God's Middlemen: A Habad Retrospective : Stories of Mystical Rabbis

Gods Middlemen is a fascinating collection of stories of Jewish mystical rabbis from the Hasidic tradition know as Habad. Reuven Alpert has journeyed among the Hasidim and Gods Middlemen presents his meetings with remarkable rabbis and recollections of earlier masters of the Habad way. From Crown Heights, Brooklyn to Jerusalem, from White Russia to the Andes, we encounter well-known rabbis and unknown holy men through short, poignant stories of faith, exile, and hope. Running through the stories is the melancholic anticipation among the Habad faithful of the appearance of the long-awaited Messiah, particularly the expectations centered on the legendary Schneer-sohn dynasty of rabbis, culminating with the intense messianic fervor recently focused on the late Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneersohn (d. 1994), the last of the Lubavitcher line of rabbis.

Reuven Alperts stories read like good fiction, providing intimate details of the rhythms, cadences, and flavors of Jewish spirituality, taking the reader into the heart of this vibrant mystical tradition. Gods Middlemen provides us with a glimpse into the essence of the Habad tradition through the lives of Jews who have experienced the ineffable of the Infinite within the inevitable sufferings of human experience. Gods Middlemen is introduced by Rabbi Bezalel Naor, who provides a succinct survey of the Habad movement.