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In this series Rav Shlomo Katz explores the inspiring, powerful Torah and Wisdom of Reb Usher Freund zt"l
Alright, we'll learn for a few minutes. Gut Chodesh everyone. Ah, we have some sponsorships for today. Chodesh Shvat, a new month, shenishma bsoros tovos be'ezras Hashem.
Le'ilui nishmas, the month is לילוי נשמת לוי בן יוסף and בתיה פיגא בת ישראל and by the Pollock family לילוי נשמת שמעון בן משה, Tzvi ben Mordechai, and חיה רחמה בת רב אלתר נתן נטע. All the yahrtzeits that are in the month of Shvat, תהא נשמתם צרורה בצרור החיים. Amen. This week is sponsored by Kevin and Sharon Ross in memory of זלמן בן אברהם דוד, ברי בן אברהם דוד, ג'רי בן אברהם דוד, פיטר בן אברהם דוד le'ilui nishmasam.
In the Deutsch family in memory of אבא מנחם בן שמואל אליעזר ושרה בת ברוך גולד לילוי נשמת תחיה שיר אל שמעונה and for the refuah of פשא מלכא בת בלימא. Alright, we have a sweet, short piece today from Rav Asher at the bottom of Daf Kaf-Tes if you have the sefer. The letter that was written to Rav Asher, this is from November 1975, October or November 1975, right, because תשל"ו is already the end of that year of 75 going to 76. Right? Yeah.
That's how it works. Not 77, 75, right. So the letter must have been someone that wanted Rav Asher's bracha to print Rabbi Nachman's sefarim or to work on Rabbi Nachman's sefarim. In the intro to Rav Asher's life, we spoke about his relationship to Rabbi Nachman and to Breslov bechlal.
So there must be, again we are always assuming based on the answer what the letter was, we don't have the letters to him, we have the responses back. Chevre, do we have more? Do we have more pages? Or are they all done? These books are over there. Oh, sefer, okay. I'll just take a picture of this.
No, take, take a sefer. Even better to buy them. I forgot who was it, Dov? Back to Dov. Find out from him, just grab a sefer.
Commitment issues, that's that's a... that is my problem actually, but all of us should be committed to קדושה וטהרה בשמחה בעזרת השם. Amen. So it must be that he was again, he was writing, he had thoughts about writing either either writing a sefer about Rabbi Nachman or printing Rabbi Nachman's sefarim.
It seems to be it must be printing Rabbi Nachman's sefarim because it's 1975, this is back in back then it wasn't like it wasn't nothing nearly to what it was today. Emmanuel, I regards from whoever I saw on Shabbos, I'm sorry I forgot, he came up to me, whoever it is, nice guy.
אני מאחל לך שהשם יתברך יאיר לך את הדרך להוציא מחשבתך אל הפועל בחיבור הכתיבה על סיפורי מעשיות של מורנו רבי נחמן זצ"ל, but it's either again writing about Sippurei Maasiyos or printing Sippurei Maasiyos, whichever one, doesn't matter. But he's giving a bracha, the light should be the light should be clear and it should all work.
But he says a very interesting thing here.
סודות גדולים כמוסים בתוכם, there are tremendous secrets that are filled within every one of the stories. Just stam as a show of hands here, whoever whoever really got into one of Rabbi Nachman's stories? The stories? I try. Yeah, they're...
I try also, they're not pashut at all. I've tried also, it's the highest... huh? Sabone mesh. It's like a whole thing on...
That's not gonna help us understand anything. Aryeh Kaplan's. That'll make us more confused. Exactly.
Aryeh Kaplan's is really like... today there's a lot of different peirushim, like a lot of different stuff going on. It's sodos kmusim, it's secrets... yeah, there's a lot of different things.
So he's embarking on this thing and Rav Asher is just telling him you're not reading a little tale here, this is like סודות גדולים כמוסים בהם. There's a lot of wondrous secrets that are filled with them.
כל עניינם היה לתת לאדם עצות נפלאות איך להגיע לביטול האמת והמוחלט and their whole thing was to give a person wonderful pieces of advice how to reach a place of total and absolute bitul. That's how Rav Asher is saying is what's waiting for you when you tune into Rabbi Nachman.
Bitul muchlat which is really the theme of this this sefer that we're learning.
שע"ידו יזכה האדם להתקשרות ודביקות עם בוראו that through him a person will merit to true connection and dveikus with the Ribono shel Olam. How?
דרך תיקון מדותיו כל אחד לפום דרגי ולפי מה דמשער בלבי. Each person through fixing their own midos, each person in accordance to where they're holding and to where their heart is.
Next page. B'Toraso, and Rebbi Nachman's Torah, hay'sa l'Toras Netzach, is a Torah of eternity כדי להביא את האדם אל תכליתו האמיתית של עצם בריאתם in order to bring a person to his true purpose of why he's in this world כדי שתיווצר בחינה אמונה פשוטה בעולם so that something could he could help cause be the cause of of the next trend but it's not going to be a trend that ever ends. And what's that trend that never ends? Emuna peshuta in the world. So again, what is Reb Usher saying about Rebbi Nachman's Torah? He's referencing here Sippurei Ma'asios, but he's saying over here that Rebbi Nachman's Torah gives a person the advice that he needs to reach the state of total bittul, which then brings you to a place of hiskashrus and deveikus with Hashem.
It's not just that I read this and now I feel something, but it brings you to the place of knowing how to work on my middos, each person where they're in accordance to where they're holding. And I think that's one of the most wondrous things about Rabbeinu Hakadosh's Teirah is that it speaks to every type of person no matter regardless of where they're holding, that each person hears a few lines from Rebbi Nachman and he says, I could work, if he really listens with bittul, he says I could really work on that midda now. That's the wondrous thing about Rebbi Nachman's Torah. A few lines Reb Chaim Kramer always says, bring me any sefer that has to do with Rebbi Nachman, open it up, and you'll see that there's another opportunity here to feel close to Hashem, every single sefer.
And Reb Usher is saying this in 1975, 1975. So you open up a sefer of the Rebbe, Reb Usher is saying, you start to see, I could work on my middos through this in the exact spot that I'm in right now. I don't have to become someone in order to start being engaged in Rebbi Nachman's Torah. I just show up and the Torah of the Tzaddik is basically saying to me, I've been waiting for you.
Yes. Listen, I'm going to add some just context that maybe it's even more intense being that it's 1975, but when I came to Eretz Yisrael in the 90s and then there was still big snubness towards being Breslov. It was if you said you're Breslov, it was like a chisaron, like a lack of bizayon a little bit. And one Rabbi even said to me that I asked him, I said what about this bitul of Chabad? He said Breslov don't have a problem with bitul, just say you're a Breslov'er.
That's how people used to talk. And now it's trending, popular, it's gadlus, but it must have been even more so 1975 to encourage Breslov learning and pushing it. It wasn't like popular, it wasn't going to get you a sponsorship or anything. No, the opposite.
The opposite. But what he said about that it gives you the ability to spread forth. Right, so that's what I'm repeating now. I just want to repeat again exactly that point.
And he says the Rebbe's Torah is a Torah of eternity that brings a person to understand why Hashem even created him. That's what the Torah Rebbi Nachman does, it brings you the opportunity to discover why the Ribbono Shel Olam even created you. And what Reb Usher is pointing out is very good at the end over here in order, look at that last line again. And that's why it's so important chevra that you get the sefarim that we buy, just when we buy them and we bring them here, just get them because you have to look at these words inside.
K'dei she'tivateir, tivateir means that in order that what something will be created בחינת אמונה פשוטה בעולם so that emuna peshuta is created in the world. Zos omeres that that vibe comes up and is created in the whole world. You put that energy in and then people that are walking around with the Rebbe's eitzos are spewing emuna peshuta in the world. So therefore how do you know, this would be an interesting thing, how do you know if you're hanging out with someone that's really plugged into Rebbi Nachman or someone that's leaching on or whatever? If you walk away from talking to someone about Rebbi Nachman's Torahs and somehow they make you feel stupid afterwards or that you're not holding yesh po ba'aya with the hiskashrus to the Tzaddik, because the Tzaddik is his Torah is meant for you to feel that יש לך עכשיו הזמנה that you have an invitation to come inside right now.
You understand the difference? This is very important because the point was כדי שתיווצר בחינת אמונה פשוטה בעולם, simple faith in the world. in the world that you walk around and beaming off of us is the vibe of emuna peshuta. Mi shemevakesh nekuda and he says, like, okay, so doesn't this seem like something you want to be part of? Of course. But Reb Asher gives a certain, not a criteria, but he gives a hachvana.
This is very, very beautiful.
מי שמבקש להיכנס לפרדס זה, you want to go into this orchard, en baya, just understand something.
חייב להתפשט מכל לבוש או אחיזה. Now this is what's, like, makes it almost impossible.
He says you have to remove from yourself any garment or any achiza means I'm holding. Although I'm holding here, I'm holding here, I know this already, oh, he's saying this, that means that, and I understand what he's saying.
כדי לברר מעצם חיותו מציאות הבורא בבחינת מבשרי אחזה אלוה. Because the point of being here is that at the end of the day of my engagement with the tzadik, I don't turn to someone else and say, by him, or by that shul or that bais medrash is the only emes in the world.
It's to focus a person to go inside to the point he says, mibsari echze eloka, that from my own flesh, from what's going on within my story, what's going on with my life, my marriage, my relationship with my children, my history that I'm still trying to blot out of my mind, from my story I gaze at the Ribono Shel Olam. That is the ultimate purpose. And that's why Rebbe Nachman warned from saying, like, that's why there are no Rebbes in Breslov. That's why there are no, there's no inyan over there to machtir the tzadik, he's the tzadik yesod olam, he's the, there was, and if you ask the ehrlich Breslovers, they'll always go back and say there was one tzadik yesod olam and there was one tzadik emes, and that was the נחל נובע מקור חכמה, and from then on, the whole avoda is mibsari echze eloka, that in my, in my flesh, in my story, in my, that's why Rav Yaakov's sefer, the story of our lives, is a very important sefer.
He shared with me yesterday that he shared with me a very beautiful text about that sefer. It's for me that I see it in my life. That's the point. The eitzas of the tzadik are to go inward and not to see, oh, who lives like that? How could I live like this? And that's why Reb Asher says, but to see it, you have to mapshit all the levushim and all the achiza.
Get rid of all the I'm holdings. I'm here, I know this, oh, I know that sugya, oh, I can compare the way the Rebbe speaks about it to the way the Ziditshover speaks about it or the Lubliner bichlal. Nothing like that. V'yeerad, and this will cause a person, this is unbelievable, וירעד ויפחד מן הסכנה האופפת את האדם תמיד.
When you're plugged into the tzadik's Torahs, you're petrified from the danger that's always surrounding us to disconnect us from discovering what the Ribono Shel Olam had in mind when he created me. Zos omeres like this. I'm trying to think of it in different words. Let's really zone in here.
I'm talking to myself. Most of us are okay with going about our days not discovering what the Ribono Shel Olam had in mind when he created me. Is that fair to say? We're okay if we just have a decent day that didn't involve that much lashon hara, hopefully tikkun habris wasn't tagged. You know what I mean? We're okay if we just get by, right? Once you taste from the orchard of the tzadik, you become obsessed with trying to discover why did you create me, the Ribono Shel Olam? Why did you create me? What did you have in mind when you created me? This becomes our obsession.
So he's saying, Reb Asher is saying over here that the Rebbe's Torahs bring you to a place that you can't stomach going about life not working on that, and then you become more sensitive to realities, friendships, things, circles of whatever that take you away from that, that makes you feel like you're in gehinnom. Like the relationships that you have in life that are a mechitza over those things, over those dire questions that we want to know so badly. You can't take it anymore. You still love them, but you can't take it.
You can't be around. The metzius, a reality that disconnects you from asking those questions and working on it. You can't. That's what he's saying over here, I think.
Vayirad, again from the fourth line over here, וירד ויפחד מן הסכנה החופפת את האדם תמיד, and this danger that's always hovering over a person tries to כדי להכשילו ולנתקו מן האמונה. This danger is always there in the air that's trying to do everything that it can to stumble him and to disconnect him from faith, from having emuna.
כי יצרו של אדם עושה מלאכתו באמונה וממנו ניקח לעבוד את הבורא באותה עקשנות ולחימה מתמדת. Reb Oshy says a person will eventually come to ask the question: Why Hashem Yisborach, if You want me so badly to be connected to You and think about You all the time, why'd You give me this yetzer that's constantly working so hard to disconnect me from what You want? Valid shayla.
Reb Oshy is saying that Ribono Shel Olam is whispering back to you, because I want you to learn how to be a consistent, persistent, annoying yetzer like the yetzer hara is, I want you to take that koach of hatmada and flip it back. This happened to me when Kobe died in the helicopter crash. I already had everyone's attention, I wasn't saying that for attention, I'm being honest because I'll tell you what it was. Kobe? Kobe Bryant.
Rocky is, it's okay, Kobe, you were under the rock then, yeah. It wouldn't have mattered. The point, I'm not trying to make a joke out of this, I'm saying like this, why was he such a, what was the inyan? Just because he was good in sports? When he died in that helicopter crash with his daughter, nebach, and other people on board, I remember there was this tumul in the air, people were walking around for weeks. I mean, you're not an example, you were living in the Beis Medrash of the Bleacher Report, that's the Mecca of it, but I'm saying even people that weren't working for the Bleacher Report or Sports Illustrated, it was a hashpaa, right? So a Yid always has to ask: What am I supposed to be learning from this? What is the inyan over here? And I thought about this because his work ethic was uncomparable to anybody, anyone in sports, his work ethic.
So what's the avoda? The avoda is: Okay, what's my work ethic when it comes to this thing that's disconnecting me from the Ribono Shel Olam? The dark side is, not, I don't know, whatever, is like Kobe. It's constantly working on what? With utmost mesirus nefesh, machshil me lenatek, to disconnect me from one simple inyan: emuna peshuta. All the whole day. Okay, I go into a minyan, I'll go to a shiur, I have a few minutes of hopefully a shichrur from that, but generally speaking, there's a constant koach that's pulling me away from it.
Reb Oshy is saying a person that tastes the Pardes of Rabbeinu Hakodesh, Rebbe Nachman, he will then be able to call out the purpose of the yetzer hara and say: This menuval, this bastard is so persistent. That's the only thing I have to learn from it, I grab that koach of tamidus, of persistency and stubbornness, stubbornness, I flip that over. It's shayach to these parshas. In Chassidus it says like this, the way that we're called is an am kshei oref, stiff-necked people.
And it's true, but it could work either way. You could be an am kshei oref that's so stubborn in your ways and you want to stay in Mitzrayim your whole life, or you can be so stubborn and say Ribono Shel Olam, do what You want to do, we're never leaving You no matter what, no matter what. That's what I have to learn from this. The Torah of the Tzaddik gives us the tools how to strip away the weapon from the other side and use it on our side.
That's what Reb Oshy, that's what I'm getting from what Reb Oshy is saying over here. That's why he says again, umimenou nikach, we'll take from him. What will we take from him?
לעבוד את הבורא באותה עקשנות ולחימה מתמדת כדי שלא ניפול מן הפח אל הפחת, so that we don't fall even lower and lower.
צריכים לחיות בנשימה אחת.
You have to live in one long breath.
כל ההולדה של פחד הטבע. Wow, everything that comes out from the fear of nature, which means natural fears and anxieties and stresses that all of us have just by being in this world, lehofcha, to flip it over. And I'm not getting here into more severe medical conditions.
Everyone knows we're living in an era that we're more aware of these things and certain people need different types of help. But the general person, the standard person that's living in this world, he's filled with stresses and anxieties all the time. Raboshe is saying the Rebbe's Torahs give you the opportunity to decipher whether to see, can I, is it, what could I learn from this right now? What is, what should be causing me stress and anxiety? So Raboshe is saying, what should cause you stress and anxiety? If you're not paying attention to the questions that Reb Nachman makes you think about. Did you look at the sky today? Did you think about why Hashem put you in this world? What's causing me to not think about these things? And then be freaked out by realizing that I could be, I could be stuck in some kind of matziv and some kind of chevre, or in some kind of chatterbox mind game that's going on all day long that's not letting me ask these questions.
And to flip it over and have stress and anxiety over, only over those questions: Am I living a life that I really want to live once I hear the Rebbe's Torahs?
להפכא למציאות פחד הבורא ובכך בכל המידות. Next column: zehu bechinas hadeveikus. Just a few more minutes. Deveikus, what does it mean to live in a state of deveikus? You should all know, that cough means that these Torahs are the most essential Torahs of our life.
Hamevin yavin. Those that know, know. Bememes, you haven't been in here in a while. That cough was meant for now.
Refuah shleima. Amein. Or not. I don't know.
Chas veshalom.
זהו בחינת הדביקות שתמיד מרגיש בסכנתו וצועק אל השם מעומק הלב. Deveikus means that it's funny, you think deveikus means: Eliyahu she lanu sitting around deveikus, right? Taiter mashma, that was deveikus also, that was their nigun, right? You think, you know, just like an everlasting, oh, come let's learn some Reb Nachman deveikus. No, no.
Deveikus is, he says, that you always are aware of the clear and present danger of what? Being disconnected for why you're in this world.
וצועק אל השם מעומק הלב. You're screaming to Hashem from the depth of your heart. I saw this Yid yesterday.
I thought I'd have a few minutes before Boruch's funeral to go and do hisbodedus close to where Tomer is. But a few tzadikim ruined it for me because they went to go and dig the grave, and Boruch's four down from Tomer. So when I got there, I had a minute and then the chevre came in real avodas hakodesh. So I walked back up, from the, you know, from the outer shvil, there's no way I can go inside anywhere there.
And so I go outside the outer shvil. And I don't know if you guys noticed this, there was this Breslever standing by a certain kever smack in the middle of the beis olam in Kfar Tzion. Screaming, davening, deveikus, deveikus nora. So I put on my glasses to see who is he davening by? So it was in 2007, most of you weren't here, there was a tzadik from Bat Ayin was doing hisbodedus 200 meters outside the yishuv.
His name was Erez Levanon. Some of you heard of him, he was a musician. Beautiful Torahs, beautiful nigunim. A teacher.
He was killed doing hisbodedus. Lived in Bat Ayin. And it was over his kever. I couldn't tell, I have to check today, I assume the yahrtzeit's around now.
And I was looking at him in such a state, this chasid was such a state of deveikus, you know, almost twenty years later, and he was connecting to a chaver that was mamash, his Torahs, his nigunim were meorer a Yid to live in the right type of sakana, not the wrong type of sakana. The right type of danger to live in is being aware and conscious of what is disconnecting me from all the things we spoke about. And Raboshe is saying, this is what the ikar of the Torah of the tzadik is. And when you go to this place of deveikus where you always feel that you're in danger if you're not asking these questions, and you're screaming out to הקדוש ברוך הוא מעומק הלב, אז הוא בחינת תפילה, third line.
Then you reach a place called davening. That's what davening is.
שהוא לשון חיבור עם הבורא יתברך. This is a lashon of...
Where you reach this state, you reach a state of כתינוק על שדי אמו שאינו חסר דבר. When a child is being nursed by his mother, nothing is lacking. Nothing is lacking for the kid and also for the mother, that's a whole another sugia.
וגם אינו בא לידי יהרה.
So it's easy for, it says about a kid, a baby that's nursing. What does it mean he doesn't come to yohara? Yohara is haughtiness. You don't reach a state of haughtiness when you say I'm not lacking anything. Doesn't...
sometimes we say I have everything, that can sound haughty, but when you're consciously aware that you're receiving something from the Riboyno Shel Olam and you say I'm not lacking anything, you don't come to a state of haughtiness. Betach, fully, fully. If we recognize how dependent we are on Hashem, we would not... fully, fully dependent.
Meaning the chashash is that sometimes people can say, oh man, I have everything. That can stink from haughtiness if it's not in the context of that it's coming from this, right? That this type of chibur leads me to say, wow, Riboyno Shel Olam, I want to feel that when I'm receiving life from you, I feel like I'm lacking nothing and I'm the richest person in the world. No yohara, no haughtiness comes up from a statement like that. Who wouldn't do anything in the world to live like that for one day? For one day to live like this.
Do anything. The tzadik says why one day? This could be your life. This could be your whole metzius. Ah, but what's the prerequisite? The prerequisite is be aware of that which takes you away from feeling like this.
That's the whole zach. The whole zach is just be aware of what takes you away from this geshmak shleimusdike feeling of dveikus and living in a state of tefillah. Just to end this line over here, I should have done one more line: כי יודע שכל שורש חיותו הוא מאמו. The baby knows the whole source of his existence, of his life in the world, is coming from his mother.
So he says over here, that's really what emunah is.
כך היא בחינת האמונה שהאדם צריך להגיע בדרך הליכות חייו בכל עניניו. Through whatever path you embark on in life, whatever your profession is, whatever your lifestyle is, how many children you have or don't have or don't have yet, or whatever your mommy and daddy issues are, were, or will be. There's no escaping this maze that leads you to a place of כי ממך כי אנחנו לך.
Nothing escapes it. And when you realize that and you're mevutal to this and you're letting go of all your achizos, which he said in the beginning, all the I'm holding here, I'm holding here. Only then ואז אשרי לבו ואשרי חלקו. Then, that's where simcha comes in, כי זכה לראות עולמו בחייו.
That you were privileged to see, this is a very fascinating statement, your world in your life. What does that mean olamo? We've seen this other places. That you see your world while you're still alive. When do most of us see what our world is really about? Noch, Me'ah ve'esrim shanah.
Only after your 120. The whole chap is to not wait for then, for them to like remove a blindfold and say ah, this is what it was all about. Right? The whole point is to actually you say I'm not waiting till I'm 120 to remove that thing, I'm doing it now. I'm taking it off now, the blindfold.
And as painful as it may be, because when I take off that blindfold I notice all these things that are mafria, that are actually getting in the way. It's painful but it's so worthwhile. Bechayav. Removing that if only I would have lived this way from the deathbed.
That's removed. Mikerov lev. You know, just did... didn't you write emails like this to your friends in the when he ends off: מקרב לב אני שולח לכם את ברכתי הנאמנה.
From the depth of my heart I'm sending you my faithful bracha that you should you should work on these Torahs from Sippurei Ma'asiyos.
בריאות טובה והצלחה בכל מעשה ידיכם ונזכה לשמוע מכם בשורות טובות וימלא השם יתברך כל משאלות לבכם לטובה אמן כן יהי רצון. Amen. I said wouldn't you like to receive letters like this? What we just did.
We probably invested more in Reb Osher’s response than the Yid that got the letter. Maybe, I don't know. Ashreinu chelkenu. It should be a beautiful this-letter type of month.
Roots, roots, Shvat, roots, Tu Bishvat, roots, roots. Going deep down inside.