נועם אלימלך · Noam Elimelech

Elimelech of Lizhensk's Torah commentary, and the book that gave the tzaddik his job description: the righteous man as the channel through whom shefa — children, life and sustenance — is drawn down to his community.

The theoretical charter of the rebbe as an institution. ⚠ Everything the mitnagdim feared about a person standing between a Jew and God is here, argued for, in print, by a serious kabbalist — which is why the quarrel could not be settled by pointing out that nobody had said it.