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Nine Gates to the
Chasidic Mysteries
By: Jiri Langer
ISBN: 0-8766-8249-2
Page count: 312 pages
Size: 6.00 x 9.00
Binding: Hardcover
List Price: $40.00 |
 In 1913, at the age of
nineteen, Jiri Langer, a Czech Jew from a Europeanized
Jewish household, journeyed to the region of Eastern Europe
once known as Galicia, deciding to immerse himself in the
timeless spiritual world of Chasidism. His destination was
Belz, one of the many small villages, towns, hamlets, and
cities where Chasidism lived almost untouched by the modern
world. After a time, he returned to the city of Prague and
to his assimilated family, yet continued to wear traditional
chasidic garb and lead a religiously observant life. As his
older brother, the playwright Frantisek Langer, writes, "My
brother had not come back from Belz, to home and
civilization; he had brought Belz with him."
Part autobiography, part anthology of tales and anecdotes,
Nine Gates to the Chasidic Mysteries is Jiri Langer's
lyrical, ezquisitely written memoir and exploration of the
world of mystical faith that he encountered during his
experiences among the chasidim of eastern Galicia. A
remarkable piece of self-revelation and self-analysis, Nine
Gates to the Chasidic Mysteries was almost instantly praised
as a literary masterpiece upon its publication in 1937.
Eighteen months after it was published, it was banned by the
Nazis, who had occupied the region and labeled the book a
monstrosity of art, copies being confiscated as a result of
house-to-house searches. Yet, this exceptional example of
spiritual autobiography continues to live, having since been
translated into several languages, including Italian and
German. Part of the special quality of Nine Gates to the
Chasidic Mysteries is that despite its being deeply rooted
in the world of mystical Judaism, the sketches of chasidic
life and the folktales that Langer learned during his life
among the chasidim are written for the reader who is not
familiar with the esoteric theology of Kabbalah. As the
author's brother remarks in his insightful and revealing
foreword to the book, "Their purpose was to tell . .
.something different about the Jews from that which Nazi
anti-Semitism was endeavoring to smuggle across the
Czechoslovak frontier."
Jiri Langer was indeed a remarkable individual. A friend of
Franz Kafka (he taught Kafka Hebrew) and Max Brod (who
writes in his own autobiography that some of his work would
never have been written without Langer's help), he was also
one of Sigmund Freud's earliest admirers, and he wrote a
number of studies of Jewish ritual and literature, applying
Freud's ideas along the way.
During the past several years, many Jews have witnessed
family members from nontraditional homes making the decision
to pursue a religious lifestyle. Such an individual is known
as a baal teshuvah, literally "master of return," and the
number of people who fit this description has grown to the
point where it is considered to be a phenomenon; it has been
called the "baal teshuvah movement." Nine Gates to the
Chasidic Mysteries is a document from another time and
place, and yet it captures the same spirit of religious
longing and exploration that we see today among a growing
number of seekers. |
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