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Rebbe Nachman didn’t come to make us “more religious.” He came to make us more real.
Rav Shlomo Katz opens the “treasure chest” of Rebbe Nachman’s Torah — teachings that heal the inner storm, settle the mind (yishuv hadaas), and draw down peace and truth into our homes, our relationships, and our own hearts.
Good morning everybody. Thank you for coming. Chodesh Tov. The month of Adar, we're learning le'ilui nishmas Levi ben Yosef, בת יפה בת ישראל, ישי שלום בן יצחק Isaac, לוי יצחק בן ירוחם חנן זלמן and for the shemira protection of our chayalim hakedoshim and for the refuah shelema of דוד נתנאל בן איילה אהובה, for the refuah shelema of טוב שמואל בן אביבה נווה ואברהם יעקב בן דבורה פייגא.
The week is sponsored by Sarah and Yehoshua Amon in memory of the Bobbies, טשארנא בת יעקב משה הלוי, Ester bas Raphael and טויבא זעלדא בת זאב.
טויבא זעלדא בת זאב. Alright. We began last week learning from Rabbi Nachman from Rav Nosson, getting really really deep with the concept of emes, of emes, of truth.
What we spoke about last week is that ashrei the person, praiseworthy is the person who's able once in their life to say one dibur shel emes, that an actual word of truth comes out of our mouth before Hashem. What does that mean? I mean we'd have to go back through all of last week's shiur but it's almost like you know when you know. You're you know when you're there when you're there you know you're there. That the words that come out of your mouth, diburim shel hakedusha, they are the only things that that provide a safe passage through the gesher tzar me'od, through the narrow bridge that this world is.
And that's what we had called, that's what Rav Nosson had called the name of this narrow bridge, that when a person is speaking diburim shel emes and it's really words of truth that's emanating from the soul, spoken to Hakadosh Baruch Hu which means that we do have to revisit the whole world of hisbodedus for real for pnimiy really deep inside and we're going to get there. These are the things in life that bring a person to the closest state of tranquility and peace as much as possible, which we all long for. We all long to live in a world that we feel we have access to tranquility to shalvas hanefesh to the serenity of the soul. In Rabbi Nachman's in Rabbi Nachman's invite to us, the the ability to have words of emes come out of our mouth, not just words that we think Hashem wants to hear but that which is actually taking place inside of us and expressing that to Hashem.
That's the closest a person will feel to to having peace. Now this doesn't mean that it solves your issues. It just means that your issues can then be solved with tranquility and with peace. It's not this okay I spoke words of truth all my problems are gone.
It just means that when I'm not connected to the mida of emes and my problems are in front of me, it seems like the biggest mountain in the world that's impossible to ever overcome. And when I tune into the mida of emes, of emes, what then becomes available to me is to approach the same thing that one time looked like a mountain that was impossible to conquer and suddenly I feel rega, wait a second, I can do this. I've done it before, I'm going to do it again and and it doesn't shter me, it doesn't paralyze me. And this mida of emes is something that no one in today's day and age could afford to say I'll work on other things, emes I'm not so sure I'll get to it in this this time around.
Doesn't work like that. It means that on all of us it's mamash a it's not a luxury, it's a must to tune more and more into understanding this mida of emes because when I am really operating from a place of truth or at least mechaven to the truth, everything gets put in its place. Everything suddenly life begins to have a seder and chaos has less and less of a hold on my life. Tohu is less the way that I conduct my life.
Today what we're going to be we're going to be getting a tremendous amount of chizuk and a warning from Rav Nosson about these inyanim. So if you in the page in front of you, tohu like tohu vavohu confusion? Yeah yeah, tohu that's where it comes from like chaos bidiyuk. So if you can go down to please os beis in the page that you have in front of you. This is from Likutei Halachos הלכות ברכת הראייה הלכה ה.
מי שכוונתו אל האמת. Whoever goes out into the world but their kavana is... is to really be people of truth.
וחוגר עצמו למלחמה בשביל האמת.
And you, the word choger is like to gird yourself, right? Is that a right word? G-U-I G-I-O-I-R-D? Sure. V'choger atzmo lamilchama and I'm going out to war like that. Bishvil ha'emes, Reb Noson says, hu menatzeach tamid. You're always victorious, but we have to define victory, but you're always victorious.
כי כל מה שעושה איזה עובדה לצורך מלחמת מצוה זו הוא מנצח בזה מיד. He calls the war against sheker a milchemet mitzvah. And he says whenever a person engages in this war and he's going out in the name and with the kavanah of truth, you always win, which we have to understand what that means.
מאחר שכוונתו לשמים באמת because your kavanah is really leshem shamayim.
You see, a person has to be willing to, when you go out in the name of war of truth, over truth, a person obviously needs to be open to the fact, to the possibility, that that which you were sure is truth because it made sense to you and it made you feel comfortable about life's decisions, you have to be open, for real, to the notion that yesh matzav, it could be that I was wrong. It could be. It could be that my projection, it's it could be that all the assumptions that I had and everything that I built, almost I would say like even things that I built, like it could be yesh matzav that maybe, perhaps, it could be that I was off, but if I'm going, saying, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I'm going into this milchemet ayetze and I don't care at all whether my assumptions about my emes about life, about you, I don't care if they were right or wrong, I just want to know what the emes is, you win. You're already a winner right away, immediately.
But if I go and I say, "I'm going to this world of emet in order to feel justified, validated, in order to feel better about my life's decisions that I've made and my assumptions about other people," that's not called kavanah, that's not called emet, and it doesn't mean you're going to be victorious either. Al ken. We're on the we're on the fourth line. Does everyone everyone has papers? Do we need more? We have.
Al ken.
אף אם אינו זוכה לנצח המלחמה בשלמות, nonetheless, even if you weren't able to completely conquer the war over the sheker, but you tried so hard leshem shamayim, אף על פי כן בזה בעצמו שאוחז כלי מלחמה בידו ללחום נגד שונאי ה' שהם היצר הרע וחילותיו but your weapon in your hand is still in your hand and that weapon is the weapon of emet. Nonetheless, בזה בעצמו הוא נקרא כבר מנצח you're already called, you're already considered, you're already labeled someone that is victorious even if you didn't finish the job, which is a big yetzer hara. A big yetzer hara.
Let me ask you a question. A person that sets in sets a goal to learn to finish the Shas and it takes approximately seven and a half years to finish it in Daf Yomi. Do you know do you know the yetzer hara over there? Wow. You could learn kimat every day, but you missed maybe like ten blatt over the years.
Somehow you missed ten dappen of Gemara or whatever it is, you missed whatever something. The yetzer hara will come and tell you, "You did not learn Shas." What are you talking about? I learned kimat everything. Yeah, but you didn't finish the job. That means you're not really victorious.
Reb Noson saying this when it comes to the stuff with emes and this is a klal, this is a constant repeated line in Reb Noson: a little bit is also good if it's emet. A little bit, not just is a little bit also good, but a little bit already puts you into the category of someone that is a menatzeach, someone that wins, and the yetzer hara does not, and Western civilization and culture does not want us to buy that. It's all or nothing. You either did complete the marathon.
Or you never started it. That's what the yetzer hara is coming to tell us. You either were matzliach in giving over to your child the principles of Yiddishkeit that you know are emes that you want to give over to your children, or they're completely off the derech. There's no the yetzer hara wants you to mamash look at that and buy that.
But emes means I'm gonna give this my all.
תחילה השתדלות סוף מתנה. I'm gonna try as much as I can to give over to my children what I believe the emes is. To the extent that their ability to receive it and do something with that in their life, I have to know that I'm victorious because I know that I went out and I gave it my all in the name of emes hopefully.
What happens afterwards, ee efshar ladaas. But don't let anyone tell you that that means that you're not victorious. You're victorious if you go out to the fight the world with the weapon of emes in your hand. You're already victorious.
And nitzachta. You're already you already won.
בזה בעצמו כבר נקרא כבר מנצח. Now this is a very important line here: כי כל עובדא ותנועה קלה.
Any movement, even a light movement, שאדם מתגבר בשביל לעשות רצונו יתברך שמו that a person overcomes and puts their koach into doing for Hashem, הוא יקר מאוד בעיני השם יתברך is very precious in Hashem's eyes.
ותכף הוא מנצח הרבה and immediately you win. I'm gonna ask you something. Anyone have a victory this morning? Anyone feel like they had no victories this morning? Anyone here have - does anyone here feel that they had no victories so far oh, sorry, I didn't see you.
Welcome. Good to see you. Mazel tov. Does anyone here feel like they had no victories today? It's okay to say so.
Besides the fact that God decided to put your neshama back into your body, I'm talking about al bechira from your own choice. Does anyone here feel that today there were not victorious so far? You chose in the midst of insanity to come and learn Rabbi Nachman's Torahs. What do you think we're talking about in here? This is exactly how the yetzer hara works. Ah, but we didn't finish the shiur, it's only a few minutes rega.
כל עובדא ותנועה קלה. Any small movement towards emes, towards emes is so precious in the eyes of Hashem. It's these basic tenets of faith that we need to reinstill into our psyche, into our heart. It has to be.
We have to go back to the basics. Now some people would say, oh, if you keep on getting really excited about a lot of small stuff, you'll never get to eventually go to the big stuff. Sheker, calling that out. I would say afoch.
If you keep on keeping your if the prize for you, meaning and you say keep your eye on the prize is the full conquering of emes and becoming a completely disciplined and perfect faith person that knows how to meditate, that knows how to smile when things are right, that knows how to be calm and patient with every single person, you're the biggest loser in the world because no one ever gets there like that. And even if you touch that for a second, you'll crash, you'll crash very hard. The klal when it comes to emes is that כל עובדא ותנועה קלה. Any small movement towards the Ribono shel Olam, fighting the war of lies but living with emes, הוא יקר מאוד בעיני השם יתברך is so precious in the eyes of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
It's amazing that Rabbi Nachman and Reb Nosson had to really emphasize this over and over again. But when you think about Jewish history and especially what was going on in the world of Judaism at their time, it was crucial for them to reintroduce tenets of faith that we knew were very much chai vekayam many years ago, but it's infinitely more shayach for our dor than it even was for their dor because today we're all about accomplishments. It's more doing and doing and doing and finishing and conquering. Emes means I know that I'm moving towards you Hashem, this is precious in your eyes.
Give me a koach to move a bit more towards you. Reb Nosson says ding ding ding ding we have a winner. Mamash. we have a winner.
At that moment you have a winner. You're a winner. That's a menatzeach. You won.
You won for the moment. Let's turn the page. This is a nitzachon amiti venitzchi. This moment of true- this is emes, a real victory and it's eternal, כי רק זה עיקר הנצחון האמיתי.
This is the ikar of what a real victory means.
כי זה הנצחון ישאר קיים לנצח, because this victory lasts forever. Why does this victory last forever? So here he quotes the famous statement from the Zohar HaKadosh. This type of victory, even if it was a small thing, lasts forever, כי לית רעותא טבא דאתאביד.
In Aramaic that means, leit means there isn't, reuta means ratzon, tava means tov, deitavid means sheneevad, that gets lost. Because there's no such thing as a good ratzon that ever gets lost. Here, you know, I'm going to take it from the sefer, I have another page here. I'm going to look inside here.
How would you say it's forever if we're really told like that we have to keep working on our emunah, that it's not something we accomplish and it's done? So how can it be forever? What's the contradiction? That moment lasts forever. Oh, that moment. Yeah, it doesn't mean zehu, you're fixed, you're done. It means that that moment of getting a sense of what it means to be victorious, meaning that I chose emes, that I chose to live a life of emes just for the moment.
Like this moment that you chose to like after doing all the avodas hakodesh that I'm sure many of you did at home with your children, and even if not with your children, davening, whatever it is you had to do to get up and get yourself together and come out and learn on a Thursday morning in Chodesh Adar. And you know you're not coming here to get like to make to just oh he's you know he's not like like cute stuff, this is Rabbi Nachman, this is avodah. That fact is a נצחון אמת אמיתי ונצחי in the words of Reb Noson. Now, it on a time level you can get sucked into a problem.
Well, does that mean that I that's it, it I won forever? Ma pitom? Because you know that how do you know if the nitzachon was emes or nitzchi? If you don't feel- I want you to fill in the blank. How do you know that the moment is a moment of real eternal and true victory? What would that lead you to feel or what shouldn't that lead you to feel? Regret? Regret? What else? Leads you to want to do more. Ah! So this is very ikar yesod. I know that it's a moment of emes if I can't get enough of it.
If I feel good and satiated and I'm good for the day, it was that that wasn't emes. It definitely wasn't emes laamito. Zot omeret, if you had a good hour at nine, and by 9:45 you're like "You know, I think for today I'm good, binge watching here I come," it it can't be that that was emes. It could be it was nice, but it nitzachon of emes probably wasn't.
It's the same thing with a child. Imagine you have like, I don't know, over Shabbos there was like one moment during Friday night that there wasn't chaos in the house or I don't know, and it was like one good niggun that one good zemer was sung at the Shabbos table. So imagine you do one zemer and you're like, "Wow, Hashem, I tasted the emes hanitzchi. Everyone, including myself, should really just be in Shabbos and not care about what anything else happens." זה לא אמת לאמיתו.
That's not really emes. Emes is this invitation to more and more and more of where else could I be real? Where else could I find a place to be real? You know, I'll give it to you in I think an example that is very shayach to everyone. I'm not singling anyone out in here, but I think everyone. At a certain point in life, I don't know what age this happens and I don't know what setting it happens, but at a certain point in life, a person realizes that they're not really themselves in social settings.
They walk, at a certain point you realize the shul I go to, the people that are around me, not not shul, I mean just shul because we hang out a lot in shul, but whatever it is that setting that I go to, I go to because I know it, like I know it, I know the people there, vezeh, but at a certain point I start wondering: am I really showing up to this thing or is this like image of who I already thought think I am based on how who they think I am, is that the person that's showing up here? And then the questions of and what would happen if the real... Would I burn everyone to the ground? Would I make everyone, including myself, feel uncomfortable? And all these different types of things. So the emet comes and tells you, go in in there and burn everyone to the ground. Just be, unleash the real you.
But you don't even know who the real you is. You just know that this isn't. A person has to be someone that's mevakesh emet. It's not enough to just know what you're not.
You have to know what you are. It's not just enough to posul, to say that's not it, that's... So a moment of turning to Hashem and saying, I want the real me to be the person that I'm connecting with and that I'm operating from and that shows up in a place, Hashem I just want that to be the person that shows up. Reb Nachman says, that's a nitzachon.
But you didn't do it yet? Doesn't matter. That's what you asked for. That's what you move towards. That's a tnuah kalah.
That's a precious small movement towards the emet, and that bakashah and that ratzon amitit venitzchi and last for ever, because he bases this on what the Zohar just told us, לית רעותא טבא דאיתאביד. There's no such thing as a bad ratzon; when a person has a bad ratzon, there's no such thing as a bad ratzon that ever gets lost. Ever. It's there forever.
So far so good? Okay. But now there's a danger. There's a danger on this journey. And this is something that is very important to speak about already now in the beginning and I'm happy that we're doing this already right now.
Tell me something, the more Chassidus you learn, the better you feel, the worse you feel? The more pnimiyus hatorah, the better you feel, the worse... tell me tachlis, let's be emes. At first, not so good. And then? And then not so good and then better.
Why not so good in the beginning? Because you realize how it's like it's a little bit daunting how much you have, how much you want to then accomplish. So it can feel like, ugh, I haven't gotten there yet. But I think it's fair to... A million percent.
I mean that that is that's the right answer, meaning a person that says, I learned more and more pnimiyus hatorah, my God, I'm just like this gets me so high, yesh po eizeh, there's something there's something lacking over here because the beginning of a movement towards when my soul is really moving towards the Ribono Shel Olam, my life is getting a shape towards Hashem, it's not there to make you feel bad or guilty, but it's there to give you a really strong gut check of saying, how much have you been real with yourself up until now in life? Now, rarely are there people that can come and say, no, no, I've been pro, my friends know, I'm just real all the time and I don't have that issue. I'm ready for the light, right? There are people like this by the way, it's not like it doesn't exist. But a person that's really like that would never say that about themselves. Real can be bad.
Sometimes you get in trouble with the real you. So there's, you know what I mean, the real you without emes and checking in... Wait, wait, wait, what's the real you without emes? What does that mean? Well, some people who are very real, but then... We have to we have to define this for a second.
This is very interesting. A lot of people are very real but they're not emet? Yeah. So what does that mean? That means you could say something that might offend someone. That's real? For you it is, but you're not...
but your emes isn't refined totally, so you're not thinking am I going to embarrass this person? Am I going to this, am I going to that? You're not going through 70 different checks in your head before you open your mouth. Right. So is that called emet? Your real... well, so you're saying real...
it's good, it's good what you're saying, it's good. You're leading us to a great place. Why is that called emet? I'm saying it's your emet where you're at right now. Really? It's your emet where you're at right now? Not necessarily your emet.
It's what you're... maybe what... it's your unrefined... it's where you're holding.
But every... so that means that everything everything in life is emet and it's just unrefined. Is that what you're saying? Listen, I think if you function in a society where everyone's responsible for the other person and you are yourself, there are people who will just walk away and be like I don't like that person, I'm out. And there are people who will say what you said was offensive, what you said was embarrassing, what you said...
and then you can refine yourself and get closer to your emet. But it only happens in a community or it happens when you are constantly learning Torah and have a pause button. And have a pause button. Both.
You need a pause and a reflective mirror. Listen, I have so much to say about what you just said right now but I'm not because I want him to say much more but I am interested though in does anyone have any reaction to what Jenny just said? It's true. It's true? No well it may be true in the mind whether or not you hold back but those feelings are really real. Yeah I can relate I can relate to it what you're saying.
But you can so easily get hijacked by your own very narrow perspective and be certain that that's emes because you don't have the whole picture. See Jenny what you referred to as emes was what a person feels is what the real is something that really a real emotion that's coming out of them. But that's not necessarily emes at all that could be actually the biggest sheker in the world. But I feel it.
That's not yeah but it what has that gone through does it have anything to do with emes? We have we have last week we gave a little bit of an order of how do I know that I'm actually even on the that those feelings that I have are emes and how do I know that I'm davening towards the emes? Have I been able to actually have a word of truth spoken from my mouth to Hashem? That that's the prerequisite. If because we have a mountain of emotions we have no idea without getting too much into the psychology of it the reason why we feel so aligned with certain things can have nothing to do with what I really feel about it it's just my programming the world I was raised it could be nothing. But it's what I feel so that's the emes. The emes is bad.
The emes is never bad. The emes is never really painful. It may be a heavy moment an experience but the emes is actually the most freeing thing in the world. Freeing thing it's the most liberating thing in the world.
Now there is a school of thought in modern psychology that says go out and tell the world exactly what you think unleash the slave that's within you and become a real freedom fighter. But I may curse out people go for it like do what you gotta do right? That's not emes. That's not emes. Emes is shalom.
Emes is emes has a shalom at the end of it. Emes is peace. And we have to be very careful in distinguishing between the two. Emes could be dangerous which we're going to see from another reason right now connects a bit to what Jess was saying before but just because I feel something and then I even say it doesn't mean I'm emes and it doesn't really mean I'm being I'm just being real.
That's America. Mamash. That's just that's America it's not zeh lo zeh. Yeah.
Reminds me of the fact that right now our society is so into like validating everything that everybody feels and says and that it has to be correct so then there's no boundaries and then there's no rules and there's no respect really because like you could walk into shul wearing whatever you feel like wearing and it doesn't matter what the dress code so to speak is and people could say to adults whatever they feel like saying and maybe we could feel something and then think of why we're feeling that and maybe while working on why we're feeling that we get to our emes. So our feeling is not necessarily wrong or right it's just something that we have to work on without telling the world what we're feeling. What would we do without Torah? Like what what do people do without Torah? I don't know. Huh? They would be in America.
What do we do? Yeah it's just that's what I'm feeling so it must be that that's the truth. Yeah. And then you add to what Jenny says that if you if you're in the heat of a moment and you say something and then two minutes later you look back and you regret it then you know it's not emes. Like if you had that feeling...
What if you don't regret it? If it sits in your head if you're thinking about it if you're replaying that thing over and over and over and over again then it's not shleimus. Even if you don't want to say it it's not shleimus. So emes would mean that you're at peace. Yeah.
You can move forward. You type it a million times but you don't actually press send. So you're saying that this is very good emes would mean that once that thing was expressed you actually feel even if it's something hard to say. Yeah.
You feel like a menucha, shalva. Nachon, so most of the time Jenny even if that person... is upset like my thing wasn't a feeling it was an observation a clear observation that I offended someone right so I'm just saying like I don't know you're saying like this even if some if you have if you have an emet that needs to be said and let's say we do the way Zahava just explained it and it it's you're sitting with it in your head it went through a berur like you thought it through and it was shared and you feel you don't feel oh I was happy I got rid of this you just feel this was it's a peaceful experience post-experience and the person that received it was okay with it let's say they weren't okay it's up to them that's their story not my story Jenny you know why so many shuls the structure of so many shuls have have created positions for rabbis to be in jail in their in their in their functioning they're basically jail rabbis because they never are able to say something that could chas veshalom make someone feel uncomfortable even if it's totally their emet you know baruch Hashem I don't have that problem so so is that emet is that emet if someone if someone feels uncomfortable and it's not leshem this is very important it's not you didn't say what you said in order to make them feel uncomfortable but through a hanhaga of emet that you feel afterwards not like I'm so glad I got through it but there's just this shalom that's in your own heart and care and love for the person on the receiving end you have to trust that if it's really emet that you have to you're going to love them even more even if they feel uncomfortable about it and bothered by it but a derech is a derech emet is emet you say is the communal berur that has to happen for you to find your true emet and it can't happen in isolation with just you and yourself or you and the Torah it has to be it has to be both actually no no it has to be both cause you could also hide in a communal thing and never have to figure out and discover what about this person imagine there was no world and it's just me and Hashem it has to be both which is where hisbodedus is like key key key yes I feel like last we didn't cover other yet I feel like last week we really you made a point to say this is about self this is about self-truth that we didn't we didn't bridge yet into the other I don't know is that am I misunderstanding I felt like last week was because it was hisbodedus and it was about being honest to yourself being true to you I didn't feel like we've covered yet you in relation to the other no no but that that's also okay because this is where we started today oh today yeah I mean this is how the first thing we said that when you go out and yeah it both they both fall into the same category the self and also but some people are so big on saying my emet can only be expressed by making a statement okay what if what about you come to an emet that there's not going to be any posts no one's going to know about the state of emet you reached are you up for that menanyen oscha cause if you're not up for that then whatever emet you come to that has to do with out there is really is really shvach it's really weak it may be it may be right but it's very weak very very weak the real real rebbes the real tzaddikim and tzadkaniyos of the generations had to first go through inside you know a very very deep and they and not just once they have to keep on they have to keep on going through a very very deep transformation and only then have have some type of an ability to say something afterwards there was one more hand that was up anyone okay okay so let now now let's continue let's see how Reb Nosson now explains this okay I just have to add one thing sorry this is very important I do feel that this whole conversation is exactly the avoda and the berur of today of Am Yisrael we are so we for 77 years of Zionism have gotten so obsessed with letting the world know what our emet is and it's gotten us nowhere nowhere comes October 7th and what I don't know I was feeling like Hashem was saying and is still saying to us, let's pretend there's no world. What do you think? What is the emet? What do you think the emet is? Because you could keep on sending very dignified people to go and speak in very dignified settings.
Not not talking about the UN. I'm talking about, you know, I said dignified setting, right? So other places, prestige, to speak on behalf of the 2,000-year-old dream call it Zionism, wrap it up in some nationalistic whatever, and the world, proclaim to the world, you know. What do you what do you think inside of you? And then and then after that you go through such a birur that whether you say something to the world or not is irrelevant because you know what the emet is. I got very very inspired as many of us have been getting from every hostage that's been coming out.
There's one that keeps on popping up to me, that's Segev Kalfon, who was here a few like I don't know a month ago, a month and a half ago. He was in, nu, the shul by Orot HaTzion? Huh? Oh right next to Mishkan Tzipora. Yeah, he's, well, in in maybe he was in Shirat Lucy? Huh? Right there. And he was one of the last ones to come out.
So he said that while he was in the tunnel all the time, all he came to the maskana that all he wanted to do was was over and over again say שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד. He it's not necessary I don't think he I don't know if he comes from a religious background but these things are so irrelevant and unimportant these days it's unbelievable, but he came but he had this amazing cheshek to scream out his emet, right? And after he came to this birur of that's what he wants to do in the tunnel in Gaza, he said that he he I think he said made a tnai with Hashem that if he comes out the way that previous hostages were coming out with that sick production, that sick demonic production, so he said he already accepted in his heart, he's going to go on the stage in the heart of Chanyounis and he's going to grab the microphone and he doesn't care what happens to him. All he wants to do is scream שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד. He had to deal with the sheker of all shekers and have a birur of emet of all emet, should we never have to go through such a nisayon be'ezrat Hashem to get to these this recognition of emet.
But if but then he wanted to go and then proclaim it to the world. Ze mashu acher. First it was an internal internal process taking place inside of birur ha'emet. But there are so many people that have truths but their cheshek is to first share it with the world.
What about what about first tahalich pnimi that's going on inside? So you see, Johnny, most people that have that cheshek to tell someone emet, I'm willing to put my money on it, whatever money I don't have, to put my money on that they didn't really ever internally have these beinam l'vein Hashem these questions of emet, but it was always in response to what is I have to say something to someone else. Because most of the time you come to the conclusion that you don't really need to scream your emet, you have to live it. You have to just live it. There was a famous song when I was a kid: action speaks louder than words.
Do you remember that song? Action speaks, there's a famous action like that living emet speaks so much louder than if you went around telling everyone: you know what the emet is? you know what the emet is? Zionism is, Israel we we belong here, we belong here. Stop telling that to the world. Look what it's done. When did they when did these meshugoyim begin freaking out like in the world with protests? Do you remember what day they started in the last round of everything? When did they start to go nuts on Am Yisrael? The protests of the world? October 8th.
October 8th. Probably even Motzei October 7th. Now, just to for a few more minutes just to connect to to the thing we brought up before. Now what's a danger that can happen to us? So Rav Nosson says like this, Gimmel: לפעמים יכול האדם ליפול חס ושלום על ידי האמת דייקא.
Emes can actually drag you down.
כי יודע בנפשו כי שבאמת קלקל ופגם הרבה because When you start to go towards the path of emes, you know, okay, I live today and I'm not stuck in the past. However, the past has put some blemish, some little, some of those blemishes have have put some stains on me. They've stained me to a certain extent.
וגם עתה הוא כמו שהוא and I haven't really been able to remove the stench of some of the some of the stains that I put on myself. Ve'al ken, so when the other side hears this he's like let's make this person feel really real in a sheker way.
ועל כן מסיתו הבעל דבר לדחפו לגמרי חס ושלום על ידי האמת שלו. The other side, the dark side comes in and says yeah, yeah, yeah, let let go and be a really real person.
The really real ones are very aware of what they did in their past. So get in, get as much in tune with that as you can. If you in the name of being emes, in the name of being amiti, go more and more. He gets excited when we get, when we tune in to, in an unhealthy way, when we tune in to the ratzon for teshuvah.
He gets excited. In the name of emes, right?
כמורגל זאת בפי כמה אנשים as we've seen this by many people.
והרבה יצאו מעולמם לגמרי על ידי האמת הזה. Many people have lost their minds because of this emes.
Because of this quest for being as real and as raw as possible, so they keep on, you know, you find some shmutz, you realize there's more shmutz, and in the name of being real like, oh, I really need to indulge in this shmutz if I ever want to get out of it, but before you know it, you're about 87, you've you haven't שום דבר עוד לא התחיל. Nothing even started. And you're stuck in this in this maze that the yetzer hara puts you in in the name of your journey of emes. In the name of your journey of emes.
Sometimes, you know, there there are I I I meet these chevre sometimes. I started a lot of cool things very young, so I saw a lot of college campuses at a young age by going and doing Shabbotons in different college campuses across the states. And once in a while, like years later, I'll meet chevre that are now like they look a little familiar but now they have beards and peyos. They're in different yeshivas and places in Eretz Yisrael.
And I know where they were holding back then and they know where they were holding back then. And Boruch Hashem, not everyone's stuck in this, but once in a while you see people that in the name of emes and their teshuvah, they've had to completely disassociate from from like half of their world, if not more, but really even inside you see in their eyes they they have this they they have the Baal Davar, they have the other side come and saying until you're fully out of this one, don't pretend that you've reached anywhere. And that's all in the name of emes that we opened up for ourselves on a search for emes. Reb Noson says people have lost their minds like this.
People have lost in, you know, it's like in the name of integrity, authenticity, in the name of being real ad hasof.
אבל כבר גילו לנו הצדיקי אמת. The real tzaddikim revealed to us שהאמת לאמיתו אינו כן. Okay, what's this is opening up a whole world for us.
There's emes and there's emes l'amito. So what's the emes? The emes is it's true you're we do carry some heavy stuff from the past. It's that's true. That's emes.
And to be aware and Dovid Hamelech even says v'chatosi negdi somid that those things are in front of me all the time. But the tzaddikei emes says that's called emes but it's not called emes l'amito. What's emes l'amito? How would you translate that? Truth of truths. How would you translate truth of truths? Absolute truth.
Anyone else? Emes l'amito. Do you mean it's like truth for the sake of truth? And so what's the first thing? Just the being real. A fact. Yes, like information.
On an information level, on a factual level that's true, but absolute truth is emes l'shem emes. Okay, so Reb Nachman is saying here, Reb Noson is saying here that the emes l'amito is that those things that yes had a blemish on you are not really, I don't know how you would say it here, they're not really as dark. as you think. But you have to think that it's dark in order to do teshuva.
If you don't think it's that dark, it won't it won't get you to move anywhere. And an emes l'amito, now this is a whole world in Breslov. Emes versus emes l'amita. There are a lot of things in life that we do and we should be doing them in the level of emes.
And we should not be doing it on the level of emes l'amita. There are a lot of things in life that we don't do in the level of emes, but we should be doing it in the level of emes l'amita. This is a big sugya, which we will develop here b'ezras Hashem. And he's going to explain over here a little bit right now.
כי כן כי צריך כל אדם להתחזק עצמו בהשם יתברך תמיד. There's never a void moment where a person says, "I don't need chizuk right now." You always need chizuk. You always have to mechazek yourself in Hashem all the time, ולקיים בחינת אם אסק שמים שם אתה, if I ascend to the heavens, there you are, like when things are going great, and parnassa is happening and my children are matzliach, and I'm happy with my self-image and and and all those things you want to add in there, im esak shamayim you're there, sham ata. But then the pasuk continues and says, v'atzia she'ol hineka, and if I descend to the lowest place in the world, hineka, here you are.
So this is just an important perush. I want you all to to pay attention and notice here. Rebbe Noson says you have to mekayem this this pasuk, that in every state that you're in, it's it's an opportunity for more chizuk. But to give us koach right now, look at the wording that Dovid Hamelech used.
Im esak shamayim, if I fly up to the heavens, what's the word that he used? Where's Hashem? Sham. What's sham? There. What about when I descend to the lowest places? V'atzia she'ol hineka. Here.
You hear how special this is? This is the nature of man. Im esak shamayim and I'm flying really high, I know you're there, but v'atzia she'ol hineka. But when I when I go down really low, hineka, that that that's emes, that's an emes'diker journey, that's a journey of truth. V'atzia she'ol hineka.
Do you understand the difference between the two? I just want to make sure we don't move on. This is very important. Im esak shamayim when my truth is that I'm flying so high and things are so good, everything's fine, Hashem, you're there, you're there with me, but you're there with me. V'atzia she'ol, but I've I've I have so many aveiros that I've that I remember from my past or that I'm still in right now and all these things that disconnect me from being the real me, but I'm aware of it.
V'atzia she'ol, I'm aware of my descent. Hashem says, "And where do you think I am now? There? No, hineka, I'm with you right there, if you just let me in at that moment. If you just let me in at that moment." Ma'zeh? That can be dangerous. Why? Because if you want to really feel the presence of Hashem, you have to go low? No, no, no.
It's a it's a what do you call it? It's a these are not things that you that you plan or these are these are facts of nature almost.
זה יקרה בין אם אתה עושה משהו או לא עושה משהו בנידון זה יהיה ככה. Hineka's closer than sham. Huh? Hineka's closer than sham now.
Like you don't have to take it necessarily to like the lowest lowest lowest, like wherever you are now. Yeah, v'atzia she'ol, any step of she'ol, any well, but the truth is not so much because she'ol means the lowest of the low, that she'ol tachtis means the abyss of of zeh. So you're both right. You're both emes.
Yeah. It's also like when you're at the lowest of the low, you can get lost in yourself. So Hashem really needs to be there to get you out. So it's not like it's more powerful, it's just it's a counterbalance that he needs to have.
Yeah. And when you're in the highest of the high. Right. Genuine I I actually want to slightly disagree because I think that you can get much easier lost in yourself when you're in the highest of the high.
Kochi v'otzem yadi. You actually can get completely lost when things are going so good. When it's high, you can think look what I did, but when you're low, you can think I'm not worthy. So I think that maybe also it's but you understand what I'm saying, like you can get lost in yourself when you don't have to dig deep.
You don't have to dig deep.
אם אסק שמים שם אתה. When I'm ascending up on high, you don't have to work so hard. But veatzia sheol, it's true, you could also get lost in your pain and your misery, and that's why Rabbi Nachman is saying just be clear, this is a perfect moment for inviting real consciousness into your life, that Hashem is right there.
No, he's right here, sorry. You know what I mean, it's just a play on words, but there's more to do. Baruch Hashem, but it's enticing as opposed to oh my god, there's no more work to do, it's like oh, you mean I'm not done yet? Like Reb Shlomo paraphrased this from Rabbi Nachman, he says a person isn't who they are where they are right now, because maybe we don't want to be where we are right now. A person is where they want to be.
That defines a person. You are defined based on what you want and where you want to be. You're not defined based on where you actually are, because maybe we're not where we want to be. But I am where I am, people like, what is it called? I am what I eat, all these names of books, right? Which is true.
I am what I daven, I am all these things, but I am who I want to be. That's actually who I really want to be. And we all want to be people of emet. We all want to be people of emet.
We just have to be open to the notion that maybe we never discovered what that is. And there's some baalei teshuvahs in the room, and it's like because I and many of us in the room grew up frum, we always speak about this thing of being under the assumption that we're close to Hashem because we're frum, because we're religious. You could be religious your whole life and never ever ever even step one toe in the world of emes. Ever.
It's possible. It's the biggest threat for those of us that were raised frum because we did the right thing. We didn't rebel. We've been doing the right thing all the time.
Now you're going to tell me at the age of 40 or 50 that I never stepped on the... it could be. It could very well be. I don't know.
But again, what did Rabbi Itzhak Breiter tell us two weeks ago? Once he got in touch with Rabbi Nachman's teachings, he realized he's lived his whole life serving Hashem avoda zara b'tehara. I love it, I hate it and I love it, meaning ouch, what a dagger, it doesn't stop, that dagger just, I can't stop hearing it. Avoda zara b'tehara. But once you smell some emes coming in from within you, you're so happy that you discovered that you were serving avoda zara b'tehara.
Now you just want to be someone that's not serving avoda zara. You want to serve avoda krova, which is the tikkun of avoda zara, not foreign worship, close worship. Okay. Yeda veyamin, right after, sorry, she'afilu b'sheol tachtiyot.
Do you see where we are? After the she'afilu b'sheol tachtiyot, we're about eight lines into this piece.
שאפילו בשאול תחתיות חס ושלום ידע ויאמין שהוא סמוך עדיין להשם יתברך ואין שום ייאוש בעולם. Do you know what emes is? Emes is actually believing that אין ייאוש בעולם כלל. The sitra achra wants you to say, hey listen brother, in the name of emet, you went too far.
Don't try to be so close. Recognize that you're a felon and do time. Just stay in jail. Don't bother anybody.
Don't feel like you're privileged to come and live a free life and be close to the King. You messed up. You messed up too bad, too deeply, too dark. Stay there.
Be secluded from everyone. Rabbi Nachman is saying אין שום ייאוש בעולם כלל is the mida of emet. That is emet. That simple notion of there's no despair no matter what I've done.
ויכולין לשוב גם משם ולהתקרב להשם יתברך באמת. Be'emet l'amito means there's no aveira that's big enough that could prevent me from thinking that I could be close to Hashem again. Ki bevada, so Reb Noson says of course, צריכים לשמור את עצמו מן החטא. Of course we have to guard ourselves from sins.
v'afilu mipgam kol shehu. And from any blemish.
אבל אף על פי כן. But nonetheless.
אפילו אם נכשל כמו שנכשל. Even if you failed the way you failed.
אפילו אלפים ורבבות פעמים חס ושלום. even if you failed the way you failed thousands and thousands of times God forbid.
אף על פי כן בכל...
עת ורגע חסדי השם לא תמו God's chesed is endless, it never ends, it never ever ends, ויכולין לקרב עצמו לשם יתברך בכל עת ומכל מקום שהוא. That's the level of emes l'amito, the truth of all truths, is that you can always bring yourself closer to the Ribbono Shel Olam in any state that you find yourself in, כי לגדולתו יתברך אין חקר, because his greatness has no cheker. Cheker means you can't really measure.
I mean that's probably the kavana you have every day in Ashrei, right? At least what's the original word? It's, yeah, but that doesn't chakira, yeah, but measure, meaning his greatness you can't ever say Hashem is this loving or this, ligdulaso ein cheker, you can't, I can't put anything on it. And that's the emes l'amito that none of us could put any limits on what Hashem is able to do and what Hashem yisborach isn't able to do. And Reb Noson is saying over here that when a person is open to the notion that maybe that image of Hashem that I had was a shtickel golden caffy, if there's such a thing like that, shtickel golden caffy. Ah, what a freedom I feel when I realized I made Hashem into a little jack-in-the-box, I did, I did, but it's okay, because now is a new day and now Hashem believes in me to not go to that place of putting him again into a little golden calf situation, because ligdulaso ein cheker, ligdulaso ein cheker.
So if Hashem's chesed and greatness has no end and we can't measure it, what does that say about my journey of emes? It means that it starts from right now. It means that regardless of anything I've done, it starts this moment. Sounds like AA.
יש פה הרבה שתים עשרה צעדים יש פה הרבה מזה נכון.
So this is what the Rebbe is saying over here, and he ends off here saying ועל ידי תשובה וצעקה ותפילה ותחנונים הרבה יכול להתהפך הכל לטובה. I'm so happy we're doing this in Adar.
יכול להתהפך הכל לטובה בבחינת עוונות נהפכים לזכויות, like the Gemara says in Yoma and the Rambam speaks about this in Hilchos Teshuva.
וזהו העיקר האמת לאמיתו.
Again on a level of emes, did you do damage to yourself when you did an aveira and when you did something that you know in your heart that probably you shouldn't have? Yes, 100 percent. Should you be like michutz lamachaneh for a few moments? Maybe yes, maybe no, I don't know, but is there anything you did that's too big for God to re-welcome you back into the mishpacha instantly? No. That concept is the Sitra Achra, that's the other side. So this is some stuff we have.
This is we're going to end now. This is today's learning of the middah of emes, which a lot of things are opening up for us for now as we could see, but I want you though to understand something: this is the point of this shiur. Teachings like this, how do we know if we were mechaven lamattara? Do you feel more peaceful? Do you have more tranquility after discovering more angles of the middah of emes? If after learning a piece like this you get deeper into this, oh my God, I haven't taken any advantage of anything, I've been serving avodah zara like all these, no, no, no, like that's not emes. Emes is that from this moment on I go and I sit in my car for two minutes talking to Hashem saying, I'm chalsching to actually say one word of emes to you.
I'm chalsching, I'm dying to find one word of emes inside me coming through my voice before you Ribbono Shel Olam. There's nothing greater, there's no more of a fulfilling feeling in our kishkas than exactly that. That's where these teachings should be leading us to on a level of asiya, not let me see how emes I've been or not. It has to go back to the individual, like we learned last week, and finding that dibbur of emes between us and Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
So I give us a bracha that this learning, bizchus נחל נובע מקור חכמה רבי נחמן בן פיגא, the tzaddik emes, his student Reb Noson, and all of the world of Breslov, that we only get more sense of shleimus inside. inside of us and that we believe b'emuna shleima that the statement אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל is emet l'amita. It's emet l'amita. It's the truth of all truths.
Next week we're going to take this b'ezrat Hashem further and further deeper. Thank you guys so much.