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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.
Boker tov everybody, thank you for joining us this morning. The month of Shvat is the learning for the month of Shvat is sponsored by the Aaron family le'ilui nishmas Levi ben Yosef, by the Silver family le'ilui nishmas בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, and anonymously sponsored for the refuah sheleima of אושרה בת רחל פייגא, מלכה אלקא בת פרל, שושנה יונה בת אדל, Hila bat Ilana, Yisrael ben Adina, and by Joni and Moshe Polak le'ilui nishmas Shimshon ben Moshe, Tzvi ben Mordechai, שירה רחמן בת רב אלטר נתן נטע, and the week is sponsored by Reb Naimi Davidovich in memory of their daughter Shira Davidovich Pransky, zichrona livracha, her yahrtzeit was yesterday, may we merit to continue spreading the bracha and emuna of her life. Okay. I shared with you that last week I had the privilege to be in Uman.
Did I share with you? I told some of the chevra, what, yeah. So, I was in Uman for less than, I was probably in Uman for like 12 hours, 14 hours. I hadn't been there in about four or five years. And there's something waiting for you there that you didn't even know you were looking for.
It's hard to express this in words, and so I'm not going to try. All I'm going to say is that it, it, it just put back into me this, this heart-burning desire to go back into the this orchard of gems of the Torah and the guidance and the light and the passion of the world of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov zechuso yagen aleinu. I'll try to explain what we're going to be doing be'ezras Hashem. This initially was, when we started probably like 10 years ago, nine years ago, this was on Thursday mornings, always dedicated for Rabbi Nachman.
It was always his morning. And I always felt okay we got to go back and forth, but I, I can't explain what the heart feels right now, other than the a few, maybe a few examples or one main thing that I want to express. A number of years ago on the Israeli TV, on like I think channel one, or however the channels work today, I don't know what one is, is it 111, 11? 11. I think it was on 11.
There was a documentary about the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And the opening scene is something I never forgot. The opening scene is a close-up on a chassid, he's not alive anymore, I forgot his name, where the interviewer asks him, can you tell us who the Rebbe is for you? And there's these long pauses and basically the guy, this chassid looks into the camera and he's thinking like what am I even, what am I going to say over here? What am I even going to begin to say? And the more that he looks into the camera, suddenly he starts to cry and starts and the camera's just focused on him and there's tears pouring down from his eyes. And that's the opening of the, he doesn't end up answering bikhlal, but that's the opening of the documentary.
That this chassid's looking into the camera and his eyes, his eyes are just pouring tears, pouring tears. Now that was someone that was by the Rebbe, by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I would say probably 40 years he was there, at least. He was an older, older chassid, someone that was born into it and he was experiencing everything live, firsthand. One of the most astonishing things about the older Breslover chassidim is that these are people that obviously did not spend any time by Rabbi Nachman, they came to Rabbi Nachman in their life much later after already having a very founded and grounded Yiddishkeit, they would answer the same exact thing.
How could that be? How could it be that people that never had the live experience, when you ask them who is the Rebbe for you, what is the Rebbe for you, what is this? It, it seems to me it's not found by anywhere else where there are people that feel such a draw and were drawn with such a passion for something. And to me, those stories about those older tzaddikim, those have been for me the pillars of, of chizuk and of strength and of determination to get into the heart of this whole sugya called Breslov, which as we see today, gets, is, is spreading bigger and bigger and larger and larger. But there's a thing is that. Someone asked me last week when I was sharing with him when I came back I said I can't explain to you what happened again at the tzion at the kever but it's like I can't ignore it so he said what that means that like you're gonna you're gonna get like the white kippah with the pom-poms and you know those kind those kinds of things.
So Baruch Hashem that my personal introduction into the heart of Rebbe Nachman personally was through Rav Chaim Kramer when I was a teenager through Breslov Research Institute before I met any of you and before I knew most people in my life but I was privileged to have had a connection to Rav Chaim Kramer who would travel through Los Angeles and stay with my chevra there and the first time going to Uman when I was 25 years ago 26 years ago was the first time for Rosh Hashanah and it was with him stayed by him. They said it's called the Ritz-Carlton of Uman and there was just a sign on the door of the house that they had there said called the Ritz-Carlton it was nothing look you know didn't look like the Ritz-Carlton at all today they have some places that actually do look a little bit like the Ritz-Carlton a little bit much more advanced places although this last journey last week was very it was it was very difficult I hadn't traveled since they had closed aviation through the country of Ukraine so you have to travel through Moldova or other countries but mine was Moldova and then drive for two hours and then get to the border and then shtiklach there bribes all meshugasses as if you're living in the 1850s bribes to get through the border and then you drive and then you drive another six I'm sorry for saying this six seven hours it's just exactly what it was till you get to Uman in bitter bitter freezing freezing wind and rain and slippery and it was I closed my eyes for most of that ride because I said there's I can't believe I'm doing this I mamash can't believe I'm doing this right now I've never been in this weather before it was it was the coldest bitter I've ever been besides one Shabbos in Montreal I was Shabbos Beshalach in Montreal many years ago and that was that was just that felt like that as well but like tons of black ice and then I'm getting and then I finally reached the tzion and then the sirens go off and I'm like oh my god I can't believe what what now like what do you I had this whole thing going on in my head of saying like I know this is probably this could be like such a wild Chasidishe tale that I travel all the way here and here is where I get hit by a missile right next to Rebbe Nachman's tzion I take off chas v'shalom but I was like but I don't really want that I want to go home I want to I want to be here and go home but I had no idea what to do I didn't know what the protocol is in in there I didn't know if the sirens over there meant mamash incoming to that area there were very few people there right now I looked around no one was going anywhere no one was doing anything and afterwards I found out that whenever there's bombings in Kyiv so they also also the sirens and all the whole area go off so and Kyiv is a few hours' drive from there. It was just a few hours of just really getting a taste a little taste of what it used to be like to travel to get there back in the day nothing close to it but a little bit more reminiscent of it as opposed to when we would travel you get there it's about I don't know three hours three and a half hours you get there hotels are waiting the hot food's waiting this wasn't like this at all there was barely chashmal sewage systems whole balagan and yet and yet how do I explain that the love and light and passion and higher consciousness was the only thing that we were feeling that I was tapping into that I don't know how to explain it and and therefore I'm I'm drawn to go back into the Torah of the Rebbe but to hopefully do it in a way that can give us the the key things that are available to us to hopefully it's a tall order but it's shaveh it's shaveh it's worth it. And I'm also plagued by a statement that I heard by an older Breslov Chasid from the last generation that I haven't figured out what to do with yet and I actually called in I had a mashpia that I spoke to this week about it because I realized this has been in the back of my mind for the last four years when I read this I think it was רב הירש לייב ליפל he's one of the names of the older tzaddikim that said the only thing worse than getting in The only thing worse than getting into Rabbi Nachman is not going the whole way with Rabbi Nachman.
What does that statement mean? So I used to think that it means the only thing worse than getting into Rabbi Nachman is not becoming an official Breslover. But that's, I'm sorry and this may insult a few people not in this room but others that hear, to me that's katnus, to me that's smallness. I think that I want to, if I want to re-interpret that statement it means the only thing worse than getting into Rabbi Nachman is my not going the whole way with the Torah that's provided from the Rebbe, with the teachings that the Rebbe has prescribed for our generation because he is the Rebbe for our generation, for us knowing how to navigate this generation, us knowing how to navigate these times. There was no other Chasidisher Rebbe that spoke about Eretz Yisrael as much and in the manner that Rabbi Nachman spoke about.
There was no other Rebbe that addressed anxiety and stress and nervous breakdowns as much as the Rebbe did. There was no other Rebbe that gave you the tools to believe in how powerful you really are like the Rebbe.
לא היה דבר כזה.
לא היה דבר כזה.
There was no other Rebbe that spoke about yishuv hadaas, settling of the mind, which we all chalosh for so intensely, like Rabbi Nachman. So for that and many, many more reasons, what I wanted to, how I wanted to go back into the learning was very overwhelming because where do you start? How do you re-engage? And therefore there's a classic teaching in Likutei Moharan that's called also shvikas hamochin. At a certain point you have to chuck your intellect, meaning you have to actually let go of trying to figure out the best way and the most appropriate way or the most perfect way to figure out how to start something and you just got to go and you got to trust that if the heart is open it'll lead you to what you're looking for. I believe this about Rabbi Nachman's teachings be'emuna sheleima that it leads you to what you're looking for without you even realizing that you were looking for it.
כל האבידות תמצאם אצל הצדיק. All the things you lost are by the tzadik. That's a statement, that's a phrase that's mentioned quite often in the world of Breslov. Baruch Hashem today there are so many different avenues and ways to get into Rabbi Nachman's teachings.
What I want us to do here today and continuing from this Thursday on b'ezras Hashem is to hear from you how you see these Torahs in your own personal lives, to not hold back, to have kashyas, to ask the questions because that's the way that we're going to get to the nekuda of not emes, emes l'amita. Now I want to explain the difference. In the world of Rabbi Nachman's Torah there's a theme, many themes. One of them is the difference between truth and truth of truths.
Many of the older Chasidim that got into Breslov explain, I'm going to read you one line, a line that caught my eye that'll explain hopefully what we're trying to bring over over here. You remember, let me see if his picture is here, I'm not sure. On Yom HaShoah this last year we spoke about in our Breslov shiur this tzadik. Do many of you remember when we spoke about Reb Yitzchak Breiter? He was the Chasid that was killed in Treblinka, one of the first to be killed in Treblinka, and Reb Yitzchak Breiter was the one that brought Breslov Chasidus to Poland and now there's these amazing books written on the history of Breslov Chasidus in Poland.
He is the one that started the whole movement of the kibbutz, of the gathering of the Chasidim that couldn't travel to Uman anymore because of the war, they started and they gathered in Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin by Reb Meir Shapiro, the famous yeshiva in Poland. This is where they would gather. In fact, Reb Meir Shapiro of Lublin, the one that founded the Daf Yomi, would go and he was chazan for musaf on Rosh Hashanah at this minyan. And Reb Yitzchak Breiter is known to be a trailblazer.
Reb Yitzchak Breiter, this yid did not grow up in Breslov at all. He was in the beis midrash, I'm just going to give this over in like two minutes, he was in the beis midrash of Reb Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, remember Reb Tzadok passed away in either 1900 or 1901, and over there he found some kind of a sefer that didn't have of a kerichah, it didn't have a binding, it didn't have a cover, because back then Rebbe Nachman's sefarim were so bimachlokes that they wouldn't even put the name on the side. He opened up the sefer and he read three lines and he felt that his whole world had changed. He was a giant, he was already a huge talmid chacham, Yitzchak Breiter.
He couldn't understand what's going on with himself, but he felt that the words that were talking about yishuv hadas were driving him to places that he didn't understand. He put the book back on the shelf and he closed it and he was crying over it for a few days. I think the next time he went back to the shelf he couldn't find that book anywhere. And he's freaking out and he's talking about this with everyone, no one knows what he's speaking about.
Finally someone said, "Oh, that?" and they directed him to another little sefer. I forget what it was. Bottom line is that he hears about a place called Uman. He thinks it's called Oman, Uman, or Oman.
And no one knows what he's talking about. Finally someone said to him, "No, no, no, there's a place called Uman. It's not in Eretz Yisrael, it's in Ukraine or whatever the country was back then." And listen to this, just to show you how your passion can lead you to do huge things even if you have no clear picture, but if you have a clear desire in the heart, look what happens to you. He sends a letter to the town of Uman after he finds out where it is.
He has no idea who he's getting in touch with, but he writes a letter to a bookstore that he knows of, a Judaica store in Uman. I can't imagine what a Judaica store in Uman in like 1902 looked like. What's a Judaica store in Uman? Today you have tons of Judaica stores there and plenty of restaurants and a bunch of things over there, but then? He sends this letter. The letter gets there and the Ba'al Hachanus wasn't even like a Breslever, he wasn't even frum, but he was like a Jew that had a Judaica store and he didn't know what to do with this letter where Yitzchak Breiter writes over there, "I'm a Jew that's in Poland, I hear about you guys, can you send me words? Send me something, I'm starving.
Whatever this was, is there anything more?" Right away after this store owner receives this letter, a Chassid named Reb Getchi passed by, walked by the store and the store owner says, "Hey, Getchi, come here, come here. This is probably one of yours." Gives him the letter. This Chassid opens up, he's like, "People know about us out there in the world?" He couldn't even believe it. So he gathered a few of the Chassidim that were living in Uman back then and they all wrote him, this person they never even heard of, all these letters of dveikus, of passion, of dibuk chaveirim, of fire about the Rebbe's Torahs.
And it's a whole pele how it ended up back by Yitzchak Breiter. The bottom line is that Rebbe Nachman's grandson, Reb Shimshon Barski, was one of the ones that wrote him the following line: He said, "אם תבוא אלינו למחננו תוכל להבדיל בין האמת לשקר". If you show up, if you come to us, you'll be able to differentiate between truth and lies. Now Yitzchak Breiter, this is what I want to tell you, most of us or many of us either grew up frum or we've been frum for quite some time.
So if someone comes and tells you after you've already been in the parsha and you're holding, saying, "Hey, this will really take you to the place to be able to differentiate between truth and lies," our first response would be one of defense mechanism. What would we naturally knee-jerk reaction respond? What would we say? "I'm already there." "I'm kidding me? I'm frum. I know God. I keep Shabbos." Or something stupid like that, you know.
"What do you mean? How dare you say that I'm not in emes already?" But the path, the heart that is longing for something that can't ignore it wants much more than just knowing I'm doing the right thing. It wants to make sure I'm doing the right thing deep, deep, deep down inside. Because the more I go deep into my heart and the more that I'm aware of what's happening around me, the more I notice machlokes all around me. There's machlokes all over the place.
I could be doing all the right things and there's machlokes everywhere all around me. So Yitzchak Breiter writes in a letter describing his pilgrimage, he finally set out and he went to Uman, which was unheard of back then. People were not traveling anywhere outside of that area to get to Uman besides one person who would come every year from Eretz Yisrael. His name was רב אברהם בן רב נחמן.
Other than that. It was unheard of that this Yid traveled from Poland and went to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, I believe in 1905 or 1906 for the first time. And when he comes back, he says like this: after spending time getting to the place which for me was like a makom of Eden, מקום אילנות טובות אשר הריח ריח שדה אשר ברכו השם, a place of good trees that their fragrance is like the reiach of sade, like the fragrance of Gan Eden. Now you know that the fragrance of Uman is horrific, and it always was.
The place is disgusting there. I can't stand it. That's why I love Rav Chaim Kramer, his whole inyan is you go and you leave. You don't stay.
It's not a place to stay. However, now there is this 55 families, there's a kehilla, there's a Talmud Torah. It's very strange. But it's not a place for us Yidden, especially that have Eretz Yisroel, to spend too much time, but when you go with the consciousness of the fire of Rebbe Nachman, that place, even such a place like that can turn into a ריח שדה אשר ברכו השם.
That's the language that Yitzchak Avinu uses to describe the fragrance that walked into the room with Yaakov Avinu when he came to get the bracha. And then he says like this: there was a reiach Torah with these people, reiach tfila, reiach yiras Hashem, ריח התקרבות אל צדיק האמת. There was a reiach of getting close to the real tzadik, כי באמת מרגישים פה בקיבוץ הזה because you really feel in this type of gathering אווירא דארץ ישראל. Now he never went to Eretz, he was never in Eretz Yisroel.
And yet that's how he describes the air of being together with people that you look into their eyes and you're like we're all here for the same thing: to get to the place of emes l'amita.
והתמימות והפשיטות אי אפשר לשער and the simple and pure desire to just be real and to be on fire, you can't even describe. And then he says like this: this is crazy. Nochachti ladaat, and he must have been already 30 or 40 over here.
No, let's say 30. I came to know כי כל ימי עברו בהבל ממש. All my days were just vanity. Now he was not a couch potato watching reruns of Mork and Mindy, you understand.
He was learning Torah, he was this Yid was a fire, he was an aryeh, he was a lion. But he says after tasting this, I realize כל ימי היו בהבל ממש. Did you ever have an experience in life that made you feel that everything you thought was cool or meaningful or real until that moment was like vanity? You don't have to answer, just sit with that question, think about it.
ובכל עסקיי אשר עסקתי עד הנה with all my dealings that I dealt with until now.
That doesn't mean business dealings. That means the world of Torah that I was busy with until now.
הייתי עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה. What a line.
Think about these words.
הייתי עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה. How could you be an oved avoda zara b'tahara? Isn't avoda zara tumah? So what is he telling us here? This line caught me.
הייתי עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה.
Let's think about the concept. What is avoda zara? What does that mean? What does that literally mean, translation of that word? Strange or foreign worship. But usually we think avoda zara means idols. No, no, no.
Avoda zara. So I was serving God as a stranger, as a foreigner, but it was b'tahara meaning I wasn't going over aveiros, but I was serving God as an oved avoda zara but I was doing it b'tahara. That's what he realized after spending time with those that were carrying the flame of the Rebbe.
והייתי מונח בפגם אמונה עצום מאוד and I was put in I had a tremendous blemish of emuna that took over me.
ואני מתמיה עליי בעצמי and I'm asking myself, איך נהיה כדבר הגדול הזה? How could it be that after everything that I went through I still felt I now I realize I was so far from emet and emuna. I don't want to chas v'shalom have any I don't have any opinions about where anyone's levels of avodah zarah, God forbid. It's not at all what I'm the point of it. The point that I wanted to share with Rabbi Yitzchak Breiter is to show us that Hashem sent a remedy to the world, and the remedy came through a very, very mysterious tzadik who was the great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov.
You remember the story, I don't know how many of you were in shul this Shabbos, I said the whole story about Rabbi Nachman Horodenker and this woman that died four weeks after she gave birth v'chulei. It's a whole story that those were Rabbi Nachman's, those were Rabbi Nachman's grandparents. Rabbi Nachman grew up, he was born and I was also in Mezibuz, so I was by the house or the location of the house of the Baal Shem Tov which is right outside the shul of the Baal Shem Tov. Right outside of it they now know they've made now simanim is the house of the Baal Shem Tov.
That was the house that Rabbi Nachman's mother Feiga got yerusha, she got in an inheritance which we learned. That was the house Rabbi Nachman was born in. That was the house that Chassidim that were by the Baal Shem Tov would come back years after the Baal Shem Tov died and they would reminisce in that house and say stories. So everything I'm trying to express from my heart is just that I also want to stop being an עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה and I'm not saying that to sound humble or holy.
I'm saying it because that's what I feel sometimes that I can get away with anything, like I can get away with anything almost, you know. But but when you, when this the tzadik touches your heart you don't want to get away with anything. You don't want to find ways to avoid anything. You want to go into the heart of the storm, eye of the storm with the fire of the tzadik and you don't want to ignore that which you know you can't ignore anymore.
That's what it is. And what we're going to be focusing on in these shiurim is Rabbi Nachman's teachings about drawing down peace into the world, peace into our lives, peace into our families, establishing yishuv hadaat, settling of the mind and all kol hamishtameya mikach means means and all that all that derives from it, meaning there's so much more that comes from it as well. And it's going to touch each person in a different way. It's not going to be דברים השווים לכל נפש, these are things that are equal to everyone, meaning they're shayach to everyone, but it'll reach you in many different ways and like Rabbi Nachman says, I'm going to make all of you kitot kitot.
There's going to be a lot of different groups of you that feel very connected to me and each one's going to have their own ta'am. No one's going to really look the same. You have like Rabbi Chaim Kramer's chevra. Rabbi Chaim Kramer was mekabel from his father-in-law Rabbi Rosenfeld who if you looked at him walking down the street you'd think he's like maybe an assistant rabbi a Young Israel of the West Side like something like that, you know.
He didn't look at all, he didn't have the levush, he didn't wear the the garb because he he said that garb is short for garbage. He didn't buy any any of that. That's one inyan. Then you have the chevra that are jumping on vans, bless you, mamash jumping on vans.
Then you have this like hardcore ultra ultra machmir world in Breslov which is like chil v'raada. Everyone's doing their best and then you have chevra that like just Eretz Yisrael shepherds, so the shepherds in the gevaot that are Rabbeinu, so they use the word Rabbeinu. Rabbeinu, our Rabbi. So it it speaks to many different people in different ways.
And I just hope that the Torahs that we're learning will help us find that which we weren't even aware that we're looking for but once we find them we'll feel like Rabbi Yitzchak Breiter and it shouldn't make us sad that oh my God, I was an oved avodah zarah my whole life. No chas v'shalom, it should make us happy she'nafal b'chelkeinu that it came into our lot to be drawn to the teachings that will hopefully help bring Mashiach Tzidkeinu and it will start with bringing peace into our own hearts, into our own lives. Okay so with that whole akdama, I want to give to you right now, we're going to do one piece today which is Sichot HaRan Ayin Zayin. It's not in Likutey Moharan although it's good to have a Likutey Moharan when you come to these shiurim.
Sichot HaRan Ayin Zayin, the seventy-seventh teaching in in the Rabbi Nachman's wisdom Sichot HaRan. In this teaching the There's no remedy, there's no fix, there's no fix the way that we're used to fixes. But there's a huge fix and there's a huge, huge remedy that comes out of acknowledging that which is actually taking place in our lives every single day. Rebbe says like this: כל העולם מלא מחלוקות.
The world is filled with machloket.
הן בין אומות העולם, whether it's nations, וכן בכל עיר ועיר, Elazar and Neve Daniel, whatever, vechen bechol bayis. Anyone know about that?
וכן בכל בית ובית בין השכנים. Hashem Tzevaos from those things, those things are horrible, no? Neighborly disputes are horrible, though.
Hashem yishmor.
ובין כל אחד עם אשתו ובני ביתו ומשרתיו ובניו. And there's machloket between your spouses and between your children.
ואין מי שישים על לבו התכלית.
And the Rebbe says verily, you rarely find people that live with the real tachlis of life in their heart, שבכל יום ויום האדם מת, that every single day, and this is a little bit very, not a little bit, this is very morbid, כי היום שעבר לא יהיה עוד ובכל יום הוא מתקרב למיתה. The day that passed will never come back again, which means that every single day that passes you're closer to the day of your death. Like if I live with that clarity, tachlis in my heart, I would approach kimat everything in life differently, kimat everything in life differently. But Rebbe Nachman says v'da shehakol echad, but know something, everything is one, שהמחלוקת שבפרטיות בין איש וביתו וכיוצא בזה.
The machloket that can happen between a husband and wife or within a household, הוא גם כן ממש המחלוקת שבין המלכים והאומות. It's the same type of machloket that you can find between kings, between nations. Why? How could you liken a machloket that happens between a husband and wife or parents and children or siblings? Hashem yishmor. Hashem yishmor, sibling rivalry.
Right now we're in a parsha with someone from here that because something wasn't nipped at the bud when it happened, it's like eight years, seven years later, millions of dollars later and millions and millions of miles of a distance between siblings feeling like they could have a chance to patch things up. Hashem yishmor. All machloket, Reb Nachman says, even the ones that you have between you and your spouse, is just like with kings and with nations. Why?
כי כל אחד מאנשי ביתו הוא בחינת אומה מיוחדת.
Every single person that lives in the home, he's like, she's like a whole nation.
והם מתגרים זה עם זה כמו שיש מלחמות בין האומות. And hisgarut, how do you say lehisgarot? Irritate? Tease? Aggravate? Tick off? Whatever, however you want to say it. They tick each other off, they get to each other just like there's wars between nations.
He's saying that's what's happening in the house.
וגם אפשר להכיר כל אחד מאיזה בחינה של אומה הוא. And when you take a closer look, you could see what kind of a nation do you resemble?
כי ידוע מידות האומות שזה כעסן ורוצח וכיוצא. That you know different nations have different characteristic traits.
And you can tell what nation you're representing when you're standing on your own and you're at battle with someone else, Rebbe Nachman says.
כמו כן יכולים למצוא בפרטיות בבני הבית. And you can see this within each person in the house that you live with. Now Reb Nachman says like this, there's no way to escape this, you could be sitting there and saying sorry Rebbe Nachman, I know what you're saying is true about a lot of people, but I'm not a ba'al machloket.
It's just not my nature. I do my own thing. I don't bother. Oh really?
ואפילו אם אחד אינו רוצה לריב and even if someone doesn't want to fight and have a machlokes.
We're on the fourth paragraph.
ורוצה לשב בהשקט ושלבה and they want to live their life peacefully in quiet.
עם כל זאת הוא מוכרח להיות גם כן בתוך המחלוקת והמלחמות. It seems that person doesn't have a way out.
It seems that their destiny, their fate, also draws them to have to take part in a machlokes and a milchama. We'll explain this in a second. Or actually, he will, much better than I could.
כמו שנמצא בין המלחמות שבין המלכים והאומות.
Sometimes you see with these world wars, שנמצא לפעמים איזה אומה. Sometimes there's a nation שרוצה לשב בשלווה ואין רוצה שום מלחמה. You have a nation that has no interest in fighting. They don't want to be part of the war at all.
They want to sit in serenity. Mind, remind you of anybody? Aderaba, היתה מרוצה להשתחוות לחברו כמה פעמים. They're even okay, this is a usage of language, meaning he's saying over here, this type of person slash nation would also be okay mvater-ing. Giving up.
Not giving up, but how would you say this? Disengaging. Well, that's where we're going with this, but meaning giving in a little bit. Giving in I think is the best one, right? I'll even give in a little bit. Like, what's that? Even pleasing.
Lehishtachavos lechavero. Yeah, yeah. I'll please you. Meaning appease.
Yeah, like ani b'seder. Yalla, teda mah? Ein baya. I'm fine. I'll, I came back after two thousand years and I'll start giving you these chunks of land in the middle of everything and and all these other things.
You know, just as a wild insane example, right? But but we have this in life too. Like you want to just appease someone. Why? Because you're not an ish milchama. You're a peaceful person.
And your nature is one of serenity. And it's one of not engaging in machlokes. There are people, I know it's shocking to some, there are actually people like this that they don't get any thrills by machlokes. Their thrill is non-machlokes.
I know it's a news- it's a newscast, but it's not a- it exists. There are nations like this too. Rebbe Nachman says, "I know, I know. I know who you are.
You're a person that can't stand machlokes. I know. And the hardest thing for you is that you're dragged into something. That you're shlept into it.
And it's bechlal not your teva. It's bechlal not your nature. Aderaba, you would be fine appeasing the person.
היתה מרוצה להשתחוות לחברו כמה פעמים.
And then the Rebbe says, עם כל זה חוטפין אותה גם כן על כרחה בתוך המלחמה. You're kidnapped into a war. You're shlept into a war that you have no ratzon to be part of at all whatsoever.
שזה אומר שיהיה מצדו וזה להפך עד שנלחמים עמו גם כן.
And you end up having to fight when that's the last thing in the world that you would have wanted or chosen to do. How often in our lives are we shlept into something that needing to take a stand when the last thing in the world we wanted to do was to take a stand because we felt that this is not our inyan? I don't have to get involved. Why should I have to get involved in this? Lo nogea elai, lo kashur elai.
מה זה קשור אלי? It's nothing to do with me.
And yet we're shlept into something. Beal korcheinu. You know beal korcheinu means, right? Against our will. Against our will.
We're coerced into it. The Rebbe's saying, "I know you guys." He's saying, "I know the other chevra, and I know you too. I know chevra that walk around looking to conquer all day long." Their inyan is war. Their inyan is, and they don't even realize it, but their inyan is power.
And their inyan is that if I'm not butting heads with someone, that means I'm not fulfilling my mission in life. There are people that actually live like this. But there are people that are legamre lehefech and Rebbe Nachman says, "But everyone ends up having to fight at a certain point in their life. Everyone shlept into something." Our kids bring this out of us more than like you know my inyan is to not ever want to have to call a teacher and tell them that they're poisoning the mind of my child.
Who wants that? It's not that I'm there are parents that are looking to see which teacher can I make feel like a nobody. But then there are parents that are like I have no inyan I don't want to have a machlokas with you. The thing is that I'm אני מפקיד אצלך או אצלך את הנשמה הטהורה הזאת שהשם נתן לי. I'm depositing by you for a few hours every day this precious soul that Hashem gave me and I believe that a lot of the ways that you think you should be educating is poison.
I'm not a man of machloket but I'm gonna be drawn into the machloket if I feel that that's what's happening to my child. We're people of peace however you understand you could be schlepped into something and it's bal korchecha you're forced into it and it's not your nature it's not what you want.
כמו כן ממש נמצא בפרטיות במלחמות הבית what we said here on a world scale happens often in the house.
כי האדם בעצמו הוא עולם קטן each person is a whole world a small world but a whole world.
ונכלל בו כל העולם ומלואו and the whole world is included within each person. The whole these are amazing words the whole world is included within each and every person.
מכל שכן האדם וביתו שנכללים בהם כל האומות ונלחמים ומתגרים זה בזה so if each person is a whole world and the whole world is included in each person and there's more than one person in the house which is usually how things work in a natural evolution what does that mean how many things are going on in one house? The UN. The UN.
Right. A bunch of UNs are all under one roof and you wonder why sometimes it's not like peaceful and just like singing Shabbos zmiros in such harmony. Why? Do you know how many things are going on at once under one roof? All this it's a pele it's a pele when there's like moments of peace and tranquility right? It would be a pele if we said that about the world. Same thing about the house Rebbe Nachman says it's the same exact thing.
But Rebbe Nachman told us something that we have to pay attention to right now he said in you is a bunch of different things. You're not one nation you're a bunch of nations you're made up of a million different things. So look at what he says here this is fascinating.
ועל כן לפעמים כשאחד יושב לבדו ביער יכול להיות שיעשה משוגע.
I'm finally going to take time and I'm going to go to the orchard I'm going to go to the field I'm going to go to the forest and I'm going to have some me-time and it's going to be so therapeutic and so healing and so filling me with serenity. And it's davka in those places that I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. Why? Rebbe Nachman says how's that possible? It's just you now there's no machlokets there's no one else around. How could it be possible that davka when I go and say I'm having me-time I'm going to go to that favorite spot by that ma'ayan by that park by that field under that tree and it's just going to be me with my thoughts.
And Rebbe Nachman says it's letting you know it sounds nice but know who else you're bringing with you under that tree and to that forest. You're bringing the whole world with you cause the whole world is included in you and that's why sometimes it's harder to not wage war and machloket when you're absolutely alone than you are with other people. Why why would that be harder? What do you think? Why would it be harder to be in a place of non-machloket when you're all alone than with other people? Because you hear yourself when you're by yourself. Because because you finally hear yourself, you finally taste yourself, you finally...
Right, but before you're just reacting or you're you're engaged and all of a sudden you're just with everything that's the whole world that's inside of you. Right. So you would think that a Rebbe like this would definitely warn from spending time too much time alone, right? Right. This is the Rebbe that says the exact opposite, right? This is the Rebbe that says the exact exact opposite about being alone.
In fact, if you call yourself a real Breslever or someone that follows the teachings of Rabbi Nachman, there are a few tenets ein mah la'asot. Like it doesn't matter what you look like, but you better have alone time with Hashem every single day. Otherwise you can't understand any of what he's saying over here. I've come to that conclusion, you can't understand anything Rabbi Nachman is talking about unless hisbodedus becomes part of your daily life.
How long vechulei that's another topic. But that it's not part of your life, these teachings will only reach Etz Da'as in your life. They won't reach Etz Chayim. You'll know on a Da'at level what Rabbi Nachman said.
Will it be alive in you? Probably not. Hisbodedus is the only way which we'll have a lot to talk about and I found some amazing new ways new new entries into hisbodedus this last period of time and I'm so excited to be learning together. So the Rebbe says when I'm alone I become meshuga because when I'm alone I notice I notice that I'm made up of a million different nations. When I'm when I'm with someone it's me and them.
It's me against them. I'm not aware that I'm so complex so much. I'm not aware that I have all these different thoughts going on in me. But when I'm alone and I realize wait a second, why isn't it just now Kumbaya? That's because within me I have a whole part I have a whole world.
And I can become meshuga from it. Vezeh na'asah Rabbi Nachman says continuing over here וזה נעשה מחמת שהוא לבדו ונכללים בו לבדו כל האומות. All the nations are included within you.
והן מתגרים זה בזה.
They're teasing each other, they're leading each other on.
והוא מוכרח להשתנות בכל פעם לבחינת אומה אחרת כפי התגברות אומה על אומה שהם כולם נכללים בו לבדו. I think it should be כולם שהם כולם נכללים בו לבדו. And what I realize is I have to keep on putting on a mask of another nation because now this nation is taking control of me and it's fighting this side of me.
Will the real me finally stand up and appear? Will it finally stand up? Will will will the real me finally get up and be like so is the Rebbe saying that the real me is the person that acknowledges that I'm made up of the whole world, that the whole world is in me? Is that what he's saying? That the real me is not one thing. It's the ability to make shalom between all parts of me. That's the real me. We would we want it to be just one persona, one characteristic trait, one attitude, one middah.
The real me, that's the real me. Well that that's the real you now, because now that umah, that nation is governing you. And then we start losing our minds. Wait a second, half hour ago I was sitting in a Rabbi Nachman shiur thinking about dveikus and kedushah.
Forty-five minutes later I'm screaming on the phone with bituach le'umi and the and my mossad. Who is who am I? Mah koreh poh? I would say the real me is not any of the individual voices, it's the shalom that that the real me is the voice of shalom, is the voice of yishuv hadaas that knows how to cultivate and how to manage all these different places and doesn't freak out when realizing that I'm not feeling as elated or as down as I was a little bit ago. before. And I don't have an identity crisis because I accept that the whole world is included in me.
And if the whole world is included in me, I got a lot of things going on inside of me all the time. Every person is like this. The real me is the one that knows how shalom governs. That's the real me.
How shalom, not governs is the wrong word, how shalom, how peace can basically allow all the different parts of me to show up and it doesn't scare me. I accept it. I accept this is the way Hashem designed me and created me and I have to learn more about yishuva daas. So when once I realize that, how in the world could I not do hisbodedus every single day? How could I stay sane? Shachris, mincha, maariv won't do it for you.
Will not do it for you. Meaning, don't, don't, this is dangerous. You could clip this and then just be like "He said shachris, mincha, maariv won't do it for you". God forbid.
What I mean is that when you're in tune with the Rebbe's teaching over here of like, "Hey, you want to know why you feel like you're a freak? I'll tell you why. This is what's going on in you." And it's not enough to be like "Oh, Rabbi Nachman explained it to me, I'm fine now." No. Rabbi Nachman explained what's going on, but now he says now do the work. That's the difference between the two.
Okay, so I'm just going to read this paragraph from the beginning again, we're going to finish it.
ולכן לפעמים כשאחד יושב לבדו ביער יכול להיות שיהיה נעשה משוגע וזה נעשה מחמת שהוא לבדו ונכללים בו לבדו כל האומות והם מתגרים זה בזה והוא מוכרח להשתנות בכל פעם לבחינת אומה אחרת כפי התגברות אומה על אומה שהם כולם נכללים בו לבדו. And then the Rebbe says, umachmas ze, because of this, יכול להשתגע לגמרי מחמת התהפכות הדעות שבו על ידי התגרות האומות שנכללים בו לבדו. You could lose your mind seeing how undecided you are.
And you could think you're crazy. You're not crazy. It's just a lot going on in you.
אבל כשהוא בישוב בין אנשים but when you're with people and not alone, יש מקום למלחמה להתפשט בכל אחד מהבני בית או בין השכנים.
When I'm with people then what happens to me when there's machlokes? I take it out on someone. There's someone there. It's a reactionary. I could put it on that person.
It's not me having to deal with me. It's me in light of the other person. The machlokes now he says like this, המחלוקת שבבית הצדיק הוא גם כן בחינת מלחמת האומות כנל.
גם נכללים שם בחינת מלחמת השבטים שהיו נלחמים זה על זה אפרים על יהודה.
Same crazy. Saying you have sometimes machlokes in the house of the tzaddikim. How could that be? Or machlokes on tzaddikim, between tzaddikim. Rabbi Nachman has teachings about machlokes what to do when you see machlokes between two tzaddikim.
It can happen. Happens all the time. There's teachings about that as well. He says that's a bechina of like when the shvatim were fighting with each other.
Meaning, these things have happened. It's coming from somewhere. It's not made up. It's not new.
And then he ends over here he says יבא משיח במהרה בימינו אזי יתבטל כל מיני מחלוקות ויהיה שלום גדול בעולם שכתוב לא ירעו ולא ישחיתו בכל הר קדשי כי מלאה הארץ דעה את ה' כמים לים מכסים says Yeshaya Hanavi. That there won't be any more fighting. Okay. Was there any, did the Rebbe end off here with any optimism? This whole thing explained why you may become crazy.
Pashut meod. What optimism comes, what kind of Torah is this, what kind of teaching is this? So to me, what I'm trying to say is that to me this is actually the most optimistic, uplifting teaching in the world. The most uplifting teaching in the world. We keep on coming back to this song.
Hanan Ben Ari has been singing אני מחפש כל מי שמוכן להודות שאני לא המשוגע היחידי. Lo hameshuga hayachidi.
תגידו שאני לא המשוגע היחידי. Tell me I'm not the only crazy person, right? What does that mean? Why would this be an optimistic thing? Because you know what's better than remedy? fix things? You want to know what's deeper? A remedy of understanding the nature of my neshama.
That is a much more potent remedy than any other fix. This is, we're dealing with something else over here. He's the Rebbe of the, of the neshamas, of the souls. We all know that this is true because we experience it in our lives all the time.
Once I'm aware of this, I have something to actually work on. And once I'm aware that I'm complex because I have a whole world that's happening inside of me, I know now, now I know how to engage better with those things. I have a much more clear kivun avoda, meaning a kivun avoda, like a focus? Yeah. Focus? Yeah.
Like a direction of what I'm supposed to be working on. And I also have the most incredible chomer gelem for hitbodedut. Chomer gelem, how do you say that? Raw material. Raw material for now doing the real work which is like okay, now it starts Hashem.
Now it starts. Now it's what did you have in mind by making me think that I'm almost meshuga? Why, why can't, why does it have to be that the whole world's included in me? I just want to be atzmi. Now I think that, you know, Rabbi Nachman knew, I mean I'm sure about this, that the tzadik knew that his teachings would be understood by few in his lifetime, and that the closer we get to mashiach, there'll be hundreds and hundreds and thousands and now hundreds of thousands of people, dare I say even a million or two, that are immersed in the teachings of Rabbi Nachman. And this is a torah, this thing, this is a teaching that will enter, hopefully enter us into the path of realizing that without acknowledging this, I can continue, I can continue to be an עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה.
And I don't want to be an עובד עבודה זרה בטהרה. I don't want to be an oved avoda zara on any level. I want to be an eved Hashem for real, with joy, with acknowledgment and with acceptance, and understanding what's going on inside of me all the time. So to me, this is actually one of the most uplifting teachings, because it's acknowledging, it's learning how to acknowledge what is going on inside of us.
And that makes us a non-avoda zara type of person. Avoda zara means I'm foreign even to myself, I don't even understand what's going on inside of me, but I'm still serving God with purity. Avoda krova, service of God that's not avoda zara means I get a glimpse into what's to really taking place inside of me. So avoda zara, I nailed that one over here right now.
I can't be an oved avoda zara anymore. The question is, can I be an עבד השם בטהרה בקדושה ובשמחה, living like this? And if the Rebbe didn't think that it's possible, he wouldn't tease us and saying, just know you're meshuga. That's it. That's all you need to know.
Ma pitom. The tzadik sent rivers of love, of compassion, of compassion on our neshamas that we have to take, we have, we have to make more use of, and be'ezrat Hashem that's how we will be making more use of it as we go along to attain peace and calmness and really yishuv hadaat, stillness in the mind, settling our minds down through the teachings of Rabbi Nachman and his students, and Hashem should be with us and see and we should see that we're really trying hard. It should all be לשם שמיים בעזרת השם.