Bücher veröffentlicht von Barak Bassman

On a late summer night in 18th century Poland, a Jewish wanderer enters a tavern in a small shtetl and tells a tale of his late master and teacher, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the holy Baal Shem Tov. And not just any tale: This will be the tale of how the Baal Shem Tov once spent a long night in a remote forest hut with a lamed vovnik, one of the thirty-six hidden saints who, according to Jewish legend, sustain the world through their righteousness - even though outwardly they lead lives of bitter poverty and humble obscurity. Yet as the tale progresses, and the hidden saint reveals more of his past, it becomes apparent that darker forces are afoot.The Twisted Path of the Hidden Saint: An Occult Tale of the Baal Shem Tov is a dark, twisted story of evil and sorcery, and how the striving for goodness can be manipulated and perverted.

Yehiel is a wealthy Jewish timber merchant in a shtetl in 18th century Poland, with a happy family at home, including a teenage daughter for whom he soon hopes to strike a fine marriage match. But then one night she suddenly refuses to eat and starts to cut and scratch at her own skin. Over the succeeding days and weeks, her behavior becomes ever more erratic and baffling. Terrified and confused at what could be happening to his beloved daughter, Yehiel desperately searches far and wide for answers until, at last, the famed kabbalistic master Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, comes to his aid. The Baal Shem Tov confronts the wandering spirit, the dybbuk, that has possessed her and performs a dramatic exorcism. But as Yehiel will learn, the exorcism was not the end of the spirit's entanglement with his daughter.

The year is 1770, and new mystical movements are sweeping across the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine. A traveling Jewish preacher arrives in a small town on the eve of Shabbat, eager to impart his new vision and strange practices, but the town's Jews send him away in scorn and contempt. However, after the preacher returns to save the town's children from a horrific pestilence, which had proven impervious to all medical interventions and fervent prayers, he is embraced and beloved. But then he reveals the mad brutality and nihilism beneath his doctrines of joy and wonder at the splendor of divine creation; he leaves a trail of bitterness and suffering in his wake.