Opowieści chasydzkie Yakova Shechtera .......... 515

YAKOV SHECHTER’S HASIDIC TALES

This article is dedicated to the Hasidic tales of the Russian-Israeli writer Yakov Shechter, presenting them against the backdrop of the genre’s genesis and evolution. His cycle, Истории на исходе субботы (Stories for the End of the Sabbath), serves as the starting point for a discussion of the poetics and function of Shechter’s Hasidic tale. These narratives are short, self-contained stories marked by a moral or spiritual message. They are dominated by the traditional figure of the tzaddik (Hasidic master) or rabbi (often hyperbolized) and motifs such as destiny and the path (derech) as a metaphor for spiritual transformation. The writer employs genre-specific elements that reference the tradition of religious-mystical narratives. Shechter’s poetics of the miraculous tend toward magical realism, in which miracles are a natural element of everyday reality. The text also addresses the significance of the “word” in the Jewish tradition. In the conclusion, the article’s author seeks to answer the question regarding the non-aesthetic goals and motivations that guided Shechter in creating his tales.