Word: tzaddiks
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...shalom. The words refer to God, but as 300 worshippers thump tambourines and clap their hands in the warm night, they have someone else in mind. It is the rabbi. He shuffles through the crowd, small and bowed. They touch him for his blessing. He is a tzaddik, a holy man, a saint. "I will clean the people," he mutters. His arm winging like a metronome, Rabbi Yaakov Ifargan slings candles into a brazier until the flame rises 20 ft. and wax sizzles onto the dusty ground. At 3 a.m., almost four hours into this ceremony, he turns...
Danny is a Hasid-a member of the ultra-Orthodox sect that affects earlocks, broad-brimmed hats and long, black overcoats-while Reuven, the novel's narrator, practices a more liberal Judaism. As the son of a tzaddik (as the Hasids' hereditary rabbis are called), Danny must follow his father as the sect's leader, though his personal bent is toward psychology. Gradually, the two boys work toward Danny's inevitable break with tradition and discover along the way that the humanistic content of Judaism far outweighs its rigid ritualism...
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