The Whiskey Rebbe

From a book review in the Forward:
. . . the most vulgar document published by Assaf is quite clearly the tale recounting the “fall” of the famed founder of Polish Hasidism, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Horowitz (1745-1815), popularly known as the khoyze, or seer, of Lublin. What is known is that sometime during the celebration of Simchat Torah in 1814, the severely inebriated seer fell, or more likely jumped, out the second-story window of his room above the Hasidic shtibl where he held court. Like the affair of Rabbi Moshe’s conversion to Christianity, Hasidic hagiography has managed to transform what was either a drunken mishap or a deliberate suicide attempt into a mystical affair signifying a failed attempt to hasten the messiah’s arrival.

State of Exile's view: drunken mishaps do in fact hasten the messiah's arrival.

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