Na
-Nach-Nachman-Me-Uman
Notes
on the greatest story-teller of all times, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav
Source
notes from Wikipedia and other sites
For the recorded discussion, go to:https://youtu.be/2DRly7WHJ4U
Nachman
of Breslov (Hebrew: נחמן מברסלב), also known as Reb
Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover (Yiddish: רבי נחמן ברעסלאווער), Nachman from Uman (April 4, 1772 – October 16, 1810),
was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement.
Rebbe
Nachman, a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, revived the Hasidic movement by combining the esoteric secrets
of Judaism (the Kabbalah) with in-depth Torah
scholarship. He attracted thousands of followers during his lifetime, and his
influence continues today through many Hasidic movements such as Breslov
Hasidism.[1] Rebbe Nachman's religious
philosophy revolved around closeness to God and speaking to God in normal
conversation "as you would with a best friend."
Also, the
father of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature-since he write his stories in
both languages,before Sholem Aliechem and Peretz, before Mapua and Bialik, long
before these had become modern literary languages.
Recommended
reading:Arthur Green, The Tormented Master.
“If
Hasidism begins in the life-enhancing spirituality of the Baal Shem Tov, it
concludes in the tortuous, elitist and utterly fascinating career of Nahman of
Bratslav (1722–1810).
“Nahman of Bratslav is unique in the history of Judaism, Green emphasizes, for
having made the individual’s quest for intimacy with God the center of the
religious way. He was a Kierkegaard before his time, believing in the utter
abandon of the life of faith and the risk of paradoxicality. . . . He was, more
than all others, the predecessor of Kafka, whose tales, like Nahman’s, have no
explicit key and rankle, flush and irritate the spirit, compelling us—even in
our failure to understand—to acknowledge their potency and challenge.”—New
York Times
Hisbodedus-Hitbodedut-Isolation
Secluded
meditation practices were encouraged by many medieval rabbis,
such as Abraham Maimonides, Abraham Abulafia, Joseph Gikatilla, Moses de Leon, Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria,
and Chaim Vital.[2] The founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, encouraged his close disciples to find deveikus
through hisbodedus and by meditating on the kabbalistic
unifications (yichudim) of Isaac Luria.[3]
Rebbe Nachman taught that the best place for hitbodedut
is in the forests or fields. "When a person meditates in the fields, all
the grasses join in his prayer and increase its effectiveness and power,"
he wrote.[5]
Modern influence-
the song of Naomi Shemer Shirat Ha-asavim:
Da lekha,
shekol ro'eih ve ro'eih
yeish lo nigun meyuchad mishelo.
Do know
that each and every shepherd
has his own tune.
Do know
that each and every grass
has its own poem.
Sung by Shuli Rand, popular
Israeli actor-photos below show then and then and now:
During a
session of hitbodedut, the practitioner pours out his heart to God in
his own language, describing all his thoughts, feelings, problems and
frustrations.
"It is
very good to pour out your thoughts before God like a child pleading before his
father. God calls us His children, as it is written (Deuteronomy
14:1), "You are children to God." Therefore, it is good to express
your thoughts and troubles to God like a child complaining and pestering his
father."[9]
Hitbodedut also lends itself to certain
silent meditation techniques. One is the "silent scream," which Rebbe
Nachman himself practiced. He described the silent scream as follows:You can shout
loudly in a "small still voice
Munch, The Scream
A Breslaver in the woods( also Shukli Rand, Ushpizin)
A contemporary psychological example of
screaming for therapy.
The scream-1st 30 seconds: https://youtu.be/gSoMvDJyp0w
Another form
of hitbodedut is called bitul (nullification), in which the
practitioner meditates on God's presence to the exclusion of all other things,
including himself. ( Unmindfulness?)
(Bitul
hayesh- Nullification of the “in one’s self”. Yesh.( There is) This is an
extension of concept found in early Jewish sources, of the nullification of
one’s will in the presence of God’s will, also very common in mystic thought
world-wide.) ( The opposite of Descartes, I think, therefore I am.)
Old joke: how
many Breslavers does it take to change a light bulb- zero- the bulb can never
be replaced.
Addressing psychological needs:
From Tablet Magazine:https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/reb-nachman-explains-it-all Chaya Rivka Zwolinski
Because the Rebbe didn’t shy away from boldly addressing popular modern
topics, from sex and drugs to music and food, navigating familial and societal
pressures, depression and anxiety, meditation and prayer, and of course,
spirituality, birth, and death, Breslov is often cited as the body of Hasidic
thought most essential to our times.
The Rebbe also openly addresses other addictions and compulsions,
everything from tobacco to self-destructive and de-humanizing sexual attitudes.
He explains the power of the imagination and imagery and how they affect
emotions and even reality, taking a close look at the potentially negative
power of magical thinking. Depression, sadness, feeling that life is
futile—Rebbe Nachman also offers insights into the tenor of our heads and
hearts and advice on how to develop emotional fortitude in a world that often
doesn’t make sense.
On Kafka and Rebbe Nachman Discovering Kafka
and Rabbi Nachman
Dan FriedmanNovember 3, 2010 Forward
Why Kafka and
Nachman of Bratslav? Interview
R.K. I was
struck by two things. One, I was teaching a course on literature and Jewish
mysticism at Louisiana State, and I was interested in the idea of considering
mystical literature as literature. So “The Zohar” is once described as a
romancero, a Spanish picaresque novel with rabbis roaming through the
landscape. What happens if you start tracing a line through Jewish mystical
literature, and you come to Rabbi Nachman, who’s actually in a certain way a
literary figure — the inventor of the Yiddish tale (even though these tales are
infused with Jewish mysticism)? Then you cross over the secular line; the next
writer up in Kafka, who is clearly a literary writer but whose stories are full
of theological content, as Gershom Scholem would say. And in fact, as Scholem
indicates, if you want to understand Kabbalah in our time, you’d have to read
Rabbi — You’d have to read Franz Kafka.
Which takes us to
Kafka, who best summarized our contemporary life as a Cockroach.
Kafka
as a Jew https://muse.jhu.edu/article/24490
Jewishness and Judaism began to matter very
much to him from 1911 on, when Kafka was twenty-eight. From that time on, he
began to be intensely occupied with Jewish history, Jewish tradition, Jewish
lore, and Jewish culture—an interest which was not only sustained but
constantly grew until his death in 1924 at the age of forty. It is significant
for his writing that Kafka’s turn to Judaism preceded by less than one year
what he called his breakthrough to the work of his maturity, to the kind of
writing that established his posthumous fame and for which the adjective kafkaesque
has been coined. As I shall try to show, there exists a connection between the
peculiar nature of Kafka’s mature writing and his discovery of what he
considered to be authentic Judaism, which he regretted bitterly not having
known until then.
The
Yiddish theater group( c 1911-12) from . . .came to Kafka as a revelation and
prepared him for the breakthrough in his writing.
That
encounter affected both his life and his work. . . .. He immediately began to
study the history of Judaism, read about and in the Talmud and later the
Kabbalah; in fact, near the end of his life he called “this whole literature,”
by which he meant mainly his own writings, “potentially a new . . . kabbalah,”
“an assault on the frontier” (T 553). With a series of teachers he took
up the consistent study of Hebrew. He subscribed to the Zionist journal, Selbstwehr
or Self-Defense, and he published two of his stories in Der Jude
(The Jew), a Zionist journal edited by Martin Buber. Although aloof from
any political involvement [End Page 845] in Zionism, Kafka began to toy
with the idea of emigrating to Palestine and working on a kibbutz.
On Going impact
today:
Followers
Na Nach is the name of a subgroup of Breslover Hasidim that follows the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov according to the
tradition of Rabbi Yisroel Ber Odesser (called the Saba, or
grandfather, by Na Nachs). The Saba is believed to have received an
inspirational note, called the Petek (note), from the long-deceased
Rebbe Nachman.[citation needed] Devotees of the
group, colloquially called Na Nachs, make themselves quite visible in
the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and other Israeli cities as they dance atop and around moving
vans to techno-Hasidic musical compositions, with the goal of spreading joy to
passersby.[1][2][3]. They are
identifiable by their large, white, crocheted yarmulkes bearing the name and song from the petek that Rabbi Odesser
revealed: Na Nach Nachma Nachman
Meuman.
https://youtu.be/gSoMvDJyp0w ( after 1st
30 seconds)
Our
version of Hare Krishna
( A
lot of Jews in oriental mysticism: Baba Ram Das( Richard Alpert). I first heard
Hare Krishna from the poet Allen Ginsburg)
·
לעולם אל
יהא אדם זקן. לא צדיק זקן ולא חסיד זקן. הזקנה מידה מגונה היא, חייב אדם להתחדש
תמיד, מתחיל וחוזר ומתחיל
o L'olam al yehe adam zaken, lo tzadik zaken v'lo hasid zaken.
Hazikna mida meguna hi, hayav adam l'hithadesh tamid, mathil v'hozer u'mathil
o One must never be old, neither an old saint nor an old follower.
Being elderly is a vice; a man must always renew, begin and go back and begin
anew
·
'אין
יאוש בעולם כלל
o Ein ye'ush ba'olam klal.
o There is no despair in the world.
o
o
“As the situation in the Warsaw Ghetto became more
desperate for the Jews, Ringelblum’s archive still records the defiance of
religious Jews in the face of Nazi terror. On February 19, 1941, the Oneg
Shabbos records the following: In the prayer house of the Pietists from Braclow
on Nowolipie Street there is a large sign: “Jews, Never Despair!” The Pietists
dance there with the same religious fervor as they did before the war. After
prayers one day, a Jew danced there whose daughter had died the day before.”
·
אם אתה
מאמין שיכולים לקלקל, תאמין שיכולים לתקן
o Im ata ma'amin sh'ykholim lekalkel, ta'amin sh'yecholim letaken.
o If you believe breaking is possible, believe fixing is possible.
·
כל
העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל.
o Kol ha'olam kulo gesher tzar me'od, veha'ikar lo le'fached klal.
o All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important
thing is not to be overwhelmed by fear.
o
https://youtu.be/I6bAP1_zNL4 as sung today in Krakow
o
o זכור תמיד: השמחה איננה עניין שולי במסעך
הרוחני – היא חיונית
o Z'khor tamid: ha'simha einena 'inyan shuli b'masa'akh ha'ruhani
- hi hyunit.
o Always remember: happiness is not a side matter in your
spiritual journey - it is essential.
·
היום אתה
חש מרומם. אל תתן לימות האתמול והמחר להשפיל את רוחך
o Hayom ata hash m'romam. Al titen l'ymot ha'etmol v'hamahar
lehashpil at ruhekha.
o Today you feel uplifted. Do not let yesterday and tomorrow bring
you down.
·
נהוג לחשוב
שהשכחה הינה חסרון. אני סבור שהיא יתרון. לדעת לשכוח, פירושו להשתחרר מכל תלאות
העבר
o Nahug lahshov sh'hashikh'ha hina hisaron. Ani savur sh'hi
yitaron. Lada'at lishko'ah, peyrusho le'hishtahrer m'kol tla'ot ha'avar.
o It is customary to consider forgetfulness a disadvantage. I
believe it is an advantage. Knowing to forget, means loosening the troubles of
the past.
o
·
אני יכול
עכשיו לומר כל חכמי ישראל דומין עלי כקליפת השום. -
o I can now say: All the sages of Israel are in my estimation like
a garlic peel.
o
JOY
It is a great mitzvah to always be happy. (LM2 34)
Mitzvah gedoylah lihyios besimchah tamid.
It is even good to do silly things in order to cheer oneself up.
(ibid)
https://youtu.be/3LfNEPIa27k Here how
the Breslavers keep happy in the streets-
PRAYER
When a person has a yearning for something and he brings it out
into words, a soul is created. This soul flies in the air and reaches another
person thereby awakening in him too a yearning. (Ibid)
Behold! Precious is the sigh (called ‘krechtz’) from a Jewish
person (LM 8)
ENCOURAGEMENT AND TESHUVA
You need to have great stubbornness in the service of Hashem
(ibid)
This is a great principal in Avodas Hashem – That a person has
to begin everyday anew. (LM 261)
When a person falls from his level he should know that it’s
heaven-sent, because going down is needed in order to go up, therefore he fell,
in order that he arouses himself more to come close to Hashem. Advice for him -
Begin anew to enter into service of Hashem as if you have never yet even begun
(Ibid)
It is a great thing for a person to still have an evil
inclination because then he is able to serve Hashem with the evil inclination
itself. That is, to take all of the fire in his heart and channel it towards
service of Hashem. For example, to pray with fiery passion of the heart, etc.
For, if there is no evil inclination in a person his service cannot be
complete. (LM2 49)
A person must know that “Gods glory fills the entire world”
(Isiah 6), and “There is no place void of Him” (Tikunei Zohar), and “He fills
all worlds and surrounds all worlds” (Zohar)… even in the most defiled places
there is godliness, for He gives life to everything as it says, “And you give
life to everything” (Nechemia 9). So even if a person is stuck in the lowest of
places he cannot excuse himself and say “I cannot serve Hashem here because of
all the thickness and materialism that attacks me always,” for even there you
can find Him and cling to Him and do complete teshuva, “For it is not far from
you” (devarim 30), only that in this place there are many garments.”(LM 33)
SIMPLICITY
A person shouldn’t take upon himself added stringencies, as our
Rabbis taught ‘The torah was not given to angels.’ This can make him fall from
his service of Hashem. The greatest wisdom of all wisdoms is not to be wise at
all, rather to be pure and honest with simplicity. (LM2 44)
HOLY CHUTZPAH
You need to know that just as evil arrogance is a very bad
character trait, so too a person needs to have holy arrogance. Because it is
impossible to come to the true tzaddikim or to draw near to holiness without
arrogance as our rabbis taught, “Be bold as a leopard” (LM 22:11) …On this it
is said, “a timid person cannot be a learned person.” (LM 271)
SONG AND DANCE
When there are harsh judgments on the Jewish people, God forbid,
through dancing and clapping ones hands, the judgments are sweetened (LM 10:1)
When one sings the words of prayer and the song resonates with
great clarity and purity, he enclothes the shechina (divine presence) with
luminous clothing (LM 42)
LOVE YOUR FELLOW LOVE YOURSELF
Know! You need to judge every person favorably, even someone who
is completely wicked, you need to search and find any little bit of good. By
finding in him a little good and judging him favorably you actually bring him
over to the side of merit and you can return him in teshuva (LM 282)
A person also needs to find in himself a little bit of good.
Because no matter how low a person is, how can it be that he didn’t do one good
thing in his entire life? (ibid)
Every single Jew has a point in them that is uniquely precious.
And it is with this point that he bestows upon, enlightens, and arouses the
heart of others. We all need to accept this arousal and this unique point from
each other. As it says, “And they receive one from another” (Isaiah 3). (LM 34)
Every single Jew has in him a portion of God above. (LM 35)
PERSONAL REDEMPTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT
When a person knows that everything that happens to him is for
the best, this is a taste of the world to come. (LM 4)
Know that the primary essence of exile is only our lack of
belief. (LM 7)
Gan Eiden and Geihinom are literally in this world. (Ibid 22)
THE TZADDIK
Rebbe Nachman would often tell his students about the great
level that he reached in order to get them jealous and inspire them to serve
Hashem like he does. One time someone responded to him, “Who can possibly reach
the level of the Tzaddkim like yourself, certainly you were all created with
really great souls.” Rebbe Nachman answered him in a stringent manner; “This is
the main problem with you all, that you think the greatness of the Tzaddikim
are due to their high level of soul, that is not true, every single person can
reach my level and be exactly like me. It all depends on effort and honest work.”
(sichos haran 165).
“Know and believe, if its possible to take one person out of the
garbage dump, anyone who holds on to that person will come out as well.” (SH
209)
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