This book deals with the characteristics of the Messianic idea, surveying its historical appearances and expressions in the philosophies of very different thinkers such as Isaac Abarbanel, Solomon Molcho, the Maharal of Prague, Menasseh ben Israel, Abraham Isaac Kook and Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal. These thinkers all embarked on a mutual search for religious significance of the tragic experience of exile, namely in the new era of the history of the Jews, from the Expulsion of Spain through the Holocaust. They sought to give meaning to the yearning for redemption, which became an essential and urgent question with the atrocities of history.

Offered here for the first time in English translation, Hasidism as Mysticism is a classic in its field. Using the tools of phenomenology, Rivka Schatz Uffenheimer places Hasidism squarely in the context of religious studies. Hasidism's theoretical texts have been largely ignored by historians of the movement, but Shatz Uffenheimer analyzes these materials fully, disclosing the mystical, quietistic tendencies that existed alongside Hasidism's more activist popular elements. The author carefully reviewed this translation of her work: it includes a revised introduction with new material, two new chapters, and an appendix containing a translation, history and literary analysis of one of the few extant texts attributed to the Ba'al Shem Tov.

The book studied here was chosen because of its importance in Hasidism and because it is one of the first books published about this movement. This publication helps to understand the text in MAGGID DEVARAV LE-YA’AKOV and answer questions about Hasidism in the 18th century- Its roots, its objectors and followers, its relationship with the Haskalah and Zionism movements and more.