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"Nafshi Tidom" — drawn from the words we say in Elokai Netzor:
“למקללי נפשי תדום” – “To those who curse me, may my soul be silent.”
In this 5-part series, Rav Shlomo Katz explores one of the deepest Breslov teachings: how to face humiliation (bizyonot) not with anger or revenge, but with silence, emunah, and inner strength.
Drawing from Rabbi Lazer Brody’s sefer Nafshi Tidom, classic sources in Chazal, Chassidus, and the writings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Rav Shlomo guides us through:
- Why humiliation comes our way,
- How it serves as a tool for tikkun hamiddot (refinement of character),
- The inner work of silence and acceptance,
- And how our ancestors — from Avraham Avinu to David HaMelech — grew through disgrace.
This is a series about courage, humility, and discovering Hashem’s closeness precisely in moments of shame.
Alright, so we're going to be learning for a few minutes now 'til מעריב. We're going to continue what we started last week. And this is a really, it's it's been it's a very powerful concept, this whole business of בזיונות, of humiliation and of taking the opportunity to look inside, to go inside instead of looking outside. It's just the beginning of how we deal with this whole פרשה.
Remember what we were learning last week when the brothers are found, when the goblet's found by בנימין, and that יהודה's initial response, the brother's initial response is instead of saying, how could this be? They said, we got to do some inner, inner cleansing work. And instead of like at the moment of being humiliated, at that moment to ask that question of what's going on inside, as opposed to how did this happen to me, you begin to enter this beautiful world of really deep תיקונים going on inside. ממש praise really is the person that at that at that second, you know, that ממש at that split second, they go inside instead of outside. That's the beginning of all the game changing that's here.
Now we began learning last week that what we have in this ספר is a collection of all the different examples that we can give of how a בזיון of going through humiliation and suffering like this, at that moment it's really an and generally speaking, there's a מידה כנגד מידה going on. There's a message being sent to you. And if you have enough guts to do the what's called בדק הבית, the checking in inside, you have enough guts to do that at that moment, you could you could find some amazing things about where things need to be fixed, what things need to be touched upon. And what Rav Brody taught us last time is that there are basically 20 מידות כנגד מידה, מידה כנגד מידה things that are going on that you could start to like check and see where you're at.
14, I think he said, 14 of them had to do with בין אדם למקום and six have to do בין אדם לחברו. And that's where we got into. We didn't start listing the things. But what I want to just offer here is that it doesn't necessarily mean that whatever we're going to be saying right now is specifically why you went through what you went through, but it's definitely these things that when we learn them and we keep them in the front of our heart and in our mind, that when things happen to us that embarrass us and that humiliate us, based on the חז"ל we're going to be seeing, I could recall one of them and be like, you know what, יכול להיות, it could be, it's because in this area I blemished.
It's because of this thing that I did that I that I took lightly, this came back to whack me. And again, it's not necessarily so, but we learn the whole תורה because every word of the תורה is שייך to us on a certain level. Like the בעל התניא says, even if there's a חז"ל, there's a מחלוקת between ראובן and שמעון, you have to learn the סוגיא of what happens between ראובן and שמעון even if it never happens to you in your life or never even happened in reality, but because חז"ל said that this is a מציאות that could be, it has שייכות to your life. It has some kind of relevance to your life.
So let's start going through the list of the things that are בין אדם למקום where we have to do some checking in and see perhaps this is maybe the מידה כנגד מידה and how it may things that I get, not that bad things happen to me, but specifically the concept of בזיון, of being humiliated, of being embarrassed, could happen to you. I'll share with you on a personal note, this תורה saved my life last week. Why? It was it wasn't a full-on בזיון in front of a whole crowd, but it happened one-on-one. I was doing a חופה somewhere and you could tell it was a little bit different than the way that normal most of the guests were used to accustomed to the חופה, both the length of the חופה and the style of the חופה.
It's okay, it's what the חתן and כלה wanted. They wanted, you know, if they wanted just a quick, chick-chock חופה, they probably wouldn't have me to come to to do their, like, you know, honestly, right, obviously. I don't try to stretch it too much, but it is what it is. It's got to be flavor.
So, I felt it was going pretty חזק and I felt like it was definitely going כרצון החתן והכלה. And then there was this חסידישע איד that got a ברכה. He got one of the כיבודים to do one of the ברכות. And he know, and he knows me and I know him.
And right before he said the ברכה into the microphone, he looked at me and he said, אנחנו הפוילישערס, אנחנו לא עושים חתונות ככה. We, this is not the way we do weddings. And oh my God. That's why he wasn't asked to be the מסדר.
So my, that's what the רבנית said, that's what my wife said. You should have said, 'and that's why I'm here and you're getting...'. I know, but I know. I can't say that.
Nor should I feel that based on what we're going to say. You could feel that for me, and I love you. But the עבודה, at that moment, it was just coming from here learning about, you know, being humiliated. Now if he would have said that into the microphone, that would have been a different situation, right? You know, ככה אנחנו.
כך אנחנו לא עושים חופות. ברוך אתה השם. That at least that, you know what? But on the level of בזיונות, זה יכול להיות, that could be, right? That would also be a level. But because of the תורה we were learning, I stopped for a second and I'm like, even though, even though I don't agree with what he's saying, wow, this is it's such it's such a humiliating thing.
This is a שליח ציבור that I really I hold in high regard but wow, this is like. So what what am I feeling right now, you know? Just to stick with it. It was like the first moment that I was like taking these teachings was like, wow, where does this where does this reach me? And where could I find in my life, like what what kind of what kind of תיקון, what what kind of, where should I start looking? What should I start looking? So, we're going to learn a bunch of things now that it's like, where do I start looking? We're going to learn a list of things that could be that these בזיונות are there to wake us up and say, hey, how have you been in this department? So it's 14 departments right now between us and השם, different מידות that was like, well, where are we with it, for real? The first one is one that it's very general one, and it's very hard to say what it exactly means, but each person can give its own פירוש. The first one, that a humiliation may come your way and really tug at you, בגלל שפגם בכבוד השם יתברך.
Where do you start with that one? That you blemish the כבוד of השם. So that gets that that's a very broad one. We can give many different examples of what that can mean. One of the examples he gives is a very interesting thing.
He says the גמרא says that when someone's פוגם in the כבוד of השם יתברך, there's even a בת קול that would come out and scream it in over here in the בית המקדש. There's a בת קול that come and would scream, אוי to a person that would blemish the honor of God. Blemishing the honor of God. Yeah.
Is it that's not חילול השם, this is something else? This is something else. Yeah. Again, it could fall into that category. Here it's specifically speaking about a certain blemish.
It could be. But here the the ענין is, how does that fall into my life? And maybe you'll come to the same מסקנה at the end of what I'm going to say right now, could be. The גמרא in עבודה זרה says like in פסחים says like this, that there was a a scream in the בית המקדש that would מכריז the following thing: סמי כאן יששכר איש כפר ברקאי שמכבד את עצמו ומחלל קדשי שמים. יששכר, the the person from the village of ברקאי who honors himself and desecrates קדשי שמים, get out of here.
What is that referring to? So this יששכר איש כפר ברקאי was a כהן גדול in the time of ינאי המלך, and he didn't want to, he wanted to do the עבודה, but he didn't want to get his hands dirty. He didn't feel it was כבוד for him that, you know, obviously if you're a כהן working in the בית המקדש, you may get a little bloody. It's, you know, rumor has it these things don't exactly stay clean. And there's a problem when you're holding the the קרבן, there can't be any חציצה.
There can't be anything that are between your fingers, your hands. You can't put on gloves, you can't put on put bags over your hands while you're doing the עבודה. But he didn't feel it was out of his honor for a כהן גדול like him that he maybe would get some שמוץ on his some red dots on his clothes וכולי. And that's how he would do the עבודה.
What was the מידה כנגד מידה? This person then lost both of his hands. Just saying. That's that's the that's the example that the גמרא is saying that this voice came out and said you're so worried about your own כבוד when right now you should be worried about כבוד שמים, these things come back to you. Now, what else falls under the ענין of blemishing כבוד השם? That's your, that's your שיעורי בית.
That's not that's not my שיעורי בית. I have no idea. You can give a million different examples right now. Next, בגלל שפגם בכבוד התורה.
That you blemish the honor of the תורה. Like it says in משנה באבות, כל המכבד את התורה, גופו מכובד על הבריות. Anyone that honors the תורה, he himself is honored by other creations, which would mean, what's the opposite of being honored by other creations? Being humiliated by other creations, נכון? And the third one that I'm just running through it right now, the the third answer, the third סיבה, the third reason he gives here which could possibly be why a בזיון came to you, בגלל התרשלות בקיום מצוות. How negligent were you when it was a moment to keep a מצוה and you said, it's not, someone else can do it.
Someone else can take care of it. Negligence when it comes to keeping מצוות. Fourth thing, בגלל התרשלות בלימוד התורה. Being negligent when it comes time to learn and I say it's for other people, maybe it's not for me.
That's the fourth thing. Again, I'm running through this. It would take a long time to go into deep detail of each of them, but you'll figure it out. סיבה ה, בגלל עבירות שבידו כדי שיפשפש במעשיו.
This one I want to talk about for a second. What does it mean עבירות שבידו שיפשפש במעשיו? What does it mean when a person has עבירות in his hands? It means we we work on ourselves quite often. different stages and areas in life, but sometimes we have past business that we never really took care of. We have stuff creeping up upon us that we, what's called חטאות נעורים, המבין יבין.
Each person can go into this into great detail. That means stuff that I was naughty when I was younger, and I never really took care of. I never really fixed it. So what he's saying over here is that sometimes when I have these things that I've been carrying with me for years, and they've never had a תיקון, I don't understand why things bad things are, why I'm suffering such humiliation.
He says, check in with yourself. Remember some naughty things you did when you were younger? Was there ever any kind of like deep dealing with that, that you ever dealt with it afterwards? It can come back. Some of these things stay with us and it's not a matter of doing, you became a בעל תשובה or not, but specific things that each person can understand and know what we're talking about. The next סיבה he says is that כדי לעורר את האדם להתפלל על גלות השכינה.
This is a beautiful one. He says sometimes a בזיון can come to you just to shake you up because you look at your life and things are going really good. ברוך השם, everything's fine. And you wonder like, why in the world would this בזיון come to me? And he says he quotes the דגל מחנה אפרים, the בעל שם טוב's grandson, he says something amazing.
כל היסורים הבאים על אדם רחמנא ליצלן, הוא מחמת שיש חסרון כזה בשכינה, כביכול שאין הייחוד בשלמות. ועל כן השם יתברך שולח עליו יסורים כדי לעוררו להתפלל על חסרון השכינה. Everything's going good in your life. ברוך השם.
פרנסה, רפואה, children, חינוך, שלום בית, everything's working. But then what happens to you is that you're in that state of everything seems to be good, I'm going to play it chill and not, you know, shake up the, shake up, shake things up. He says, but when was the last time you cried over the fact that the שכינה is still in גלות? Does that even, does that even bother you? Is that even something that you think about? Is that something you ever pay attention to? Does that have any role in your life that the שכינה is still in גלות? So he quotes from his grandfather, the בעל שם טוב, right, the דגל מחנה אפרים, and he says, sometimes we get a little זעץ just to be woken up, to be like, wait a second, everything seems to be going good, but have I paid attention to this at all? Is this part of my life at all? Noticing that the שכינה is still in גלות. Number seven, he says quotes here just very much straightly, because of עצבות.
בגלל עצבות, and he quotes רבי נחמן in ספר המידות, where he says שעל ידי, רבי נחמן says this in ספר המידות, these words, על ידי עצבות בא בזיון. When a person is stuck in their own thing of sadness, בזיון, humiliation can reach a person like this. He says like this, אם אדם היה שם לנגד עיניו ולו מקצת הטובות, ניסים ונפלאות שהשם יתברך עושה לו כל רגע ורגע, אז בוודאי היה רוקד בשמחה. You're stuck in your sadness.
בסדר, we're not saying there's no no reason to be sad. But do you put all the good things that השם puts, has done for you in your life, all the beautiful people that השם has blessed you with, put them in front of you for a second? You would be starting to dance. But because you find every reason to stay in your place of sadness and not want to think about the good things השם did with you, רבי נחמן says, here, take this one. This could also be a reason for receiving a בזיון.
Eighth reason, בגלל כעס. כעס can bring this as well. Ninth reason, בגלל חוסר ביטחון בקדוש ברוך הוא. Sometimes you get shaken up by someone that comes and gives you a זעץ of humiliation, and it's because your level of ביטחון in השם is lacking.
I know we're running through this. This is just the 14 reasons I wanted to get through today. Tenth, בגלל תאוות אכילה. רבי נחמן says in ליקוטי מוהר"ן, מי שהוא משוקע בתאוות אכילה, בידוע שהוא רחוק מן האמת.
ובידוע שדינים שורים עליו, גם יבוא לידי בזיונות ובושות. רבי נחמן says anyone who is sunken into the lust of eating, it's known that that person is far from the truth, and it's known that on people like that, judgments surround the person like that, and it'll end up coming to feel humiliated at a certain point in your life when this ענין is not taken care of. The 11th reason that a person may suffer from a בזיון, if they're willing to check in, is בגלל נדרים. A vow.
Someone that took upon themselves a vow and didn't follow through, same says in ספר המידות, הקדוש ברוך הוא מביא עליו יסורים. 12th reason, בגלל חנופה. And this is a very scary thing when we speak about this as an עם. חנופה means, in Hebrew it's in Hebrew slang is להתחנף.
להתחנף, you know what להתחנף means? It means, uh, flatter? Huh? Flatter? Yeah, but it means like I don't want to say it. It's a a phrase in Yiddish when you do that to someone else, right? Because you want to be on their good side. Huh? Brown-nosing. איך ווייס נישט, איך קען נישט.
I don't know how I know the Yiddish terminology. So, basically when you להתחנף, when you're trying to make someone think that they're so holy because you want them to think good about you. When עם ישראל does this as a nation, we're in a very, very bad place. רבי אלימלך was speaking about this a little bit on a on Wednesday night.
When you have חנופה, להתחנף, when you try to basically get people to like you, and it's the bad person that you want to like you, then this comes back to you in a very, very bad way, and you have to check it and say, who do I talk like? How do I sound like when I talk like in front of certain people because I want them to think I'm cool or I'm in. It comes back the other way. סיבה י"ג, we're almost done, בגלל גאוה. גאוה comes, משפיל גאים עדי ארץ, we say every morning.
God humbles those that hold themselves to be so איי איי איי. משפיל גאים עדי ארץ and the flip side of that is מגביה שפלים עדי מרום. I love those words. משפיל גאים עדי ארץ, you're full of גאוה, God's going to knock you down.
And then when you're down, if you're a person that holds himself to be low, מגביה שפלים, he elevates and takes the one that's שפל, עדי מרום, to the highest of heights. That's the 13th one. And the 14th one is one that כידוע would be found in any ספר מוסר, especially anyone that's related to רבי נחמן, is the ענין of פגם הברית. And when a person's ברית is not fixed, is not corrected, בזיונות, blemishes will come in all different shapes or forms.
רבי נחמן speaks about this when it comes to money. רבי נחמן speaks about this when it comes to any תפקיד in public, that when that area of the ברית is not corrected and not taken care of, and not כמו שצריך, a בזיון will come your way. All the things we mentioned right now, these 14 things are things that a person on the outside will never know. You could never know.
These are בין אדם למקום, these are things that are כאילו secrets by השם, and השם wakes us up in many different ways. The only question is, when you get shaken up from the outside, are you willing to go inside or do you want to stay outside? These are the 14 ways that he collected from חז"ל, a wake-up call of saying, again, am I bold enough to do the inner work? The next thing we're going to see are six different reasons that are בין אדם למקום, בן אדם, sorry, מדה כנגד מדה, בן אדם לחבירו, that if we haven't been holding in the right way, a בזיון can come your way and hit you where it hurts. I give us all a ברכה that none of us should ever, ever be embarrassed, none of us should ever be ashamed. But if it does happen to be, we have enough guts to do a little bit of a repetition and remembering some of the stuff that we're said over here and see, perhaps, in one of these areas, this is my opportunity to end, to end this trail of בזיונות in life.
To end it now and hopefully go ווייטער from here clean. רבי חנינא בן עקשיא אומר, רצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות את ישראל, לפיכך הרבה להם תורה ומצוות שנאמר אדוני חפץ