The Hasidic Story: A Call for Narrative Religiosity

Abstract

The paper examines the dominance of narrative in Hasidic religious life through the discourse of narrative ethics and its implications for theology, specifically feminist theology, and for religion in general. I claim that the centrality of storytelling in Hasidism reflects and constructs an essential attitude toward religious life. This attitude directs one to narrative and contextual thinking, which both focus on the specific person, circumstances, and emotions, as opposed to law, norms, and abstract determination. This centrality of storytelling is connected to a deep Hasidic awareness of the restrictive nature of normative religious life, a finite facet of the infinite paths to God.