1. Asara B'Tevet & the Yahrzeit of Reb Nosson of Breslov

On Asara Betevet, we mark the yahrzeit of Reb Nosson of Breslov, the devoted disciple who carried Rebbe Nachman’s light into the world. Rav Shlomo Katz shares the depth of Reb Nosson’s legacy,  his fiery mesirut nefesh, his writings of Likkutei Halachot and Likkutei Tefilot, and the moving letters he wrote to his son, collected in Healing Leaves.

In this shiur, we hear Reb Nosson’s fatherly voice urging his child, and us, to grab moments of holiness each day, to add a little more light, daas, and kedusha. Reb Nosson warns against the bitterness of coveting money, calling it mar m’mavet — more bitter than death — and reminds us to always run to Hashem, not away.

Through Reb Nosson’s teachings, we discover how to sweeten life’s confusions, live with gratitude, and find the strength to pass on blessings to our own children.

What is The Teachings of Reb Nosson of Breslov with Rav Shlomo Katz?

Reb Nosson of Breslov, the beloved disciple of Rebbe Nachman, carried his Rebbe’s light into the world with boundless devotion. Through his writings, prayers, and letters, we are given a path to live with faith, joy, and strength even in times of struggle.

In this series, Rav Shlomo Katz learns from Reb Nosson’s Torah, weaving together his fiery commitment, his guidance to his children and students, and the timeless invitation to run not away from Hashem, but toward Him. Join us in tasting the sweetness of Likkutei Tefilot, Likkutei Halachot, and Reb Nosson’s letters, and discover how his teachings still burn in our hearts today.

There's no רבי נתן's ניגון that we sang in אומן remember? In ברסלב. Yeah, today's רבי נתן ברסלבר's יארצייט. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.

אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.

אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.

אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.

אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו. אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.Alright, good morning everyone. It's not your typical way of starting a fast day, but you get into ברסלב, a lot of things aren't typical anymore, you know? Things kind of, things kind of change. Anyway, alright.

Come, if everyone, I'm sorry about this thing in front of me but come, I don't know who you are, you look like you're 18, but come, come a little bit closer. We let, for every young.Alright. We are going to do something very short, but I, even though דאווענען is very late today, because of סליחות and קריאת התורה, did not want to miss out on the opportunity to learn something very short from someone who for many of us in this room, not just me, I know many of us in this room has have received so much incredible חיזוק and inspiration. And we are talking about רבי נתן שטרנהרץ, רבי נתן ברסלבר, who, it's not what I'm saying, it's what the רבי said, רבי נחמן said that if it wasn't for רבי נתן, none of them would have any, none of us would have any idea who רבי נחמן is.

None of us. In fact, on a personal level, this is my personal what I feel quite often, I think I've shared it with some of you over the years, is that if I had a choice to take a walk with רבי נחמן or רבי נתן, I don't think I'd walk with רבי נחמן because I'd be freaked out of my mind. I'd have no idea how to even, you know, to even walk and talk and somehow, it's רבי נתן who is more like, he's the go-to guy in order to get to the reservoir of depth, but he's the, he's the dude that that I personally would feel like a little bit more, not that I wouldn't be freaking out in trepidation standing before him, but because he took that world of רבי נחמן and brought it for us into some some kind of world of כלים for us to relate to, I would I would, I've thought about this so many times, what it would be like to take a walk down that, you know, down that river that we go to, by the, it's the Bug, by the Bug river, just to take a walk with רבי נתן down that and down that path. And I think that all of us on a certain level have have so much הכרת הטוב.

הכרת הטוב's not even the right word, gratitude to רבי נתן for just his מסירות נפש. And we get to see really who he is through that amazing, amazing book, Through Fire and Water, that many of us have read. And I encourage everyone to get it. And if you don't, if you already have it, to read it again.

It's one of the most important works I think that רב חיים ever put out. It's an incredible masterpiece, Through Fire and Water. And we have obviously the massive ליקוטי הלכות as well from רבי נתן. And we have the most incredible ספר in the world, ליקוטי תפילות.

That's what we were, that's what I sent out last night, which is the whole book of of prayers based on ליקוטי מוהר"ן. But I wanted to do something and I apologize for some reason my computer was not working this morning I couldn't print out what I wanted to learn. So I'll just say it out loud. And this is from just in my opinion just as much an important book, עלין לתרופה, Healing Leaves, and they put it out in English called Healing Leaves.

And this whole book, this massive book is a bunch of letters written by רב נתן mainly to his son רב יצחק. His son רב יצחק is a איד who eventually made עליה to צפת and he's buried by pretty close to רב יוסף קארו. And they found a huge, huge, huge massive treasure of letters that all the letters that his father had wrote to him over the years. They found them.

They found it in his stuff. I'm not sure if it was before he was נפטר or after he was נפטר. And tons of these letters from here are letters from his father to him and we've learned a few of these letters over the years. And בינה and I had a מנהג for many years, we're going to try to go back to it.

It stopped a few years ago, I don't know why. But we used to read one letter every שלוש סעודות. And it gave us such a sweet taste, such a great way, such a deep feeling. And you could learn so much from from a letter.

So this is a simple letter that רב נתן is writing to his son רב יצחק. במדבר תקצ"ג. That would probably be May 1823. May, June 1823.

So this is already רב נחמן passes away in 1810, right? So this is 13 years after רב נחמן passes away. Remember the whole thing is on רב נתן. The whole mantle of not leadership but the keeping people together and spreading the teachings is on רב נתן. רב נתן spends time hunted down by not just יידן, not just מתנגדים but other types of חסידים as well.

He does not have an easy life at all whatsoever. And his son also doesn't have such an easy life. But we see by the way that he expresses his love for his son, seeing him as an אבא for me personally gives me tremendous, tremendous חזוק. Seeing רב נתן as an אבא.

That's the thing is like about רב נחמן מצד an אבא, we don't we don't, I'm not sure how much we think of him as a father. Maybe it's because he buried a bunch of his children while he was still alive. Because many of them passed away from all sorts of illnesses, רב נחמן, רב נחמן מברסלב. He buries a bunch of his children while they're still alive.

But to just What's that? And Sarah and others. While while רב נחמן was still alive, yeah. Crazy stuff. So anyway רב נתן writing to his son רב יצחק he says like this: אהובי בני חביבי, my beloved son.

מכתבך קיבלתי היום. I received your letter today. והיה לי לנחת. It gave me so much נחת.

בפרט מה שכתבת שאתה מתחזק במעט טוב שאתה חוטף בכל יום. Specifically when you wrote to me that when you have a minute to grab, לחטוף, when you have a minute to grab some קדושה, you do it. It gave me so much נחת to hear that when you have, he must have wrote him that, and we could see it in the letters that he wrote to his father too. He gave his father so much נחת that he was probably very busy with work or whatever it was.

Like רב חיים קרמר says, what not, right? With work or what not. But he says when you told me that you have a minute לחטוף, you have a minute to grab some five minutes here, you know. Hearing one, you know, one email about from חב"ד.org, just to see you, you grab that with the five minutes you had. Gave me so much נחת.

יהי השם עמך, השם should be with you, ויחזק את לבבך and he should strengthen your heart להוסיף בכל יום אור קדושה ודעת. That every single day you should have אור, קדושה, ודעת added to your life. That every single day you could never say about today that there was the same or less amount, you know, let's even say this, you can't even say that there was the same amount of light that you had yesterday. That every single day, בעזרת השם, should be a little bit more of אור, of light, קדושה, holiness, and דעת.

כי חוץ מזה הכל הבל. Because other than this, it's all שטות. says the father telling his son. It's all שטות.

You want to know if your days were real? Do you have a little bit more of אור? A little bit more of דעת? A little bit more of קדושה? If you do, you're plugged in. If not, just remember, whatever you want to say you accomplished, it's all שטות. It's all nothing, הבל. It's empty air.

ומה שאתה כותב בכל אגרת שנעשה עמך הרבה בכל יום, אף על פי שיש לי יסורים מזה מצד אחד, אבל זאת נחמתי כי ידעתי שעם כל אדם בהכרח שיעבור כל זה. ואני שמח בהצד לטובה מה שאני רואה מכתלי דבריך. You write me my son that you're going through so much צרות, you're going through so much inner struggles inside. And on the one hand, it breaks me as a father seeing his son being tormented by going through so much confusion in this world.

But on the other hand, it also gives me חיזוק because I see that you're you're also a ייד that has to go through a lot of things in order to reach greatness. So מצד אחד as an אבא, it breaks my heart seeing my son being tormented with confusion. But on the other hand, part of עם ישראל, it gives me so much חיזוק to see that my son is destined for greatness because he's going through so much heaviness. ואני רואה שאתה מתחזק בדבריו ועצותיו הקדושות, and I see that you're taking a few minutes of Rebbe Nachman's עצות and it's giving you so much חיזוק.

חזק בני וחזק. My son, be strong, strengthen yourself. והיזהר לזכור בכל עת, and remember to, and please be careful, be warned, warning, be careful to remember at any single time, שהעיקר הוא השעה הזאת, that the most important thing is what? השעה הזאת. What does that mean? That right now, and when you're reading this, it means right now.

And we're, and when we're learning this about 200 years later, it's the same thing. העיקר הוא מה? השעה הזאת. What we have right now, these minutes that we have right now, is עיקר. There's nothing else that's עיקר right now.

Nothing. He says, remember this, he says to them all the time. העיקר הוא השעה הזאת. Whenever you read this letter again, at that moment that you're reading the letter, that's what's, at this moment, that's the most important thing in the world.

Obviously, this is a כלל that runs through all of Rebbe Nachman's teaching, the Torah of היום אם בקולו תשמעו, that if you'd only listen to השם when? היום. Right now. Yesterday doesn't exist. היום.

ושיש כתפיים רחבים בעזרת השם יתברך לסמוך עליהם. And you have very wide shoulders to lean on. He's referring to the Rebbe. Right? Whatever the Rebbe says, and you listen to him, he said, those are wide, wide shoulders that you could always lean on and trust on, לסמוך עליהם.

וממך תראה ותבין מה היית עושה אם לא היה לך כוח כזה ועצות כאלו. What would you do? How would you walk the streets of this world? How would you get with the confusions of this world if you didn't have the Rebbe's עצות? Now, that's something each of us could kind of address and answer on our own. What would we do if we didn't have a little bit of the Rebbe's עצות? What would you do? Jerry. Jerry, what would you do? I wouldn't be here.

I would be finished. Done. We would all have landed. What would we do? איך היה, he says like this, and and this is strong words.

איך היה בלתי אפשר לסבול מרירותא דעלמא. It'd be impossible to suffer the bitterness of this world without the Rebbe's עצות. וזכור היטב, remember very clearly, הלשון הקודש הזה, the language that the Rebbe said, שגילה הוא זכרונו לברכה, that he revealed to us בלשונו הקודש, this is the 23rd teaching in ליקוטי מוהר"ן, שחמדת הממון הוא מרירותא דעלמא מר ממות. I'm going to say those words again.

And this is what he's begging his son to remember. חמדת הממון. What does that mean? Love of money. What? Love of money.

Not love. What's the what's the better word? Coveting. לא תחמוד. What do we usually refer that to? לא תחמוד.

לא תחמוד בית רעך. He's saying the coveting, חמדת הממון, the coveting of of of ממון, of money, what it does to you in your mind, he says, הוא מרירותא דעלמא, that's the bitterness of this world, מר ממות. That's more bitter than death. You think death is bitter? Spending time in this world coveting money is much more bitter than that.

Enough said, right? Mic drop. That's it. What else do you have to say? חמדת הממון הוא מרירותא דעלמא. The bitterness of this world, that thing that tastes the yuckiest in this world is the bitterness of coveting money.

מר ממות. It's more bitter than death. Now, you thought that was heavy. והוא נמשך מפגם הברית.

Why does a person have these עניינים where he covets money? It's because in the area of שמירת הברית, there's some עניינים, some issues going on. Now, we could go now and try to learn that teaching now, and then we'd want to fast for a whole week instead of just today. So we're not going to do that currently right now this second, but just... Just remember this, this עניינים are all connected.

If you're having issues with money, and not not if you have or don't have, but if that's what you're thinking about all the time. If that's how you kind of judge your your achievements of success in life is whether where you are with money and חמדת ממון whether you have it or don't have it, it's irrelevant. But the coveting of it, we know that when your mind gets taken over by certain thoughts of ניאוף חס ושלום of God forbid coveting in other areas, it's the most bitter way, it's the most bitter life in the world because you can't get out of it. And no matter how many good things you do, it just finds itself in every area of your life.

So we say about when it's about like adulterous thoughts, oh, that's so, that's horrible, such טומאה. Do you know how much טומאה there is in חמדת ממון? You know how much טומאה there is also when it comes to lusting money when it's all you could think of? So he says over here, obviously the החרפה התלויה, these things that depend on each other, and it's connected in the same direction where there's a פגם in שמירת הברית, where there's some kind of blemish regarding guarding of your covenant. ואי אפשר להמתיקו כי אם על ידי ברית מלח עולם. The only way to sweeten all these judgments is to is through ברית מלח עולם, the covenant of salt of the world.

What does that refer to? Does anyone know? Where we have in the Torah ברית מלח? In the? The בעל קורא knows. In קרבנות, what do you have to do? With the salt, huh? מליחה, you have to have sprinkling of salt, huh? huh? It's in ויקרא. Yeah, yeah. פרשת ויקרא.

פרשה. That's פרשת. You wouldn't put it past us, you're a בעל קורא. He says over here, when how do you do קרבנות? What's the only way to sweeten these judgments of the bitterness that comes through a blemish of covenant is when you then take the the privilege of having a covenant with השם and you salt it, you sprinkle ממש fire on it, you put it on a מזבח, which means what? שהוא הצדיק האמת.

You go to the person and you receive עצות from the person who lights you up on fire that wants to make you feel that you want to bring קרבנות all day long. That's how you sweeten this judgment of being lost in the world of חמדת הממון. And he says over here ותאמין שכל העולם מלא מרורות יותר מאשר עובר עליך המעט אשר עובר. And just know, he says, as much as you're suffering a little bit of bitterness in this world, the world is suffering from it much more.

The whole world. Because why? אשר אנו זוכים לידע מהצדיק האמת יסוד העולם. We know that Torah exists. We know רבינו exists.

We know that it exists. We know it's there in our lives. Imagine what it would be like if you didn't have this. What you're going through right now is harsh, but imagine how much more harsh it would be if you didn't have it.

And that's true about all of us. Not specifically right now about רבי נחמן, but in general, you know, we we go through a lot of confusions and being overwhelmed in life. And it's and it's real and they are legit. But imagine going through all of this stuff without דבוק חברים, without שבת, without the, you know, without the essential things that are the basis of our of our of our lives.

שהוא הממתיק מרורות של כל העולם כולו. The Torah of the Rebbe sweeten the bitterness of the whole world. ובודאי החוסים בצלו מתקרבים אליו. And definitely it also sweetens those, the lives of those who find shade beneath his his shade.

ומתקרבים אליו. ומכל שכן שזוכים בכל יום לחטוף טוב ועצות על פי דרכיו הקדושים. Especially those that say, I'm not going to try to fix everything right now. I'm not going to try to fix everything of yesterday.

But every day I'm going to לחטוף עוד. Every day I'm going to grab a few more minutes. Every day, no matter what, I'm going to do whatever I can so that there could be a few more doses of light, holiness, and דעת, like he began this letter saying. And he says, אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו שזכינו לזה.

אשרינו. What does that word mean אשרינו? Where does it come from? אושר. אושר. Happiness.

אשרינו. Praiseworthy. מה טוב חלקנו, how how great is our our חלק. Let me tell you guys the that's how I that's how we started our חופה, Bina and I.

We had the Psalm and Reb Ben Zion Solomon and all and all his sons that were that were around then, all my good buddies. And before the before it even started, the חופה even started, I was just in my mind as we got closer, going like, wait, what am I acknowledging here right now? אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו, what? How how amazing is our lot. So before anything even started, they sang. sang like a 16-piece harmony to these words אשרנו מה טוב חלקנו.

If you know the songs, you know that's like nothing for them to do such a thing. That's how we started. First we start like announcing like, you know, בחצוצרות ובקול שופר. I was like proclaiming to the world, this is happening.

We had them saying the words אשרנו מה טוב חלקנו, מה נעים גורלנו. ובזה תגיל ותסיס בכל יום ובכל עת, and when you remember this, that you have a chance every single day to grab a few minutes and add a little bit of more light every single day, ותסיס בכל יום ובכל עת, this will add so much more שמחה to your life. ותברח מכל הרעיון ותמהון לבב, then you can find a way to run away from that which what? Which keeps you shackled, which is that חמדת ממון, which is connected to בגדי ישמעאל ורשע. You can find a way out of there, out of that circle of confusion that doesn't allow you to think that there's anything more that there's a chance of getting out of this.Where could you run to? אל מחשבות תורה ותפילה ושמחה וביטחון והתחזקות בחסדי השם וברחמיו הגדול לנצח.

You can find a way to run to thinking about Torah. Like רב שלמה used to quote רב נתן, who always used to say that everyone's so into running. You have to always trying to running away from things. He is saying that's true, but you have to remember, you have to, Adam's sin was that he also started running away.

But he instead of running from, run to. Remember that Torah? Instead of running from, run to something. רב נתן says the nature of man is that when he gets מבוהל, which means frightened, he's going to start running. So you can't really stop that natural inclination.

The question is, where are you running to? Instead of running from God, run to השם. Adam and Eve, the first thing they did is they started running from, thinking that there's such a concept. And השם says, you know, that's what you did with eating the wrong apple, that's like not such a bad thing. But running away from me, that's that's where it's really bad.

Like we do a lot of עבירות every day, but the question is, do you run to השם saying, look what I did, as opposed to saying, you know, השם, it was your fault, or someone else's fault. So he's saying over here, run to. Find a way, find an escape route that will take you right directly back to השם.והנה מוסר כתב זה דחוק מאוד. The guy that's waiting for me to finish writing these words is on שפילקעס, basically.

So I got to end right now, that's what he's saying. Right? והנה מוסר כתב זה, the guy that's giving over this letter, he is in שפילקעס. ואי אפשר להאריך יותר. I can't write any much more, as if we need to hear anything else, right? ואני מצפה בכל עת לישועתו הגדולה.

Every single second, I'm waiting and and expecting to see השם's great salvation. שנזכה להתפלל בבית מדרשנו בראש השנה הקדוש הסמוך, הבא עלינו לטובה. This is me, he's saying I'm really excited. Looks like the שול is going to be ready this year, the קלויז.

I can't wait to get together and דאווען together this ראש השנה. נגילה ונשמחה בישועתו. We'll rejoice and be happy with his ישועה. And then he just says, I'm sending regards to a friend of mine, the great-grandson of the רבי, ותרבה לדבר עמו כרצונו שהוא רצונו יתברך.

And keep on talking to השם, no matter what. וברוך השם שנמצא חן ושכל טוב בעיני אלוקים ואדם. השם יתברך יעזרנו ויגמור חסדו עמנו לטובה בכל העניינים. וכמה גדול כוח התפילה.

How great, how great it is, what an amazing thing is the power of תפילה. דברי אביך המצפה לישועתך בכל עת. The words of your father who is expecting to see your salvation at any given moment. נתן מברסלב.When was the last time you wrote an email to your son? What would you do? You know what the exercise of today is? Yeah, you'll see your child later today, from school or whatever it is.

Or even if you haven't seen a son or a daughter in a long time. Why wait when it's going to be too late to tell them what you really want to tell them? So רב נתן never waited. He never waited till, חס ושלום, it was too late or he wasn't able to share with them what he really wanted to share with them. It'd be an incredible thing.

You don't have to share with anyone, you don't have to tell anybody that you did this. But for yourselves, and then hopefully you'd have enough guts to then give it to your child. Record a voice note. Because חלילה, taking out a pen and paper, that's that's already, you know, using muscles that we're not used to and stuff like that.

But take out the the phone and record a voice note of what you want to share, what you really want to tell your child from the bottom of your heart in the זכות of רב נתן. ובעזרת השם each of us will get a lot of חיזוק to find ways to get out of those very scary confusions that clog us up. We can't get out of them. And remember חמדת ממון מר ממות.

Coveting money, it's the most bitter thing in the world, it's a place you can't get out of, whether you have it, whether you don't have it. It's usually when you have it, but even when you don't have it. השם should help us and give us a lot of כוח דקדושה to connect to the צדיקים אמיתיים in every generation, בעזרת השם יתברך. יישר כוח.

אמן. Because בעזרת השם the ברית is Thursday. Yili's from Michal's ברית is on Thursday, and Zvi's in America, we're going to do tomorrow morning חסידות on the פרשה, because he's not here and I'm not going to be able to teach on Thursday. So we'll learn tomorrow morning also, okay? יישר כוח.

יישר כוח. Where's the ברית? I I don't know if they.