The Bondmaid

A little girl - Han - is sold, aged four, as a bondmaid or slave into the House of Wu, where she grows up and falls in love with the young heir. But the idyll of childhood attachment turns into a nightmare as Han, beautiful, proud and uncompromisingly loyal, struggles against the forces of tradition and tyranny in a large household where patriarchs and matriarchs wield inexorable power, lustful male relatives watch young bondmaids to claim their rightful share of pleasure, visiting monks devise ingenious schemes to combine holy public duty with unbridled private indulgence, and gods and goddesses smile to see the human drama unfold.

Since the invention of pen and paper, four books have been studied and analyzed more than all others: the Torah, the Gospel, the Qur'an, and Sahih Al-Bukhari. While there have been numerous translations of the first three, there has never been a complete translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari—due to its immense size and utter complexity—until now. After more than ten years of continuous research and translation by multiple layers of linguists, the Arabic Virtual Translation Center is pleased to announce the publication of the first-ever complete English translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari with full sanad and commentary. This is a full and accurate translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari from cover to cover with the addition of explanatory notes, a glossary of every term, and biographies of all characters. Sahih Al-Bukhari is the biggest collection of authentic hadiths. It lays the foundation of Islam and encompasses all the sharia laws. It details the building blocks of the religion and those who constructed them from the Prophet to the Sahabah to the Tabi`un and everyone who influenced them. It is a well-organized labyrinth of Islamic history that describes every precept and explains it thoroughly. Virtually all books about Islam, from those taught in kindergarten to the ones lectured at Azhar University, are interpretations of Sahih Al-Bukhari. Now, with this encyclopedia in hand, we have the opportunity not to rely solely on the works of shady characters, revisionists, or those with ulterior motives. We can retrieve information from its original source in raw format, connect all the dots, and draw our own conclusions. The entire encyclopedia is in full color and is easy to read and understand. It is recommended that it be viewed on a color monitor to easily distinguish between the different features. It is highly advised to peruse the extensive introduction to hadith by the translators before studying Sahih Al-Bukhari. This digital version has links to every entry and similar hadiths to facilitate the comprehension of each story in full. The encyclopedia is under constant review and is continuously revised and updated. Each update is assigned a distinct version number. It is only once in a generation that a must-read encyclopedia of this magnitude comes to life, and all of us can benefit from it. Benefit from it in this life and the life to come.

HH Rabbi Nachman's birth already set the stage for the modern era, e.g. a mere few years after he was born in 1772, America declared independence. Many of his teachings speak more directly to the man of our present time and society than to the shtetel (small town) Jews who were his followers. E.g. Rabbi Nachman revealed that everyone has an aspect of monarchy even if it is only over his family, or on a subliminal paradigm, this teaching was readily understood by his followers, but it was somewhat theoretical being that they were so destitute they could barely have seen real manifestation of this principle. Today, even the less well off, can clearly see how they wield various privileges and amenities that would have been special even for a monarch of those times. With the changing times, also came changing attitudes, social climate, and personal truths, convictions, ideas, and prerogatives. Rabbi Nachman had to prepare the world for this transition, and he did so by revealing the highest and deepest teachings which are the root of everything that plays out in the world. Anyone that looks at a lesson from Rabbi Nachman will see reflections of what is going on that very moment in his own life. Yet, even still, Rabbi Nachman saw that his followers were not adjusting properly and sufficiently. He saw their struggles and how they grappled with forces far superior than them. Even his awesome teachings were not providing his followers with the necessary perspective and life knowledge that they needed so desperately in order to transcend the narrow confines of ideology that were trapping them and leaving them helpless to the wanton desires of the helpless. As a final last resort Rabbi Nachman found the solution, he would reveal timeless stories, stories that would recreate the perception of the workings of the world, the listener would be reborn into new consciousness and awareness, and would be impassioned to forever seek renewal and true vitality. These stories are called Stories of Ancient Years, corresponding to the Divine Countenance of Attik Yoamin (see book of Daniel), the countenance of the Ancient of Years, which subliminally transcends all of the ordinary chain of events manifested in the Divine Providence, a bridge to cognizance of what is utterly beyond. On the one hand, these legendary tales are completely unfathomable in their scope and import, they are allusions to the most deep and esoteric Divine secrets, and yet on the other hand, they are filled with practical morals and life lessons which any reader can easily glean and gain. To this day no one has merited to completely understand the root and intrinsic meaning of the stories in their rightful context, yet multitudes of people have gained phenomenal new insights through these stories, the stories literally open up gates to greater perspicacity and cognizance. The stories have captured the attention and fascination of even the most secular scholars, they have been translated into different languages, and they are studied in universities throughout the world. Rabbi Nachman said that even the minutest detail of the stories is extremely critical, and unfortunately most of the translations are fraught with the literary license an author has to set down his own perspective, which in this case is undoubtedly very damaging. This translation was done painstakingly to capture as best as possible the exact translation and nuance, even following the order of the original verbiage, and often favoring the original Yiddish in which Rabbi Nachman delivered the stories. In more recent times, one of Rabbi Nachman's followers, Rabbi Yisroel Dov Odesser, underwent a phenomenal course of events which themselves proved to be the mechanism of transition and development of Breslov, and are understood to be a clear aspect of Stories of Ancient Times, and thus some of his stories are fittingly included in this volume as well as are many other stories from Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman.