grandmother (hypothetically) who was a dancehall girl in the 20s or something like that. It was an insight that realigned perception.
Dry-ish but infinitely rewarding.
July 28, 2016
As per the traditional Jewish study of biblical and talmudic literature, Wiesel raises interesting questions in each of his biblical, talmudic, and hasidic "portraits". He dips us into the beautiful world of talmudic and midrashic commentary of biblical stories, providing us with parallel rabbinic perspectives within the talmud and midrash about different biblical figures. I find this kind of "spiritual fan-fiction" (in the most respectful sense of the term) particularly interesting--from both an academic and spiritual perspective--because it presents us the humanity and huge depth to of biblical figures.
Casual reader, beware: Through a stream-of-consciousness style, Wiesel provides more thought-provoking questions than concise answers, which can be frustrating at the beginning, and he often sounds like he is talking to himself out loud, sharing his struggles in attempting to understand the motives of G-d, the prophetic figures, and the sages' commentaries.
My only criticism, really, is the occasional blatant, anti-Arab/anti-Palestinian comments Wiesel makes during his tangents about contemporary Israel (e.g., p. 5). And while I can understand the overall sentiment of a continuity in "Jewish destiny", as he calls it, I can't help but note that the comments seem out of place in a book that is mostly about the past.
Ultimately, this introduction is beautiful not because it paints a classical portrait of definitive truth, but rather because it gives us a montage of what these figures have meant to a community over time.
Casual reader, beware: Through a stream-of-consciousness style, Wiesel provides more thought-provoking questions than concise answers, which can be frustrating at the beginning, and he often sounds like he is talking to himself out loud, sharing his struggles in attempting to understand the motives of G-d, the prophetic figures, and the sages' commentaries.
My only criticism, really, is the occasional blatant, anti-Arab/anti-Palestinian comments Wiesel makes during his tangents about contemporary Israel (e.g., p. 5). And while I can understand the overall sentiment of a continuity in "Jewish destiny", as he calls it, I can't help but note that the comments seem out of place in a book that is mostly about the past.
Ultimately, this introduction is beautiful not because it paints a classical portrait of definitive truth, but rather because it gives us a montage of what these figures have meant to a community over time.
April 26, 2011
Until reading this book, I didn't understand the significance about the Talmud and Midrash as they related to the Hebrew Scriptures. This book has added so much more dimension and insight into what I have already studied.
April 15, 2014
Well rounded discussion of biblical figures. Explores all participants' angles and views actions from historical, religious and current views/perspectives. Thought provoking work.
December 31, 2018
It would seem from reading this book that the author has a great deal of fondness for the supposed Hasidic masters of Judaism, for though they take up only a small part of this work, the fact that they are present at all when there are no leaders among the mitnagdim who objected to Hasidism is quite suggestive, although it is possible that the author's fondness for Hasidic thinkers is due to their populist touch. At any rate, this is a book that is both interesting and somewhat frustrating as a reader who comes to it without the perspective of the author and with a pronounced interest in favor of the biblical personages rather than those of the other areas. It is likely that readers will come to this book with their own perspectives and their own biases, and I found that I enjoyed greater pleasure in reading about those people in whom I had less interest because the aspect of perspective did not matter so greatly. The considerable importance I place on proper biblical interpretation (something scarcely to be found here) made my irritation more severe at those whom I regarded as the most important, while the comparative lack of importance I place in the Talmud and the struggles between various Hasidic dynasties or their opponents meant I was able to read these areas without offense.
This book is divided into three unequal parts. The author opens with a question of what Rashi says, a question that is practically meaningless for me but of considerable more importance for someone whose entry into midrashic and mishnaic interpretation came from him. The book begins, appropriately, with a look at people from the Bible, starting from Ishmael and Hagar, moving to Lot's wife, the problematic nature of Aaron, Miriam the prophetess, Nadab and Abihu, Esau and Jethro as Gentiles in the Bible, Gideon, Samson, Saul, Samuel, Isaiah, and Hoshea. After this there there is a discussion of various figures in the Talmud, starting with Tarfon's humility, Yehoshua ben Levi, the dialogue between Abbaye and Rava, the view of converts in the Talmud, and various sketches of other material to be found there. The author then closes this book with a brief discussion of Hasidic leaders like Zanz and Sadigur and the world of the shtel that was destroyed in the horrors of World War II. The author obviously does not intend here to make a board picture of Jewish life, because he doesn't include the Jewish thinkers of the Middle East under Islamic domination, as important as those have been. There seems a marked Ashkenazi as opposed to a Sephardic approach here, but given the author's own identity this is easy enough to understand.
In reading this book, I was reminded of the sad fact that the author does not appear to deal with the Bible straight on, but only through the glosses and speculations and interpretations of thousands of years of uninspired commentators. In many cases, the author asks reasonable and sometimes even obvious questions about the text in his attempts to understand the biblical perspective but his attempts to understand do not come from the Bible itself but from other authorities who often hinder the attempts of the author to come to grips with the Bible. Even the author himself is sometimes aware of it, for example, when he comments that for the bible the ger was the resident alien within Israel who was to be treated kindly and from whom exploitation was forbidden (something that would be worthwhile for contemporary people to recognize with regards to resident aliens among us) but for the talmudic thinkers the ger was the gentile convert to Judaism who was to be viewed highly, some of the times at least. It is a shame that the author has so many blinkers and filters from the talmudic and post-talmudic thinkers who mostly obscure rather than reveal biblical truth, though.
This book is divided into three unequal parts. The author opens with a question of what Rashi says, a question that is practically meaningless for me but of considerable more importance for someone whose entry into midrashic and mishnaic interpretation came from him. The book begins, appropriately, with a look at people from the Bible, starting from Ishmael and Hagar, moving to Lot's wife, the problematic nature of Aaron, Miriam the prophetess, Nadab and Abihu, Esau and Jethro as Gentiles in the Bible, Gideon, Samson, Saul, Samuel, Isaiah, and Hoshea. After this there there is a discussion of various figures in the Talmud, starting with Tarfon's humility, Yehoshua ben Levi, the dialogue between Abbaye and Rava, the view of converts in the Talmud, and various sketches of other material to be found there. The author then closes this book with a brief discussion of Hasidic leaders like Zanz and Sadigur and the world of the shtel that was destroyed in the horrors of World War II. The author obviously does not intend here to make a board picture of Jewish life, because he doesn't include the Jewish thinkers of the Middle East under Islamic domination, as important as those have been. There seems a marked Ashkenazi as opposed to a Sephardic approach here, but given the author's own identity this is easy enough to understand.
In reading this book, I was reminded of the sad fact that the author does not appear to deal with the Bible straight on, but only through the glosses and speculations and interpretations of thousands of years of uninspired commentators. In many cases, the author asks reasonable and sometimes even obvious questions about the text in his attempts to understand the biblical perspective but his attempts to understand do not come from the Bible itself but from other authorities who often hinder the attempts of the author to come to grips with the Bible. Even the author himself is sometimes aware of it, for example, when he comments that for the bible the ger was the resident alien within Israel who was to be treated kindly and from whom exploitation was forbidden (something that would be worthwhile for contemporary people to recognize with regards to resident aliens among us) but for the talmudic thinkers the ger was the gentile convert to Judaism who was to be viewed highly, some of the times at least. It is a shame that the author has so many blinkers and filters from the talmudic and post-talmudic thinkers who mostly obscure rather than reveal biblical truth, though.
Read
September 1, 2020I certainly learned a lot. i'm not sure that this form of teaching is my preferred learning method unless i am in a class and am able to participate. Also, it's so male oriented that i find it hard to place myself in the text or the lessons. The few times women and girls are mentioned are when girls are "given" away in trade or women are used for nefarious purposes or occasionally they are given credit for something. It's hard to read this stuff and not be angry. I know that was not the intent of this book and of course i love(d) the author (who could not?) but honestly, it's tough to read some of this.
I do appreciate the language lessons and wrote them down for future reference.
I do appreciate the language lessons and wrote them down for future reference.
February 2, 2023
I was a bit disappointed in this book. Not sure what I expected but found it to be a book that made me as a Gentile feel very much the outsider. There were some great stories here and there. I think I expected more of these stories.
September 13, 2017
Nook Edition--- May his memory forever be a blessing
November 11, 2022
One of the most beautiful and intellectually stimulating books I've read in the last months.
October 30, 2025
Too much talking and not enough conclusions. Plus, I disagree with the author on some points.
September 30, 2015
I love Eli Wiesel and his writings. This book was a very good, well-rounded look at biblical narratives. I feel like I learned a lot from this book and it reignited my love of delving into biblical stories. I also find Wiesel to be a marvelous story-teller though, if I were to recommend a Wiesel book, it would not be this one, it would be "Night" about his experience in the Holocaust. This is more of an academic book. This is a pretty advanced look at the bible. I would not recommend it for beginners. I would also recommend re-reading the biblical stories before diving into the commentary.
October 18, 2019
Elie Wiesel's thoughtful, sympathetic, rich discussion of biblical stories and characters. The pre-condemnation of Esau and Ishmael is a must-read section for anyone who wants to grapple with the full complexity of these stories.
I read this as part of my project to read one book from every aisle of Olin Library at Cornell; you can read my thoughts on it here: https://jacobklehman.com/2019/10/18/g...
I read this as part of my project to read one book from every aisle of Olin Library at Cornell; you can read my thoughts on it here: https://jacobklehman.com/2019/10/18/g...
September 14, 2012
pretty great so far.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews