Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, known simply as Reb Zalman to his many devoted followers, was born in Poland to a hasidic father who had a deep interest in Western culture. As such, he grew up and was educated in both secular and religious schools in Vienna, where the family had moved and lived until the Nazis arrived in Austria. As Reb Zalman says of his upbringing, "I went to yeshivah and at the same time attended a leftist Zionist high school, where I learned Latin and modern Hebrew. I danced...