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THIS collection of essays and studies contains the greater part of Joseph Weiss's contribution to the study of hasidism, written in a language other than Hebrew. It is a tribute to a teacher who both commanded respect and inspired affection, and whose tragic early death robbed hasidism of one of its finest researchers and interpreters.
Joseph Weiss was born in Budapest in 1918. After specializing originally in the sciences, he enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1937 and at the same time studied at the Department of Philosophy and Semitic Languages at the University of Budapest. In 1939 he emigrated to Palestine, where he continued his studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He came to England in 1950 and, after spending some time in research at Leeds and Oxford, joined the faculty of the Hebrew Department (now the Department of Jewish Studies) at University College London. He remained there first as Assistant Lecturer and then Reader, and was appointed Professor of Jewish Studies in 1966, which post he held until his death in 1969.
He was Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies, London, and for some time edited the Journal of Jewish Studies; his major written work was Meḥkarim baḥasidut braslav (Studies in Bratslav Hasidism) (Jerusalem, 1974).
The initial editorial work on the present volume was undertaken by Isaiah Shachar. He was engaged on it when he contracted a fatal illness, and he died in 1977 at the age of 42.
I have not attempted to add any material that did not come from Weiss's pen. The few additions to the printed studies are the author's own. A small number of editorial bibliographical references in the notes, rendered necessary by the nature of this collection, have been put in square brackets.
Weiss was always anxious about expressing himself in English, and would search for hours for the correct word. Although a number of changes were necessary to the English of his unpublished essays, I have tried to retain the original flavour of Weiss's style. I have standardized the spelling and romanization of names and technical terms.
The translations from the Hebrew of ‘Torah Study in Early Hasidism’ and ‘The Hasidic Way of Ḥabad’ are Weiss's own.
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