IT was the misfortune of R. Zevi Elimelekh Shapira of Dynow (1783-1841) that most of his life was lived in the nineteenth century, and for this reason scholars have deemed him and his teaching unworthy of serious consideration. Fortunately for us, intellectual fashions have changed in recent years, and many have come to recognize that even in the nineteenth century the sap of hasidism was by no means exhausted. Hasidic thought continued to develop and to diversify into streams of ever-increasing breadth and depth, with no, evidence of the degeneration which its detractors in the not so distant past have claimed to perceive.

The editors of the Hebrew Encyclopaedia have seen fit to devote to the Rabbi of Dynow and his writings no more than eighteen lines, and the modern Encyclopedia Judaica less than a column. I myself do not propose to dwell in detail on his biography; in brief: he did not belong to a rabbinical dynasty; his principal teachers were Menahem Mendel of Rymanow and Jacob Isaac, the Seer of Lublin, and after them the Maggid of Kozienice and the Rabbi of Opatow (Apta). He had close links also with certain outstanding disciples of the Seer of Lublin, prominent among these being R. Naphtali of Ropczyce and R. Zevi Hirsch of Zhidachov.

The Rabbi of Dynow was one of the few whose teaching gained acceptance among all hasidic circles, and his book Benei Yisakhar is reckoned one of the classics of hasidism. Since 1846 it has been printed at least twenty-one times (an average of one edition per seven years), while the Toledot Ya'akov Yosej, which is of equivalent scope, has appeared since 1780 in sixteen editions, one for every thirteen years. And Benei Yisakhar is only one of a dozen major works composed by the Rabbi of Dynow.

In the course of editing the book Sur mera va'aseh tov by the Rabbi of Zhidachov, with commentary by the Rabbi of Dynow,l I had occasion to study his other works, and through these I became aware of the concept of ‘sin for the sake of Heaven’ (averah lishmah) which is the focal point of the present discussion.