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"Nafshi Tidom" — drawn from the words we say in Elokai Netzor:
“למקללי נפשי תדום” – “To those who curse me, may my soul be silent.”
In this 5-part series, Rav Shlomo Katz explores one of the deepest Breslov teachings: how to face humiliation (bizyonot) not with anger or revenge, but with silence, emunah, and inner strength.
Drawing from Rabbi Lazer Brody’s sefer Nafshi Tidom, classic sources in Chazal, Chassidus, and the writings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Rav Shlomo guides us through:
- Why humiliation comes our way,
- How it serves as a tool for tikkun hamiddot (refinement of character),
- The inner work of silence and acceptance,
- And how our ancestors — from Avraham Avinu to David HaMelech — grew through disgrace.
This is a series about courage, humility, and discovering Hashem’s closeness precisely in moments of shame.
Okay everybody. שלום עליכם everyone. We're going to continue. We're going to see something today.
We're going to be continuing our journey in this עבודה of this amazing opportunity to really refine ourselves and do some real deep, deep root work. And today we're going to see some very beautiful things from both Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and the בעל התניא in the context of the opportunity we face at the moment we wish לכתחילה never came upon us, and that is that moment of, God forbid, going through a בזיונות, going through an embarrassment. But there's something that we have to, we have to go back to. We just said, you know, ברוך אתה השם, אלוקי אברהם, אלוקי יצחק, ואלוקי יעקב.
We're like, we're, you know, we start שמונה עשרה and we're like, this is המשפחה, this is where we come from. You know, sometimes when we always say, מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי, we always have to say, when are my actions going to reach the actions of our fathers? And that usually is a very intimidating thing. Like how in the world am I ever going to reach the level, you know, the מעשים of אברהם יצחק ויעקב? Well, one of the things that we could probably find ourselves in when it comes to reaching the levels of אברהם יצחק ויעקב is, think about what they went through. Think about not just the heights they reached by doing something, but the heights they may have reached by refraining from something.
And that is, אברהם, יצחק, and יעקב suffered tremendous בזיונות in their life. One of the, you know, why is אברהם אבינו called אברהם העברי? עברי is that the whole world is on one side and he's on the other side. זאת אומרת, he was in a place that no one else was at. And when you're in that place of כאילו you're the only one that's going through something, you have nowhere, no one even to learn from, you have to experience it yourself.
Some of the things that אברהם אבינו went through from a young age, obviously we know is, I mean, not even at a young age, but when you're, when your whole family looks at you and they think you're crazy, that's a little bit of a בזיונות. אברהם אבינו, his wife is taken from him twice. The בזיונות that he must have suffered through them. And then obviously when שרה אמנו becomes pregnant, רש"י tells us, you know, everyone thought that, חס וחלילה, she got impregnated by someone else.
The בזיונות that אברהם אבינו had to go through such an experience. רש"י explains to us there, הוצרך לומר אברהם הוליד את יצחק. The תורה had to tell us in פרשת תולדות, אברהם was the one that gave, brought birth to the world to יצחק, לפי שהיו ליצני הדור אומרים מאבימלך נתעברה שרה. Because the clowns of the generation were saying, hey, אבי, right? אברהם.
אברהם אבינו, you think, you think this is his kid? This is something he actually had to go through. We just read that רש"י because we know it already, בכל זאת, but can you imagine what that was like living in that, going through that kind of an experience? So אברהם אבינו has this very intense experience. יצחק אבינו had this intense experience of בזיונות from אבימלך and פיכול and their servants. יעקב אבינו, the בזיונות he suffered from עשיו, אליפז, לבן.
The whole thing with the בזיונות of שכם, what happened in שכם. And also obviously the בזיונות that must have came about when people around town started saying, did you hear about his kids? Right? You hear about the, we call them the אבינוס, right, יעקב אבינו. The אבינו household, you know what's going on by them? The brothers tried to kill another one, you know? The בזיונות that you must feel, that he must have felt as well. משה רבינו, אהרן הכהן, the בזיונות they suffered specifically from דתן ואבירם.
And we see in פרשת קרח the בזיונות that משה and אהרן both, both, both took, the humiliation they took, which kind of wasn't just from קרח ועדתו, but it seemed like it went on the whole nation. So this we have to understand that if all of our אבות went through such tremendous בזיונות, it seems that there's some kind of מהלך here, אלוקי, some kind of godly move that's saying to us, and it seems like this, there is no other way of becoming really great unless you learn how to deal through humiliation. It seems like it's a תנאי הכרחי. That means that it's like, it's a must.
It's not something you could avoid. You can't really dodge it. It seems like it's something that has to be go through. We go further, we continue, דוד המלך המשיח.
Can you imagine what it's like to be grown up in a house where they think you're a bastard? That you're a ממזר? What דוד המלך had to suffer through, the בזיונות, his own son is trying to kill him, right? This is stuff that we, you know, we talk about their lives, but these essential pieces of the puzzle form for us the path to ממש greatness. So Rav Brody explains here, he says over here a beautiful thing. He says, דוד המלך took the experiences of בזיונות and basically formed ספר תהילים. The תהילים that we have is more or less the result of someone that goes through humiliation.
and looks up to השם and doesn't say, Why'd you do this to me? But rather, I want to understand what it is you're telling me by going through what I'm going through. And that's how we have something like ספר תהילים. And when you look at anyone in our מסורה that achieved greatness, it seems, again, that this was not just a happenstance, this had to be. This ענין of going through a בזיון had to be part of them making them as great as they truly were.
Not only how much they learned, how much they prayed, and how much חסד they did, but this specific נקודה. Because many people when they go through בזיונות, they start to think I must be a רשע. Because if otherwise, this wouldn't happen to me. And that's a very dangerous thing to think.
I must be a רשע. No. You're on the process of becoming, you're on the verge of becoming a צדיק. It's not that you must be a רשע.
This is how it's always been, and it seems like this is how it's always going to be, when the process of deep, sincere character refinement. One of the reasons we have these נסיונות in life of בזיונות is basically to really shed, to break away the כלי whatever we were using until now and then creating a bigger vessel. So there's a there's a beautiful תורה from רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשב that I want to read for you in read it in Hebrew and I'll translate it. This is from קדושת לוי פרשת ויחי.
And he says, he explains the process of what happens to us when we go through humiliation but act like our fathers did. כדרך בני אדם כשרוצים לעשות מכלי קטן כלי גדול, צריכה שבירה. כן השם יתברך ברוך הוא, רוצה להשפיע לאדם וצריך שיהיה ביכולתו שיהיה יותר גדול. שלח לו צרה או חולי חס ושלום, שזהו שבירת הכלי הקטן שאחר כך יהיה כלי יותר גדול.
It's a כלל of חסידות we have to we have to really internalize. השם יתברך wants to give us so much constantly. There's a שפע, there's an abundance of light and of closeness that is constantly pouring down from שמים. What's the problem? Our vessel, our receptor is pretty minimized, it's pretty מצומצם.
It's pretty contracted. And sometimes the only way to make the כלי bigger, to receive more light, is to be is to break. Not breaking לשם breaking, but breaking לשם breaking, breaking in order to create a larger receptor. That's what רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשב is saying, that if you can remember that in a moment of such a בזיון, what the words, what the whispering from שמים is really saying, Hold on, there's something much bigger I need to place in your life, and this is the way that you receive it.
This is the way that you become a person that can receive something bigger. I know, much easier said than done, but this is stuff that we have to hopefully like דאווען over strongly as we're learning this process. And again, we're learning from someone that really tasted exactly everything that we're talking about right now, and that's very good to keep in mind. And this is probably how we can understand the very famous פסוק in תהילים.
תהילים צ"ד. אשרי הגבר אשר תייסרנו כה ומתורתך תלמדנו. Praiseworthy is the person who suffers affliction, תייסרנו כה, who suffers an affliction from השם, and from this תורה of suffering affliction from השם, when you realize it's not the person that humiliated you, it's a סימן מן שמים right now, you you begin to learn a whole new world of תורה. And when a person stands through a בזיון like this, when you go through a נסיון like this, and you go inward instead of outward, the בעל התניא says, at that moment you מצדיק את קיומך.
You actually justify your existence. And you in his words, you you justify your purpose in this world. And I'll read you from the תניא. This is from אגרת הקודש פרק י"א.
The בעל התניא says like this, עיקר בריאת האדם בעולם הזה. The main purpose why we were created in this world הוא בשביל לנסותו בנסיונות אלו, is for a person to be tested with these specific types of of נסיונות. ולדעת את אשר בלבבו, and to know within his heart, אם יפנה לבבו אחרי אלקים אחרים, שהם תאוות הגוף המשתלשלות מהצד של אחרא, ובהם הוא חפץ, או אם חפצו ורצונו לחיות חיים אמיתיים המשתלשלים מאלקים חיים. At the moment that this humiliation is presented before you, the בעל התניא says that if you can hold on to the purpose of what's going on with you right now, you're כאילו מצדיק your, your causing the purpose of you being in this world to be justified.
That's a pretty big statement. I mean every time that you're מתבזה, every time someone that God forbid you're humiliated, you're שותק and מעביר על מידותיו, you actually are silent and you go above and beyond your nature, what's called מעביר על מידותיו. You don't let that bad place get the best of you, ואינו מתקומם כדי להגן על כבודו הנפגע and you're not trying to, you're not trying to protect your own honor, your own כבוד. The way Rabbi Brody explains this, there at that moment, you're משליט the מלכות of הקדוש ברוך הוא on the סיטרא אחרא.
At that moment, you make Hashem a greater king in this world. At that moment you ממש, we're always trying קבלת עול מלכות שמים, to be ממליך השם, you know, crowning Hashem as king is not just something that we wait for ראש השנה, יום כיפור, you know, the חגים to do. That בכל עת ובכל שעה, that opportunity is given to us. He's basically explaining this based on what the בעל התניא said that every time that I go through this ניסיון like a champion, I'm making Hashem more of a king in this world.
It's more revealed in this world. Because basically what am I running after when I when I react? I'm running after my own כבוד. What's the purpose of this world? מלא כל הארץ כבודו. Hashem's כבוד.
But you have to be on a very, very, very high level to be able to respond to someone who's dissing you and doing it in the name of כבוד שמים. Like there was once a ראש ישיבה that would walk into a room, and when he saw people weren't standing, so, you know, he he would rip into the students that they hate God. I don't know how what kind of a a taste of יידישקייט you give over to students like that. What he was trying to say obviously is, it's not me you're standing up for, it's you're standing up for the כבוד of the תורה.
There are better methods to implement that that לימוד. That's a pretty pretty harsh one. I don't know how much it worked. יכול להיות.
You hate God. Uh, okay, I'll stand up for you next time. אבל, you'd be shocked, we've gotten we've gotten much better in the world of I we really have, we've gotten much better in the world of חינוך.So this Rebbi Nachman says like this, this is לקוטי מוהר"ן קמ"א. Let's bring this, bring this down.
שאדם רוצה להצדיק את עצמו להתקרב להשם יתברך, אזי מצדיקים עליו את הדין, דהיינו שנמשכים עליו דינים וייסורים. When a person wants to get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא, so they say you really want to get close, okay, you gotta go through some something heavy. You gotta see how much דין, how much the sense of this the side of judgment is applicable to you or not if you really want to get close. In what form does דין come on to a person? דינים come through the pain of affliction of being humiliated and being embarrassed.
And then the question is, do you really understand right now that this sense of you feeling further is really a chance for you to get much closer than you were before? זאת אומרת, do you really believe that this moment of what it seems to be like you're becoming smaller in the world is actually you coming closer. And this is a כלל from Rebbi Nachman where he says that באמת עיקר ההתרחקות היא באמת עיקר ההתקרבות. It's a famous statement in Rebbi Nachman. At that exact moment that it seems that every reason in the world is leading you to be pushed away, when you really want to come close, like it happens to all of us, I take on something, now I'm trying to come closer, and then when I come to שול, I finally start coming to מניין, that guy gives me a look that makes me feel like I'm a נבך, or they come and say a certain statement to me, this is after I chose to come closer.
Rebbi Nachman says this always happens. You don't feel like you're being pushed away when you're not trying to come close. You only feel like you're being pushed away when you're trying to come close. This is a key, if you if you could remember that when going through through a ביזיון, that could save you.
That could ממש save you from losing it, and it could save you from not utilizing the opportunity of שיא ההתקרבות that really happens right now. And Rebbi Nachman continues and he says like this. And we'll end with this. כשחולקין על האדם ורודפים אותו, when there's a מחלוקת on a person and he's being, רודפים אותו, persecuted, he's being hunted down, הכל הוא כדי שיתקרב על ידי זה דייקא להשם יתברך ביותר.
This is only in order to cause a person to דוקא try and be able to get closer. כי כל מה שרודפים אותו, מבזין אותו, ועושים לו ייסורים, because the more you realize that a person gets humiliated and becomes pained with afflictions from this, it causes him to to run more to Hashem to say I have nothing, I have nothing. הוא צריך לברוח בכל פעם להשם יתברך, כי אין עצה ותקנה חוץ מזה, because at a certain point a person realizes I got nothing besides this. נמצא, so we see here, שעל ידי הרדיפות והייסורים נתקרב יותר להשם יתברך.
So you you absolutely see here. as a result of what caused you to feel so small and humiliated, that person ended up being the greatest שליח for you to develop a brand new vessel which could contain so much more light and שפע than you had a moment before. These are very hard תורות. This is a very high תורה, this is a very, very deep teaching that cuts through everything in life.
Because the moment of freedom in my life really begins when I stop running after כבוד. When I stop running after כבוד. Stopping to run after כבוד doesn't just happen actively, that I choose, okay, today I'm not going to run after my honor. That's a very high level.
Stopping to run after כבוד is דוקא when your כבוד is being persecuted. So הלוואי בעזרת השם ממש, should give us all a ברכה, we should be זכה to this, to continue to to kind of like have these תורות kind of in the in our consciousness all the time. Because it's very nice we're sitting here in שיעור, in מנחה מעריב, we're learning these תורות. These things happen.
These things show up. This is the way of the world. This happened to אברהם, יצחק, יעקב, משה, אהרן, יוסף, דוד המלך. This is the way that really big people became even bigger.
We should be זכה to taste it for real. רבי חנניה בן עקשיה אומר, רצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות את ישראל, לפיכך הרבה להם תורה ומצוות שנאמר, השם חפץ למען צדקו יגדיל תורה ויאדיר.