R. Naphtali Zevi of Ropczyce ‘the Ropshitser’ as a Hasidic Leader

This chapter focuses on R. Naphtali Zevi Horowitz of Ropczyce. What is known of the life of R. Naphtali is drawn mainly from collections of hasidic hagiography published many years after his death. The hagiographical literature of hasidism—a large body of oral traditions committed to writing long after the events they describe—is highly problematic and its validity as historical source material has been frequently questioned. The chapter distinguishes between didactic material, which offers virtually no insight into the historical reality of R. Naphtali, and such concrete historical details as do occasionally occur in the tales, furnishing the background against which the plots are developed. It is worth remembering that R. Naphtali's homiletic writings were published long before any of the hagiographical works about him. His two homiletic works, Ayalah sheluḥzah (Lemberg, 1862) and Zera kodesh (Lemberg, 1868), appeared many years after his death (in 1827) since he did not allow them to be published.