Zaddik

While the language is easy-to-read, I had to plow through this book because of its verbosity and redundancy. It doesn't fully describe what a Zaddik is or does, but it does provide some high-level examples. Strangely, R. Yaakov Yosef's definition closely matches the Mahayana Buddhist idea of the Bodhisattva who, while having enlightenment in sight personally, returns to the mundane world in order to help others and assist in raising them up from the muck. The dangers described herein also match. This is reminiscent of Shimon Halevi's comment about contemporary folks leaving Western religions and going East to look for spirituality when it already exists in the West. Here's a case in point. The author, rightly, describes the problem that the early Hasids had regarding the Sabbatean heresy (in which a self-styled messiah converted to Islam under pain of death) and the more (to him) contemporary parallel of Jacob Frank (who brought his followers into Christianity). Both of them used the precept of the leader lowering himself down to a low level in order to raise the people of that level to greater heights. They obviously took this to a great extreme (especially from a Jewish, not to mention Orthodox, perspective). Nonetheless, this is a scholarly work (also read expensive); it has lots of endnotes (mostly in Hebrew--and I like to read the endnotes in books). It also has a 3-page Conclusion at the end of the text. If you can find this book in the library (or borrow it), you can just read the Conclusion. It's a concise, cogent summary of the book. Well worth the read. Better than Cliff Notes!