Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters

by Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel (Translator)

In Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters , Elie Wiesel re-enters, like an impassioned pilgrim, the universe of Hasidism.

Souls on Fire is not a simple chronological history of Hasidism, nor is it a comprehensive book on its subject. Rather, Elie Wiesel has captured the essence of Hasidism through tales, legends, parables, sayings, and deeply personal reflections. His book is a testimony, not a study. Hasidism is revealed from within and not analyzed from the outside. "Listen attentively," Elie Wiesel's grandfather told him, "and above all, remember that true tales are meant to be transmitted—to keep them to oneself is to betray them." Wiesel does not merely tell us, but draws, with the hand of a master, the portraits of the leaders of the movement that created a revolution in the Jewish world. Souls on Fire is a loving, personal affirmation of Judaism, written with words and with silence. The author brings his profound knowledge of the Bible, the Talmud, Kabbala, and the Hasidic tale and song to this masterpiece, showing us that Elie Wiesel is perhaps our generation's most fervid "soul on fire."

Genres: Judaism, Jewish, Religion, History, Nonfiction, Judaica, Spirituality

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Eliezer "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.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming of age can be a tumultuous episode in our early life. But there are two ways to take it: the easy way... or the much more difficult way.

And if you are a person who has found peace in their life, chances are you’ve taken the hard way: The Path Less Travelled...

Two paths diverged in a wood - and I
Took the one less travelled by
And that has made ALL the difference.

Robert Frost was right.

And Frost was SO much like the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. Okay, maybe a little tamer...

Excuse me, Baal Shem WHO? You’re losing me.

Just think, for a second, back to La Siècle des Lumières - the Enlightenment that made heroes of all freethinkers, like Voltaire and Rousseau. Got it? Only they weren’t so freewheeling in Eastern Europe - the land that time forgot.

Hidden over in the obscurity of old Poland - whose myths and legendary figures the ´cool’ thinkers of the West chose to ignore as backward - a rugged individualist who was also a radical traditionalist and Jewish man of the cloth was setting rationalism on its ears. All by himself.

Rebbe Baal Shem Tov. Who walked the less travelled road.

Have we forgotten his name? Perhaps we never even heard of it? Tant pis pour nous autres!

Okay, then - Wiesel will spin more than a few marvellous, mysterious, magical tales about him for you, if you’ve got the time.

You see, Baal Shem Tov had IT: DVEKUT, a direct line to God Himself.

And if a lifetime of murderous pogroms and nighttime screams and alarms had taught him anything, it was this: just to stand peacefully in the midst of it all and not be troubled.

He said that, no matter what, every thought we think if followed to its roots will lead us back to God.

Oh, he was wild and boisterous, as some faithful souls can be, but in the end there can be no doubt for us, after reading this wonderful book about his and his followers’ miraculous exploits... that he had IT. He had found real PEACE.

His Roots in the Absolute.

And these tales and legends about him will make you feel ALIVE.

Here’s a koan for you. Why did Boddhidharma go west to Poland?

The correct answer is, to sit at the Baal Shem Tov’s feet, to deepen his satori!

If you get this book, you may find that it’s the only inspirational guide you need for getting through each day with a smile of gusto.

Oh, the Long and Winding Road of Love is arduous, for sure...

But only love - and never worry, hate or hurry - will get you to your final destination.

[Stacey B · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not that I don't love and respect Eli Wiesel that I rated this 3.0
It's that I have never rated any of his books less than 5**
I have read many out of his 57 books.
I love his passions and messages he insisted be passed down to each generation.
So that, we will not be blindsided again due to our religion.
So that, we will understand in order to keep our culture alive we must be observant in our traditions.
So that, theses stories told becomes part of our tradition.
I was fortunate to have met Eli Wiesel.
I was thrilled to have had the chance to say more than just "Hi, how are ya-"
I am not surprised by the title he gave this book; rather, I would have expected it.
I recognized that for the first time one of his books sadly wasn't for me.
I questioned why.
But can't put my finger on a sound reason to answer my own question.
But am aware -I'm one of the very few who feel this way.
Why do I feel so guilty.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read the opening chapter on the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, and it raises more questions than answers. As I think more about it, I will expand my comments.

[Anne Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

For over ten years, I've absolutely loved Charles Osborne's Souls on Fire, an orchestral rendering of this book. It's splendid, glorious, inspiring.

However, in finally getting around to reading the book which had been the spark behind Osborne's symphonic song suite, I find myself curiously disappointed. Maybe I set myself up for it: there are many gold nuggets here but the song is missing.

In other circumstances, I might have rated it much higher... but in the end, it seemed fragmented. It held out the promise that the mosaic would eventually come together to show the full picture but that never eventuated.

[Kressel Housman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Elie Wiesel is a great humanitarian, but this book was so disjointed, I had to give up in the middle. My husband says it's not an accurate history of Chassidus either.

[Brandon Bier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone knows Elie Wiesel has a gift for storytelling. I think this is his best work in that regard. The stories are all personal as many of them come from his grandfather, himself a chassid. He writes with such deference and awe that the characters of this book seem alive; not just in his depiction for the reader, but as if he was just relating events that happened the other day.
Wiesel cleverly jibes at the reader’s potential attempts to box in the more elusive legends, instead preferring to redirect the reader’s efforts towards the themes of the stories. The book is not intended to present a precise historical account of chassidic masters. It aims to present some of chassidism’s most mystical stories and Weisel’s articulate and emotional presentation only adds to their transcendence. Oh and he succeeds.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I asked a friend for a good book on the history of the Hasiidic movement, and he gave me this. What a gem. Wiesel writes
with a magical blend of poetry and scholarship, but above all, he writes with his heart.

[Gabriel Kaufman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible work!

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at what were essentially Hasidic rock stars.

[Allison Roy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care for this book. To be fair I picked it up because of the author and I liked the title so I just got it in that pile of 28 books I bought.

This was pretty painful to read. I am horrific with names so to distinguish between all the very similar Jewish Rebbes was just impossible for me. It kind of felt like reading through a terrible, religious version of Lord of the Rings. I thought that before seeing the map in the back of the book which also actually looks very LOTR inspired.

I generally enjoy reading about religion. Im not religious but I pick out things I like that humans believe in to just be not shitty to other humans or earth. Of all religions this one had the least attraction for me. Hasidic Jews seemed awfully petty throughout history. I could talk more about this but I’m not trying to sell anyone on it. On the back of the book it said it was a National best seller and I feel like I got punked. I’m gonna have to read Night again to make up for this.

[Jacob Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elie Wiesel's telling of the lives and tales of the Hasidic masters is at turns beautiful and unsettling, humorous and poignant. The lives and tales themselves call to mind the sayings and stories of the Christian Desert fathers. Wiesel's own voice, and his largely implicit foregrounding of the tales against the backdrop of a post-Auschwitz world, add a modern literary layer to these essentially spiritual tales.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has affected me more deeply than any other I can think of.

[David Amsel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smooth and surprisingly linear for a book on Jewish Mysticism. Great personal stories from Elie about his family and personal struggles with the legends.

[Nate Merrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I got this for my bar mitzvah and never read it until now. It's a very good collections of stories of Hasidic masters in english, which seems rare. I wish there were more, obviously, but Elie Wiesel does say at the end that he did not include all of them, and only included the ones that he thought were most important, which was of course colored by his childhood. I also didn't really like he brought so many of their teachings back to the Holocaust, which sort took me out of mode of thinking about 18th and 19th c. E. Europe. See also the blurb on the back which refers to "Hasidism's brief splendor", as if Hasidism has been declining since the Besht, or was ended entirely by the Holocaust. This is obviously not the way to look at the movement. I wonder how much that view is influenced by general 'lachrymose" views of observant Judaism, of Jewish history in general, by Wiesel's own view of Jewish life in Europe after the war, or of Hasidism in the decades following WW2 (which I'd think was much less stable that Hasidic life in N. America and Israel in the early 21st century).

[David Doel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm disappointed, although the book is exactly what the subtitle (Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters) suggests. It's a bit like reading a book about baseball stars when you've never seen a baseball game and your wish was to learn about baseball.

To make matters worse, I do not like these people he is describing. It is not at all clear to me that they care about anyone or anything other than themselves. If there are spiritual or moral lessons to be gained from their lives, I am missing them.

This may be the first time that I gained more from the appendices than from the book proper. They came close to meeting my goals for reading the book (but not quite).

Elie Wiesel was a marvelous author and human being. For me, this was not his best work.

[Micebyliz]

It's difficult to critique the book of such a man...maybe he left these things out on purpose. I noticed that several of the profiled figures, as they neared the end of their lives, were either afflicted with dementia of some kind or another related problem of mental health. It was the way they were described. At the times they lived in those things were not recognized of spoken of, but in retrospect, it's probably what happened. If only there had been adequate health care.
For a person of great intellect and leadership to become basically another person is so very sad.
Otherwise, it was a really interesting and informative book. It's too bad there was so much exclusivity because it came back to bite everyone.

[Devin Harazmus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel is really a collection of sayings and stories about 18th and 19th century Hasidic Jewish masters, who were leaders of a conservative religious Jewish movement in Eastern Europe. The book does not analyze or study Hasidic Judaism or its masters. Instead, it tells stories about the Hasidic masters. These stories give the reader a good understanding of some of these Hasidic masters. I found the book Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel to be somewhat difficult to follow for someone who has no prior knowledge of the Jewish religion but I found its history to be very interesting.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptional story telling, and what a wonderful description of Hasidism in its beginnings and the colorful characters it espoused.

Parts of it were hard to get through, the meaning deeper than I could grasp and largely escaping me. In addition, it was hard for me to follow all the various names of the Rabbis and keep them straight. The lessons they taught and the stories they told are beyond compare and some of the greatest advice I have ever heard, however that didn't stop my eyes from glazing over at points.

[Gary Sankary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written overview about the rise of the Chassidic movement in Eastern Europe. These are fascinating individuals who started a revolution in Jewish practices in the 1700 and 1800s. These days we often forget that the Chassidic movement was a populist movement that made worship and practice accessible to the everyday person. It reaction to the orthodoxy of the day.
The book also talks about the Misnagdim and the opposition to the movement.
This is an easy book to read, covering a complicated history and sometimes difficult concepts.

[Adam Cherson]

Elie Wiesel brings both the spiritual and factual together and then provides his own rationality to the affair in this even-keeled and readable summary of Chassidism's early days. I would have liked to see the 'Tanya' (R' Schneur Zalman of Liadi) included in the set of biographical sketches, but I am certainly glad to have gone behind the scenes on so many of the founding figures. I now have a flesh and blood image in my mind for many of these legendary names. For those seeking insight into the underpinnings of Chassidism this is a great place to begin.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and told in a colloquial, informal style that feels perfect for the subject matter. Though the book thoroughly evokes the feeling of the Hasidic movement, it falls a little short of explaining the basis of their beliefs. While we get the sense that there is a spark, a fire that shapes their beliefs, where does that fire come from? Perhaps best read with a historical narrative of the Hasidic movement or a theological exploration of belief. Still a captivating book.

[Mitchell Gronowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for biographical information about all the chassidic masters. Unfortunately, much is unknown about them...so instead this book was more about the stories they told. I found it interesting and enlightening but disorganized. At the end, I was frustrated that many of the masters were portrayed very similarly. But the task to organize chassidus is not easy, and I definitely enjoyed the read.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel takes place in Poland from approximately 1700 to 1800. It tracks the life of Yisroel ben Eliezer aka the Baal Shem Tov and his successor Dov Baer ben Avraham. These 2 men were the founders of the Hasidic movement, a branch of Judaism. If you want to read about the kind of faithful people that were destroyed in the Holocaust this is the book to read.

[Gabi Aharonov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was an incredible read. The style was perfect for my takes-forever-to-finish-a-book lifestyle. It was a beautiful portrait of the Besht and many of his disciples. Worth the read.
And if you're nervous about content, yes it's serious, but it's not focused on holocaust (though it comes up a few times, nothing graphic).

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

To read about the Hasidic masters was for me a struggle, a voyage into confusing and, for me, uncharted waters. Intense, often angry, sometimes joyful men, they seem to suffer from mania and depression. An ultimately tragic story. Where is redemption? Where is healing and grace? Where is God?

[Levi Welton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baruch Hashem, I literally was in bed reading, turned to my wife and said, "this book is brilliant." I spent years avoiding this book because the cover turned me off (cliche, right?) But little did I know how poetic, how compelling, and how inspiring this would be.

[Lia Mordezki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it! I did not know much about Hasidic masters at all , and this was such a good book to learn from. I was fascinated by some of the characters, and my book is full of tabs due to all the good quotes.

[Garth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

A collection of stories/tales from and about early Hasidic masters, interspersed with biographical information.

The stories were interesting. I found the rest to be a little hagiographic and meandering.

[Hannah Petosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fascinating if you are i️interested in Hasidism. Personally, was hard for me to get through but great tales.

[Stevie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good characters trying to make up for a lack of a Messiah.