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Reb Nosson of Breslov, the beloved disciple of Rebbe Nachman, carried his Rebbe’s light into the world with boundless devotion. Through his writings, prayers, and letters, we are given a path to live with faith, joy, and strength even in times of struggle.
In this series, Rav Shlomo Katz learns from Reb Nosson’s Torah, weaving together his fiery commitment, his guidance to his children and students, and the timeless invitation to run not away from Hashem, but toward Him. Join us in tasting the sweetness of Likkutei Tefilot, Likkutei Halachot, and Reb Nosson’s letters, and discover how his teachings still burn in our hearts today.
This is a ניגון that we sang on the bus in the Ukraine. We sang it for a while and I think you remember it. It's words from רב נתן, because today's רב נתן's יארצייט, like we all know, based on his last name. And it's been a ניגון that has been very, uh, transcendental, yeah, for me.בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.There once, רב נחמן, he sensed something's going on here that he never saw before in his life. So he screamed out, בברסלב בוער אש, in Breslov, a fire is burning. Please השם, burn it in my heart.
הבער אותה בליבי.בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.In Breslov there's a fire, burn it in my heart. In Breslov there's a fire, burn it in my heart. In Breslov there's a fire, burn it in my heart. In Breslov there's a fire, burn it in my heart.
Oh, burn it in my heart. Oh, burn it in my heart. Oh, burn it in my heart.One more time from the beginning.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
בברסלב בוער אש, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.
או, הבער אותה בליבי.Alright, we'll sing that again a little bit later. I found that ניגון to be redemptive. It's funny, you just, all you're doing is asking for something and yet, just feels, just asking השם for something right feels redemptive, you don't even have it yet. Just asking for it.
Anyway, I saw something mind-boggling last night. that made me, made me look at this day of עשרה בטבת a little bit deeper. So as you know, that today a few things happened. What happened today in עשרה בטבת? Did you did you go over with the חברה? A little bit.
What's one of the things that happened on עשרה בטבת? Beginning of the siege, what else? The Torah was, the Targum of the Torah into Greek. There's other things that happened as well, but we also know that today is רבי נתן's יארצייט, like we learned last night. And we're going to try to connect all the dots right now. I just again, highly recommended book.
I say this all the time. Book that changed my life. You have to get it, Through Fire and Water from Breslov Research Institute. Tremendous book.
Did you get it yet, that one? I was reading a little bit of it but I haven't gotten it. Amazing. Chaim Kramer's work on on רבי נתן's life. Just incredible, incredible, incredible.
I saw the חתם סופר has a name for עשרה בטבת. The חתם סופר, not a חסידישע רבי, he says, this is a crazy thing, he says the עשרה בטבת is יום הדין של הגאולה. You know, like there's יום הדין for like individuals, ראש השנה, for the world. He says for the גאולה, יום הדין is עשרה בטבת.
What does that mean that that עשרה בטבת is יום הדין of the גאולה? So they explained that it means that today it's decided whether the גאולה is going to come this year or not. So as heavy and intense as this day was already, now we're learning that we, we learn that this is the day that it's decreed in שמים whether the גאולה is going to come this year or not. Now I, I granted I, I haven't done enough research on this topic. I was looking for מקורות, I only found one through a חבר of mine to look into this concept deeper because I never heard of this or saw this anywhere.
But hopefully it will, we'll learn it. We'll learn it together inside, but I even like we learned yesterday by by רבי שמעון, even if we don't understand something, just saying, speaking holy words, דיבור בקדושה is always very beneficial and helpful. Since our topic this week was is has been תורת ארץ ישראל, and the few seconds I had with רבי last night, you know, just really a few, a few, a few seconds of it that I had with him was when he said, what are you doing in the ירחי כלה? What's the topic? So I said to him, Ah, תורת ארץ ישראל. He stopped.
He said, תורת ארץ ישראל. That's exactly what I've been wanting to talk to you about. That's what he said. So I wanted to continue that into today as well and learn a piece from רבי נתן, not learn a piece.
Today we're doing something very special. Since we have a very, a very brief שיעור now, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be learning a תפילה of רבי נתן and דאווענען it together about about ארץ ישראל. As you know that רבי נחמן told רבי נתן to make תפילות out of all his תורות, to make prayers out of every single lesson that he ever gave. Therefore, this is based on a teaching in ליקוטי מוהר"ן about the קדושה of ארץ ישראל and the קדושה of reaching ארץ ישראל.
We did one, a different teaching, a different one by the women, and now we're going to do one over here. There's enough for everybody.
צביה? זהבה on fire. Fire in there.
She said stuff. You have to ask them. Actually, I take my glasses off when I teach and I couldn't, so she was a little bit far from me. I asked her what's her name.
I don't know, when she said, I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I didn't realize it was her. But she said, she said good stuff, very good stuff. Okay. And we spoke about Shimon, how you, you, you seem like a guy that grew up in the, in the, in the north, and that you knew the way you knew every tree and river and mountain there was inspiring.
Very inspiring. So here's what רבי נתן says from ליקוטי תפילות. Just for the חבר that, the ירושלים חבר that are visiting, you know about ליקוטי תפילות? Have you heard of this ספר before? Okay, so let me, let me do a little bit of a prep. It's always good to do חזרה on this stuff.
Remember last, last night they started singing, רבי נתן, הייליגע רבי נתן, you ממש changed, saved our lives. You ממש saved our lives. Remember, did you hear that when they were singing that? So what are they, what what were they saying that? Because that was what Rabbi Weinberg was saying over and over again. You ממש, you saved us, you saved us.
How did רבי נתן save us? We wouldn't know who רבי נחמן was if it wasn't for רבי נתן. That's not my opinion. That's, those are רבי נחמן's words. If it wasn't for my נתן.
is. If it wasn't for my נתן'ל, if it wasn't for my נתן who basically transcribed my life, my life and my work and my תורות, we wouldn't know who רבי נתן is, who רבי נחמן was. One of the things that רבי נתן was told by רבי נחמן to do was to take every single prayer, every single teaching and after learning it, make a prayer out of it. You ever try that before? Have you guys ever tried that before? No? Elliot, you never did it before? We did it here this last summer.
בחבורה. We spent three weeks, three and a half weeks learning the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And what we did was after learning and talking about אהבת ישראל for so long, we decided, I, we decided, I forced the חבר'ה to, we decided. I forced the חבר'ה and people, and some of the חבר'ה still owe me a few תורות.
Uh, a few of the תפילות, to write out a prayer. To become ממש בעל סידור. To write, did you send it in? You didn't either, brother. I think I sent mine.
You did? I'll go, you have to go back and check. Okay. Um, and it's just a different ball game. When you're able to pray over what you learned, you probably understand better what the פסוק says: וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך.
וידעת היום, okay, the תורות that I learned, I know, I know today. But והשבות אל לבבך, how do I get into the heart? Can I make a prayer? Can I ask? Can I feel connected? Can I feel close to that to the knowledge that I just took in? So the whole ספר, it's one of the most beautiful ספרים in the world, it's called ליקוטי תפילות, the in-gathering, a gathering of תפילות, of prayers, where it's רבי נתן teaching, uh uh praying out all the תורות of ליקוטי מוהר"ן. This is one of them. This is the one on ארץ ישראל.
So Nissan will be here soon, so I'm just gonna, we'll see how much we could do.
ריבונו של עולם, master of the world.
אתה ידעת את חלישות כוחנו בעת הזאת. Okay, this is very important.
Only you know השם how tired and weak we really are right now. It's funny. I'm looking around the room right now. I have no idea who's really tired, how tired someone is in this room or not.
Even if you're yawning or rubbing your eyes, none of us know how exhausted the other person is. Sometimes I find out that you're like, your sleeping hours are off you and I'm like, it's it's beyond my wildest dreams and I thought that I don't sleep a lot. None of us know how exhausted we really are inside. But רבי נתן starts off this תפילה saying, master of the world, you know how tired I am.
You know how weak I am. No one else knows how weak I am. I'm exhausted, I feel weak, and I'm frail.
אתה ידעת.
Now, he only, he speaks here in, in, in, in לשון רבים, in plural, but really he's really referring to himself.
אתה ידעת את חלישות כוחנו בעת הזאת. You know how tired we are.
שאין לנו שום כח לשבר המונעים והמעכבים מארץ ישראל.
We have no way to to break through the preventions and the obstacles that are preventing us from coming to ארץ ישראל. So for this, we need a little bit of context. What era is רבי נתן in and where is he writing this? Does anyone know when he was alive? 200, 200 years ago, 220 years ago. Right.
רבי נחמן passes away in 1810.
רבי נתן passed away I believe in 1856. 1840, I don't remember exactly, but it's it's in the middle of the 19th century. The to get to ארץ ישראל was not a simple thing at all.
At all. They all everyone, so many of them tried. Remember the stories of the בעל שם טוב trying to come to ארץ ישראל, what he went through.
רבי נחמן tried, tried, tried, and he made it.
רבי נתן speaking about a Jew that's looking at the the the the like the possibility of going to ארץ ישראל and they would just get weak thinking about what it would take to get to ארץ ישראל. Okay? So I guess our עבודה is a little bit different today that we have, you know, אפרת and מדינה the greatest examples of it's not so hard to leave and come back from ארץ ישראל. Right? They're חבר'ה on planes here every single week, all the time. A friend of mine came once for שבת and he said he got, he got so much הנאה.
He had so much, he thought it was so amusing to him, saying how everyone's talking about what flight, you know, when they leave שול for מוצאי שבת, everyone's speaking about what the flight of the week is. Who's taking the מוצאי שבת one, who's taking the Sunday night one. I think that's only three streets here. I think it's only פיטם, זוברוויל and אמדורע is like that.
The travel agencies, you can open it up just for our blocks. You can get you tired. Here he's speaking about to break through the prevention. that which prevented us from getting into ארץ ישראל.
ומזה דאווענען over this.
ומי כל הדברים שבקדושה.
בשום דרך.
מכל הדרכים האלו שהזכרתי לפניך.
Not not just ארץ ישראל. He starts off talking about ארץ ישראל, but he's saying from all the things and all the ways that prevent us from getting through, from cracking through, from all the things that happened.מכל הדברים שבקדושה, בשום דרך, מכל הדרכים האלו שהזכרתי לפניך.
כי אם בשמך הגדול לבד בטחנו, ועל חסדך אנו נשענים. It's only in your name that we're trusting השם, and on you we are leaning, רבי נתן says.
שתשועינו בגודל רחמיך וחנינותיך ובעצם חמלתך. You should redeem us with the greatness of your רחמים and how much compassion you have on us.Now what he says over here, look at this. And this just gives us a taste of an example of what it meant, what it meant to him, what how he viewed the concept of ארץ ישראל.
ובזכות וכוח צדיקי אמת, שכבר זכו לשבר כל המניות.
ועברו בשלום, ובאו לארץ ישראל.
בזכותם וכוחם לבד נשענתי. He's saying like this, in the merit of all the צדיקים that are already privileged to break through all the preventions, all the barriers, went through בשלום and came to ארץ ישראל, בזכותם, in their זכות, and only in their כוח, I I lean on them. What is he talking about? Who's he referring to?Who is he referring to? I'm gonna say it again.
Who is רבי נתן referring to over here? He's saying, in the merit of all the צדיקים that broke through the מניות. That, the preventions, right? In their merit, that's what I'm banking on. Who, what what kind of a, what is he speaking about over here? What do you think? Let's let's go deep. I know it's a fast day, but let's let's let's try to work a little bit harder.
I I right away, I think about רבי נחמן who was all about not allowing your baggage to weigh you down and focusing on moving forward and and your your your strengths. And that is absolutely one of, in my opinion, the one of if not the most important things to keep in mind if you face any challenge.
נכון. But but specifically about ארץ ישראל, that's what I want to talk about.
Well רבי נחמן came came here, right? And he despite everything and said the ד' אמות, he got everything he was coming for him, went back and you explained I think it was like six or nine teachings. Of all that remained after that was the.
נכון. If somebody needs to bring down the significance and how important it is to come here.
When was this, like 1850 you said? Yeah. So was this already like the time of the ביל"ו like the draining of the swamps, was this already? It could be, but it's not the הקשר over here, but it could be. Timing wise it could be. Maybe he's talking about יוסף הצדיק, that even the barrier of seeming death he insisted on being here.
יכול להיות. Like that was it. And I'm leaning on that רבי נתן says. I'm leaning on the fact that even יוסף, even in the ultimate, in our human mind, the ultimate barrier of death, that even יוסף said, no, that's not enough to keep me out of ארץ ישראל.
Right. A a connection רבי נחמן would be the בעל שם טוב, who worked so hard and did everything he could to get here.
נכון. נכון.
Maybe he's going all the way back to אברהם אבינו where it says in פרשת לך לך where it says ופרצת...ימה קדמה, צפונה ונגבה. There is ופרצת, and you have to break through.
רבי עובדיה says something I think on on that פסוק.
נכון.
Once you break through that initial thing, then it's easy to spread out. And that initial breaking through is very difficult, and that's the, the מעשה אבות סימן לבנים from from that. Right. Very good.
Very good. Thank you for all that. Let's go let's go further. What else could he be speaking about when he's talking here about the different preventions that would prevent צדיקים from coming to ארץ ישראל? I'll give you an example.
Feel they have to stay with the people. I'll give you an amazing example, yeah. Maybe יעקב, his last words were to, that it said where he makes יוסף promise him. Right.
That they'll take him back and יוסף is already, he's a leader there in מצרים number two.
נכון. And יוסף now has to. leave with everyone and take his dad who passed away.
So I'll tell you something amazing that just happened in the women's שיעור. One woman sitting there looked very much emotional by the שיעור, and I, before we even really started, I was like, I never saw her before either. So and she looked and then I said what we're going to be learning and she looked like she was going to faint, ממש. So I never saw her before.
She sat right next to Jess, you should ask her. So I she said, can I just say something? I said, yeah. I just made עליה yesterday from Lakewood. And everyone told me that I'm crazy and that I shouldn't come.
So she said.
ממש. And the only reason I'm here is because of Rebbe Nachman. And I didn't even know what kind of שיעור I was coming to today, just someone שלעפּ me here.
Then I said to her, do you know that we never learn Rebbe Nachman here on Thursdays? It's always a different שיעור. It's just because it's Reb Nosson's יארצייט, we're learning about Reb Nosson, and because it's a week of תורת ארץ ישראל, we're doing a piece on דאווענען to come to ארץ ישראל. She, I'm telling you, she Thank God there's no video of those שיעורים because it was nuts. Nuts.
So what does he so what what could be what is he speaking about? The מונעים. You alluded to it. Huh? People who don't want other people to know. You alluded to it.
I think so. I think this might be what he connect what he's connecting to. People that are saying it's not such an important thing to connect so hard, it's not so important. It's it's fine.
Just make sure, like Yossi was saying about the חבר'ה and the Cleveland the כולל, that you feel it in your heart. Reb Nosson says, save me from those voices. Save me from those voices. And Reb Nosson saved our life.
That's what he said? That's exactly what we're talking about, how Reb Nosson saved our life. So we started. So again, so now I'm gonna read this line again, ובזכות בכח צדיקי אמת שכבר זכו לשבר כל המניעות. They merited to to crack through all the מניעות, all the preventions, ועברו בשלום and they made it through בשלום, ובאו לארץ ישראל.
Not just theoretically that they they accept the קדושה of the ארץ in their heart. They came through, they cracked through. Reb Nosson says, בזכותם ובכוחם לבד נשענתי. It's on them that I'm relying.
It's on them that all my כח comes from.
ובחסדך הגדול תמכת יתדותי. And in your great merit you have you you're you're supporting my יתדות, which means like in the משכן, how do you say it in English? The pegs? Huh? The support. That's how you say it in in in British.
How do you say it in English? The foundations. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
שתחנני גם כן לזכות ולבוא לארץ ישראל מהרה. I should also merit and be privileged to come to ארץ ישראל fast, אף על פי שאיני כדאי והגון להזכיר בפי שם ארץ ישראל הקדושה.
Even though, not that I don't merit to come to ארץ ישראל, I'm not on the level. What does Reb Nosson say over here? I don't even, I'm not even on a level to utter the name ארץ ישראל. You hear what he's what he's talking about with this with this line? I'm not even on a level, forget to come here, that's for sure I'm not נזכה. But I'm not even on a level to merit to say the word ארץ ישראל.
That's what Reb Nosson felt. Now where do you think he's drawing this energy from? Huh? Rebbe Nachman? What what צדיק in the Torah do you think he looks looking at himself and looking at that צדיק and therefore he can come to a conclusion that says, who am I to even mention the name ארץ ישראל?
משה. משה רבינו. You see, if משה, we we take like we're all doing something that משה רבינו dreamed of.
How often do we think about that? That's what we're doing here. That's we're doing something that משה רבינו dreamed of. Reb Nosson says משה רבינו dreamed of this, dreamed of this, dreamed of this. How in the world could it be that I I'm not זוכה? Right? So I have to even to say the name, שם ארץ ישראל is something that I I I should be I should be worthy of doing.
ואני רחוק מאוד מאוד. We'll do this fast 'cause I want I want he's cool to come.
ואני רחוק מאוד מאוד בקדושת ארץ ישראל בתכלית הריחוק. I'm so far from the holiness of ארץ ישראל.
אף על פי כן, אתה, even though I'm so far, השם, אתה מקרב רחוקים. You bring close those who are far.
חוס וחמול עלי, חוס וחמול עלי, חוס וחנני במתנת חינם. Please just give me, what's a מתנת חינם? A free gift.
Who? asked to come to ארץ ישראל like this as well?
משה רבינו.
חז"ל tell us ואתחנן comes from the word give me a מתנת חנם. Begging you comes never משה רבינו who could have had every legitimate טענה to say, I deserve, I deserve to come to ארץ ישראל. Even he said, ריבונו של עולם, give it to me as a מתנת חנם.
That's what רב נתן is saying over here. Not 'cause I did anything, not 'cause of all the ספרים I published, not 'cause of all the מסירות נפש, not because of all the incredible things I've done and will do for עם ישראל, let me come to the land as an undeserved gift.
שאזכה לבוא לארץ ישראל מהרה. I should come to ארץ ישראל fast.
למען אזכה לכנוס בדרכי הקדושה באמת.
רב נתן's דאווענען. So I should merit to go into the path of קדושה for real. Because we all know, like רב נתן told us, it happens here.
The real, real connection of קדושה, that's what happens over here. And this is a very important line.
הרי this whole line, רבי ישי פליישר.
ואזכה לעלות בכל פעם מדרגה לדרגה.
Keep making עליה. When I come to ארץ ישראל, I keep on coming to ארץ ישראל. I keep on meeting the land. I keep on growing.
I keep on reconnecting. I keep on discovering. It never stops.
באופן, בקדושה ובטהרה באמת כאיש קל מהרה.
With such holiness and purity.
באופן שאזכה להתקרב אליך באמת טוב ותמים מעתה ועד עולם. In a way that I can come close to you for real, from now and forever, ולא אבוש בעולם הזה ולא אכלם לעולם הבא.
ואתהלך לפני השם בארצות החיים.
אעברה נא ואראה את הארץ הטובה הזאת. Let me pass through and see this good land, ההר הטוב. He's quoting משה רבינו.
ומלא משאלותי ברחמים.
Fulfill my requests with רחמים.
והביאנו לשלום לארץ ישראל במהירות גדול מיד. Bring me to peace to ארץ ישראל very fast.
ואזכה לדרוך, I should merit to step on the land, ולהשתטח, that means to, להשתטח, do you know what that means? What's the word in English for להשתטח? To prostrate yourself.
על עפר אדמת קודש. On the dirt of this land.
ולרצות את אבניה, to ממש feel so connected to want its stones, ולנשק רגבותיה, and to kiss its, its רגב, its רגב, it's, its dust, its pebbles. Huh? It's dirt.
To kiss it. Have any of you heard of אליהו סוכות? You know that painting that's in my house that every time you look at it, you feel like you might have taken something? Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? 'Cause every time you look, we've spent hours there just revisiting that, like, wait a second, that wasn't there last time, that wasn't there last time. It's an amazing, בעזרת השם, you're all invited to our house if you haven't been there yet for the טיש this Friday night, you'll see it there.
I was once walking, אליהו סוכות is רב שלמה's first בעל תשובה.
רב שלמה picked him up from the streets of San Francisco. Today אליהו סוכות is a leading figure in ברסלב. He's a great grandfather to many, many יידישע children.
His name was Alex Scott. Now he's הרב אליהו סוכות. He's one of many, many examples of people who, ברוך השם, received the תורה of רב שלמה and went for it, went for ארץ ישראל.
רב שלמה sent him here many, many years ago.
Jerry and I were once walking with him. Do you remember this? We were once walking with him outside his house in what's the area there? Like גאולה, מאה שערים, when you first met him. And he asked Jerry, where are you from? Jerry said, Chicago. Said, how long you've been here? He said, I've been here, it was one of the בלבולים stages where you weren't sure what's going on.
ברוך השם those days are long gone. So he looked at him, he stopped, he said, I've been here for 40 years. 40 years. And he got on the ground in front of, ממש, on the sidewalk, and he started full, ממש, what רב נתן just said here, להשתטח, and he started kissing the dirt on the ground of ארץ ישראל.
The more refined we are inside, the more that those things don't seem weird. They seem very normal. Walking around here, you know, sometimes, that seems weird. Treating, walking on the sidewalks here like we do on like Doheny and Cashio, that's weird, you know? That's weird.
A little bit. Shopping here like you shop on Central Avenue, that's. That's bizarre. That's wacky.
Doing ממש what he what we saw that night. Remember Jerry, it stunned you. Whoosh, straight right in front of us. Just goes down, just like that.
Anyway, רב נתן cried to not just come to ארץ ישראל. You can see it through here. He cried to have the relationship with the land when he's here, like he described over here, like we just gave that example. And in the זכות of רב נתן and his יארצייט today, we should also be privileged to have that fire for ארץ ישראל in our hearts, in our souls.
And we should really, really take advantage of the fact that we too can kiss the land the second that we that we walk out of here. In fact, we could do it right now, right? But I'll be your שליח right now. I'll just do it so you don't have to all y'all fasting. So I'll kiss the floor right now in the זכות of רב נתן, זכות of רבי נחמן, זכות of our רב, שול.
ארץ ישראל. Okay. If I could bring him out just to share one thing. Yeah, please.
For שושנה of Ari, I remember I went to her house, you know שושנה? Yeah, yeah, of course. She she picked a carrot out of the ground and it was full of dirt. And she said I don't even going to wash it off. She says she just eats the carrot with the dirt on it.
Oh wow. She said first of all, it's got the vitamin B12 in it which you need. But she also said that she She really does? Yeah. She said a little dirt, like you know.
Oh wow. I'm going to tell I'm going to tell it to my wife too. Ah, אשרינו, אשרינו, אשרינו. Let's sing let's sing רב נתן's let's sing רב נתן's