In The Sev­enth Beg­gar, Pearl Abra­ham inter­weaves the con­tem­po­rary hasidic world of a Berditchev­er fam­i­ly liv­ing in Mon­sey, NY with the leg­endary 19th cen­tu­ry Nach­man of Brat­slav, the great­est of the hasidic sto­ry­telling mas­ters. Set into the first part of the nov­el are actu­al quotes from Tor­ment­ed Mas­ter, Arthur Green’s bio­graph­i­cal account of Reb Nach­man. These quot­ed sec­tions illu­mi­nate the rela­tion­ship and par­al­lels between the main char­ac­ter, Joel Jakob, and Nach­man while also teach­ing about Nachman’s philo­soph­i­cal outlook. 

In the begin­ning, I was main­ly intrigued by the Tal­mu­dic tech­nique that the author was apply­ing, almost super­im­pos­ing, on the nov­el, name­ly, weav­ing togeth­er past and present, non-fic­tion and leg­end, sci­ence and reli­gion, tra­di­tion and con­tem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tions, real­i­ty and Cha­gall-like realms. The bound­aries were flu­id, as in Nachman’s own last great frame nar­ra­tive, ​“The Sev­en Beggars.” 

Then, in the sec­ond third of the book, when the sto­ry focus­es on Joel’s ques­tion­ing sis­ter Ada, I became deeply immersed in the Hasidic world the author had cre­at­ed. The incor­po­rat­ed leg­ends fas­ci­nat­ed me, espe­cial­ly as they led to the retelling and ​“com­ple­tion” of Nachman’s orig­i­nal unfin­ished tale, which had served as a spring­board and inspired this novel. 

In this com­pelling nar­ra­tive, a type of detec­tive nov­el, we take a cir­cuitous route to dis­cov­er the pow­er­ful world of imag­i­na­tion. As he becomes trans­fixed and trans­formed by read­ing Nachman’s tales, the char­ac­ter Joel dis­cov­ers that ​“the mod­ern form of the fic­tion [is] intrigu­ing in that with­in sev­er­al hun­dred pages a whole world was cre­at­ed.” And, so too, has Pearl Abra­ham cre­at­ed a nov­el that stretch­es the mind, but, more impor­tant­ly, opens up the chal­leng­ing extra­or­di­nary sphere of the imag­i­na­tion, invit­ing us to enter.