The Holy Fire

Discusses Shapira's theological response to questions of belief which arose during the Holocaust (e.g. teaching as defiance; transforming fear into awe; psychic disintegration; overcoming survivor's guilt; self-control; suffering; protest within faith; confronting and transcending the enemy) as reflected in sermons delivered to his disciples and to the Jews of Warsaw during 1939-43. The sermons were compiled by the rabbi in a manuscript entitled "Torah Insights from the Years of Wrath 5700-5702 [1939-42], " which was among the works he himself buried in the Warsaw ghetto. It was eventually published in Israel (1960) under the title "Esh kodesh." During the prewar period, Rabbi Shapira (1889-1944) was the leader of the hasidic congregation of Piaseczno and head of a Warsaw yeshiva. He died in a death camp in 1944. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)