Preface A Note on Transliteration and Style Introduction Part I. Foundations Chapter 1. The Life of the Maggid Chapter 2. Sacred Words Chapter 3. From Speech to Silence Part II. The Divine Word Chapter 4. Letters, Creation, and the Divine Mind Chapter 5. The Nature of Torah and Revelation Part III.

The Devotional Life Chapter 6. Study and the Sacred Text Chapter 7. The Languages of Prayer Epilogue. Moving Mountains Appendix. The Sources: A Bibliographic Excursus Notes Bibliography Index * * * * * Preface Dov Ber of Mezritsh is a figure shrouded in mystery. Although he is widely regarded as one of the most important and creative Jewish thinkers of the eighteenth century, his theology is exceptionally difficult and complex. Scholars and historians of religion have long attempted to make sense of his laconic homilies and penetrate his obtuse mystical symbolism. They have struggled to piece together his biography and better understand his place in the development of Hasidism.

Indeed, interest in Dov Ber extends far beyond the walls of the academy. A wide range of Jewish seekers, thinkers, and philosophers have turned to Dov Ber''s sophisticated devotional teachings as holding the seeds for a renewal of contemporary Jewish life. Present-day Hasidic leaders have been captivated by his mysterious teachings, seeing them as a remedy for a religious movement that has lost much of its spiritual momentum. His writings and indeed his outsize religious personality have had an enormous impact on the most important renewal movement of Jewish modernity. This book argues that Dov Ber''s reflections on the nature of language and the power of human speech rest at the heart of his allure. Abraham Joshua Heschel, a modern Jewish mystic who drank deeply from the wellsprings of Hasidism, argued that restoring the power and dignity of language was the key to human flourishing after the unspeakable tragedies of the twentieth century. "The renewal of man," claimed Heschel, "involves a renewal of language." The noted philosopher Charles Taylor has suggested that the experience of modernity demands that we "return to, while reexamining, Aristotle''s definition of the human being as ''Zwon echon logon''.

" Reclaiming our identity as "speaking beings," individuals for whom the word is constitutive as well as communicative, is a crucial step in reckoning with the nature of what it can mean to be human. Dov Ber''s theory of language gives contemporary readers an opportunity to grasp the power of words as that which makes us human. He holds a vision of God as dwelling in the heart and mind of the mystic, embodied in the faculty of language and expressed through our words. Language tears away the veil that divides the mystic from God, but it accomplishes something more. Dov Ber''s teachings are attentive to a sublime kind of intentional interiority, portraying the inner religious journey as a quest to unite the language of man with the ineffable echoes of divine silence. The language of human worship, argues Dov Ber, may break the chains of silence that shackle the Divine, giving life to the word and speaking God into being. The present book was written with several different audiences in mind. For scholars interested in the development of Jewish mysticism--and Jewish thought and theology more generally-- Speaking Infinities offers a novel interpretation of the vital religious thinker at the helm of early Hasidism.

I am also seeking to reach a broader scholarly audience. To do so I have tried to make the difficult concepts at the core of Dov Ber''s kabbalistic theology accessible to all those who wish to ponder the enduring enigma of the relationship of mind, language, and the life of the spirit. These are the motifs that undergird this book and guide its narrative. I hope that Speaking Infinities will hold much for those invested in the questions of language and what it means to be human in a world in which words have been devalued to the absurd. Speaking Infinities grew forth from my experiences as a teacher in a wide variety of academic and religious settings. I struggle to make the often-recondite concepts of Jewish mysticism accessible to a diverse range of students engaged in the life of the mind. Teaching these Jewish sources as a humanist requires me to step beyond the boundaries of Jewish thought, showing students that mystical texts both ancient and modern may speak to the deepest questions of existential meaning. Humanities faculty are tasked with creating a space for the moral, ethical, and spiritual reflection that is a critical component of the quest for self-formation at the heart of liberal education.

Embracing this role is, I believe, all the more important at research universities without divinity schools. We must help our students cultivate reverence for the immense power of language and reflect on the abyss that rises up when the word is misused. Like all teachers, I struggle with the limits of language as a finite medium of communication. My time in the classroom is sown with frequent pauses, allowing students to gaze beyond the surface in an effort to consider the pulsing heart of the text. Together we enter the quiet liminal zone of interpretation, an echo chamber that surrounds its words as white spaces upon the page. But, like Dov Ber, my refusal to sink into permanent silence represents an embrace of the quest to share of my inner world with my students. Choosing speech over silence links us to other human beings, forming an intimate conduit of communication between masters and disciples, parents and children, and experts and novices. These words serve as vessels, channels through which the possessions of one human mind and soul are shared with others.

In spending the past decade with the teaching of Dov Ber, writing about his life and thought has become a kind of spiritual practice. In what follows, I have attempted to share something of that with the readers of this book.