The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Nehemia Polen, Northvale, N.J., and Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 1994, 1998. 232pp. $25.00 (cloth).

Jewish mysticism teaches that when the world was created sacred vessels exploded. To repair and complete the creation, human beings must collect sacred sparks and bring them back to their source. The Jewish world was shattered irreparably during the years of the Shoah. Among the holy sparks that have recently been made accessible through translation and commentary are the writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, a well-known Polish Jewish pedagogue who taught in the Warsaw Ghetto. He prepared a manuscript of this teachings in the ghetto between 1939 and 1942. It was buried in 1943 and discovered after the war by a Polish construction worker. On top of the bundle in the container was a note requesting that the materials be taken to Israel, where they were later published in Hebrew as Eish Kodesh, the "Holy Fire." As the last work published before the Holocaust by a Hasidic leader, it reveals a profound mystical response to suffering. Nehemia Polen's book carefully analyzes the spiritual response articulated in a collection of drashot (homilies or commentaries on the weekly Torah portion and holidays).

The collection is not merely a series of drashot, Polen argues. In these homilies, Shapira develops themes and wrestles with theodicy. Their central feature, he writes, is "the diachronic unfolding of key ideas, which gradually crystallize to form a cohesive and characteristic theological response" (xviii). Shapira's response to the events engulfing him and his community demonstrates an attempt to transcend reality with Torah in new ways (20).

In the early stages of the Warsaw Ghetto, there is little direct reference to events in Shapira's homilies, which Polen explains as a conscious decision: ". . . the very avoidance of the theme of persecution and suffering is a deliberate choice, a movement to transcendence" (54). Gradually, there is an increasing presence of a transformation of his basic theology. "The move away from a systematic religious calculus of reward and chastisement is associated with a new emphasis on mythic, eschatological and apocalyptic themes" (111). While Shapira initially stresses one of the most common traditional interpretations of suffering, he moves toward an emphasis on the responsive nature of one's relationship with God in time of extreme anguish.

The most important theological transformation is his increasing reliance on an anthropopathic God. Shapira teaches in several pieces that God's emotions are a divine response to human emotion; thus, the emotional experience of a person affects God. "Precisely because God is infinite, His suffering is infinite and beyond human conception" (117). His central theological argument is that the Jew has a dynamic relationship with God, in which God is held responsible. Yet, one must also remember God's deep empathy for the suffering of the individual, which itself should be eased with the knowledge of divine compassion (21ff).

Most astonishing and profound is Shapira's commentary on the Torah portion entitled Chayei Sarah ("The Years of Sarah's Life"), written in 1939 after his own mother's death, which followed her intense grief at the deaths of her grandson and other family members. In attempting to explain Isaac's mother Sarah's death immediately following the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22-23), he makes the stunning suggestion that her death was in fact a quasi-suicide, or a protest against God because of Israel's suffering. "One might . . . argue that Sarah's taking the binding of Isaac so much to heart that her soul left her body was a [deliberate] act taken on behalf of Israel. It was intended to demonstrate to God that Israel cannot endure an excessive amount of suffering" (96-97).

Of particular interest is the extent to which the drashot are permeated with reflections on the psychological impact on the Jew of the suffering experienced in the Ghetto. Shapira writes that "the way to reveal the inner self is by teaching Torah, and it is in the word of Torah that one is truly present" (55). Clearly these reflections were influenced by his writings before the Nazi invasion, which evidence a deeply psychologically based understanding of human spiritual development.

Polen's study is not without problems. The shift in Shapira's theology, and the developing patterns in the drashot, may not be as neat as depicted. The reader might question whether there is in fact a coherent theory in Eish Kodesh. Could one not interpret many of the transitions and theologies as coping mechanisms, a struggle to find meaning was Viktor Frankl argued? But Polen is confident that these writings represent a delicate interplay: "The external realities provided the context for the discourses, but the internal dynamic was rooted in the author's own creative engagement with the Torah" (20).

Ultimately, Shapira teaches that one must do everything to prevent suffering's destroying us by maintaining dignity and hope. "So it is necessary to strengthen oneself, even during the sufferings; to be like a prince taken hostage who, although he receives beatings, nevertheless remains a prince . . ." (60). As things worsened in the Ghetto, Shapira argues for a new model of service that will have an impact on the din (judgment) and cause God to reveal hosed (mercy): "But now a new mode of divine service has been given us; controlling ourselves, overcoming depression and a broken spirit, finding our strength in God. This is indeed very difficult, because the sufferings are beyond endurance . . ." (61).

Polen suggests that Shapira's teachings can be applied to our own reality as well. They demonstrate that suffering inherently prompts a search for new meaning in sacred texts (20ff). This is in contrast, perhaps, to the classical readings of the Book of Job, which generally argue that Job was not moved to re-interpret texts, much less develop a complex theology. Perhaps too often, religious texts present a God that remains static in the face of immense human suffering. We must remember, however, that upon closer examination, even in classical rabbinic literature, there is a wide variety of responses to suffering. With careful attention to inconsistencies and the widest theological possibilities, Polen is uniquely able to illuminate the unfolding of Shapira's theological responses to suffering. Historians, psychologists, philosophers, and theologians alike will find the works of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of great significance.

RACHEL T. SABATH