Reviews for The quest for authenticity

The average rating for The quest for authenticity based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-26 00:00:00 Alex Verse On the personal growth front (possibly because it was exactly the right thing at the right time), both intellectually and spiritually, this is my pick for best book of the year. Over the past two weeks, I've read this cover-to-cover twice. I've also convinced my Chevrutah to get it, so will be going over it again soon, in more depth. Much like the ideals of Przysucha, if you come to this book looking for a strong wing of spirituality or serious scholarship alone, you'll be disappointed. If you leave out either interest in approaching this, you'll miss something major. However, if you come looking for a work with BOTH wings, you'll find it. Recommended, with slight caveat that you need to have some history/general knowledge of Hasidut coming into this to really get why Przysucha (Holy Yehudi/R. Simcha Bunim/Kotzker Rebbe) was/is so incredible. Giant bonuses that make this rabbinical student feel like I won the lottery: All the appendix work at the back of the book, Hebrew sources included, and the bibliography which pretty much reads to me like a menu from a book cafe somewhere located in Olam haBa. Also FOOTNOTES not end notes. I cannot tell you how important this is, especially in this book because the references are half of the importance of the book. Read the footnotes or you will miss major things.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-24 00:00:00 Dimosthenis Tassonis Quest for Authenticity is in my opinion less a guide to the religious thought of Reb Simhah Bunim than it is a guide to the late Michael Rosen's ideas about spiritual pedagogy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. He's identified a thread of hasidic thought that for its time took large strides toward the destabilization of power between rebbe and hasid. By focusing specifically upon the challenges to that relationship within the short-lived Peshishchan lineage he's able to give voice to his own thoughts about mentoring. Taken as Rosen's personal philosophy the book is highly valuable. The world has lost a man of incredible compassion. In addition to the insights he's gained through a decidedly neo-hasidic recontextualization of hasidic thought, his appendix on his method for engaging with hagiographic texts offers a non-reductionist alternative to rejecting hagiographies altogether in favor of "harder" sources.