Hasidic Wisdom: Sayings from the Jewish Sages is among the many lifelong efforts of Rabbi Simcha Raz, one of Jerusalem's leading teachers, writers, and educators. The original book in Hebrew is titled Pitgamay Hasidim. It has been a perennial best-seller in Israel for the past fifteen years and is now in its 8th edition. The book is divided into thirty brief chapters on issues that have relevance to every human being: love and hate, faith, truth, the inner life, heaven and hell, leadership, loneliness, friendship, piety, anger, music, poverty, righteousness, prayer, charity, and repentance. Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins has been translating various selections of the book for his sermons, lectures, and classes since he first bought the Hebrew book in the mid-1980s. After countless listeners and readers asked him for the source of the hasidic quotations, he decided to translate the entire book into English, to make it available for a more diverse audience. Enlisting the assistance of his son, Jonathan, a freelance writer and television reporter in Israel, the two men collaborated on the project to render the Hebrew into idiomatic English, and to preserve its traditional nuances. The reader will find in this newest and most clearly focused treasure of hasidic doctrine a touching, heartwarming collection of profound revelations on spirituality, Torah, human relationships, and personal growth.

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The Torah's Seventy Faces: Commentaries on the Weekly Sidrah Compiled by Simcha Raz Edited with an Introduction by Dov Peretz Elkins The weekly Torah portions have served throughout history as a treasure for teaching and preaching, for law and lore, for discussion and dialog. In each portion, one finds viewpoints and background which elevate the soul, give a sense of awe and wonder, spark encouragement in times of crisis, and motivate creativity and human action. It is no wonder that, over the course of generations, wells of wisdom have sprung from the depths of these weekly lections, from which we can sustain our spirit and slake our thirst, each person according to need and temperament. Pearls of wisdom, ethical lessons, parables, wise proverbs, and tales of parents and children: it is all there. * Our task in this collection of commentaries was to assemble a selection of these treasures, and to present to the reader choice nuggets from these hewn stones. Among the selections are sources from ancient rabbis, Talmudic scholars, and masters of the Midrash, as well as teachers from all periods of our history - biblical commentators, Hasidic saints, pious educators and purveyors of ethical tales. The commentaries touch on a plethora of subjects, including relations among people, with our Maker, and with ourselves. In all this, we come to know that our holy Torah has never known boundaries. In every generation, the "people of the book" invested their thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs, recognizing that within these chapters of the Torah are embedded not only pathways that reach to the distant past, but also forms of expression for the harried present and for dreams of the future. (From the Preface)

Throughout the generations, Jews have been inspired and guided by the tales of gedolim, our great masters of piety and wisdom. Simcha Raz's "Tales of the Righteous", newly translated by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, brings the lives of these masters to life. Raz's pithy vignettes and awe-inspiring tales show that together with their brilliance in Torah study, these rabbis were also paragons of sensitive, ethical behaviour.