Copyright (C) 1974 by Holy Beggars' Gazette Reprinted by permission.

San Francisco, Nisan 5734.

Transcribed by (Rabbi) Elana Rappaport (Schachter), Reb Shlomo speaking.

REBBE NACHMAN: SIT YOUR MIND DOWN


Why is the world so far from G-d? Why aren't they getting closer? They have no Yishuv haDaat, no time to think. Yishuv means to sit, and Daat means mind. When you want to think of something you sit down, so your mind is more at ease. People never give their minds a chance to sit. Why don't they do that? Because if they would sit down and give their minds a chance to think they would ask themselves, "What do I gain by all my worldly endeavors?"

Then they would realize that they are not gaining anything from all those worldly things. There are some kinds of desires which are outside, like honor and success, which are not connected to me physically, but are still connected to me. If people thought, "What do I gain from this?" then probably people would get closer to G-d.

Why do you lose control over your mind? According to the Baal Shem Tov, according to Chassidus, the greatest sin in the world is to be sad. So Rebbe Nachman asks what is so bad about being sad? He answers that when you are sad, then you have no control over your mind, and if you have no control over your mind, then you can't get your mind to sit down and think straight.

Only when you are happy, when you are full of joy, can you attain Yishuv haDaat. It says, "in joy and go out of exile." It is not enough to be happy. You have to tie the joy to your mind. It is possible for every part of me to be joyous and my mind can still be in exile, still sad. In other words, a free person is one who is master over his mind, who can take hold of his own mind and pin it down, to think, "What is happening to me? What is the purpose of my life?" A slave is someone who is not a master of his mind, who can not hold his mind. So the only way to get out of slavery is through joy. How do you come to joy? What do you do when you are full of sadness?

The way to become happy is if you look at yourself and realize, "I am not really as bad as I thought. "What makes us so sad is that we look at ourselves, and we give up on ourselves. Rebbe Nachman says it can't be that your whole life you never did anyone a favor. So you did one person a favor. Isn't that enough reason to dance all your life through all the streets of the world? He says it is impossible that your whole life you never prayed once. So you prayed once. You spoke to G-d once, what more do you need to prove that you have at least a lot of good in you? Even if you never did anything good, you are a grandchild of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Isn't that the greatest honor in the world? Even if that doesn't help, you yourself at one time stood at Mt. Sinai, you heard G-d's voice, so why aren't you rejoicing? One way or another, at one moment in your soul life, or even in your physical life, you must have done something good. That is enough to make you happy, and from there you start to become master over your own mind.

There is a special thing in the G'mora bedicha daata, a laughing mind. Your mind not only has to be free, your mind has to be laughing at you. Do you know what laughing means? It is a very light thing, completely free, with no weight. It seems to me that the mind, in order to think, has to go places. If it has too much of a load on it, it can't go, it is too heavy. Sadness is very heavy, but Rebbe Nachman says when your mind is laughing then you are free to go wherever you want.

Rebbe Nachman says that you should know that when you pray in the field every blade of grass comes and helps you, and gives you strength to pray. The little grasses of the field are called siach hasadeh, and prayer is called sicha, so he says prayer is actually the same as the grass of the field. It says in Torah to pray in the field, or "with the field". He went out in the field in order that all the grasses of the field would help him pray. Therefore it says in Deuteronomy, and we say it in the Shma, "if you deviate from G-d's way then the earth will not yield its produce." What does it mean? He says it means that the earth will not join you when you pray. If you are serving G-d and going in G-d's way, then even if you are not actually in the field, since you need the field for your food and drink, therefore the field is with you and helps you pray. The word "yivul", produce, is the same as the initials of	"Yitzchak went out in the field to pray."

When a person goes after his own understanding and his own little wisdom he can fall down to the lowest depths, and make a lot of mistakes, and he can come to a very bad place. A lot of evil people have led the world astray, doing things that didn't seem bad, but they trusted their own sense. Reb Nachman says the most important thing in Yiddishkeit, in service of G-d, is to go in wholeness and with simplicity. Everything you do you should do with a thought about whether G-d is there. Don't be overly clever and don't think about your own honor. If you think something will bring honor to G-d, then do it, and, if not, don't. If you think about whether it will bring honor to G-d, then you will never go wrong.

Even if you fall down into doubts, even if you doubt G-d, and think that everything that has to do with G-d is wrong, it doesn't matter. Falling down is the beginning of rising up. There is no place you can't get out of if you stop thinking that the world begins and ends with your mind. Do you know how much wisdom it takes not to be too clever?

This is one of the deepest Torahs of Reb Nachman. You have to know that the root of the whole creation is kavod. Kavod can mean heavy, weighty, honor, glory, shining, or the surrounding light which is more than the thing itself, If I give kavod to someone, that makes him more than he was before. Whenever the infinite part is shining, that is kavod. Everything G-d created, He only created for His kavod. Since everything was created to honor G-d, that means that G-d's kavod is the root and purpose of the creation. Although the creation is One, still there are many parts to the One, and in each part of the creation a different kind of kavod is manifest. The G'mora asks why G-d used ten sayings to create the world when He could have created the world in one saying. This is because the kavod which is manifest in each part of the One is the root and source of a part of the creation which corresponds to one of the ten sayings. Therefore it says "in His palace everything is honor", and "The world is filled with His glory". Each saying has its own kind of kavod, and, Reb Nachman says, each kavod has a certain boundary, which is as far as that particular honor can reach. Even though the whole world is filled with His glory, still there is a place which the kavod manifest in the ten sayings can't reach.

In fact, G-d did create the world in the one word, Beraishit, which includes within itself the ten sayings which He said to add the details. When I see animals I know G-d said, "Let there be animals," so I see G-d, but the one word Beraishit, with which G-d created the whole world, is invisible, and its kavod is completely beyond visibility.

There are people who disgrace G-d, who are completely out of touch with giving Him honor. Where do they receive life from? Obviously they receive their power of existence from G-d too, but it comes from that hidden place. Sometimes I receive life from the level of the ten sayings, but sometimes I lose contact with the ten sayings by being full of doubts and not seeing G-d manifest in the creation. At those times, when I have destroyed my own kavod, made it imposible to myself, then I receive life from the word Beraishit, from the the hidden word which is not manifest.

How do I receive life from that higher source, that hidden saying? I have to make my honor visible to myself again, by yishuv hadaat, by finding that point of good, as Reb Nachman said before. When a person falls into doubts and great confusion, then he begins to look at himself, and he sees that he is very far from G-d's kavod. Then he begins to search for G-d and to cry out, "Where is G-d? Where is the place of G-d's glory?" That is the beginning of repentance, because the essence of repentance is looking for and running after G-d's honor. As the person cries out "Where is G-d?" he makes G-d manifest in the lowest depths, and in the very asking is the beginning of his rising and touching the highest levels of G-d's kavod. That is why it says that falling down is the beginning of rising up. The most important thing is not to give up. Even if you are in a low place and you absolutely don't see G-d, if, for just one split second, you ask, "Where is G-d?" at the very instant of your asking you are reaching the very highest level in the world. You are penetrating and breaking open the hidden word which gives life to all the other words. Reb Nachman says you have to realize that this is the only advice and the onIy way, not only for those who are not so holy, but even for the holiest people in the world. You are not permitted to stand on one rung, you have to keep going, and before you go higher you usually fall down.

Remember what the Baal Shem Tov said? How does a mother teach a baby to walk? if the mother would hold the baby's hand all the time the baby would never learn to walk. The baby has to fall a hundred times, and	then slowly, slowly, the baby gets up and walks a step. When it can walk one step, the mother walks back two steps. The more steps the baby can walk, the more steps the mother walks back. So the more steps we can walk, the further back G-d stands, in order to teach us to walk.

Before Messiah comes, when we come to the end of the exile, the hiddenness will be very strong. This will be the time when we will really have to make G-d's glory shine into the world. In order to make His kavod shine, we really have to ask for Him. As much as G-d was hidden since the creation of the world, it doesn't compare to the way He will be hidden before Messiah comes. Therefore, before Messiah comes will be our biggest chance to break through the great covering up of G-d. The whole world will be filled with great intellectuals, all the people will give speeches and print books in all the languages of the world, but woe to them! Woe to their souls! A little boy who believes in G-d knows more than all of them. G-d should save us from them. If they would at least speak the lie in the name of lies it wouldn't be so bad, but they will speak the lie in the name of truth. The only thing you can do at that point is ask, "Where is G-d?" If you ask where He is, you will find that He is everywhere.

G-d revealed Himself to us in the desert, because in the desert there are no ways. In the desert you don't know where to go, you don't know where you came from, you don't know where your place is, and you don't know where G-d's place is. It is completely placeless, and there you start asking where G-d is, you get close to His revelation. Only when you have absolutely no place in the world and you really ask where G-d is, then G-d can talk to you.

According to our holy tradition, if we hadn't made the golden calf we would never have had the tabernacle. That means that in a certain way we brought G-d's holiness closer to the world because of the golden calf. After we made the idol we started asking, "Where is G-d?" that means you don't know where G-d's place is, so G-d reveals a place, which is the holy Beis HaMikdash, the holy tabernacle. In the same way, before Messiah is coming we will ask, "Where is G-d? Where is G-d's place? Where is the place of His Glory?" It will be such a strong asking, that, so to speak, G-d will have to build the holy temple again.



San Francisco, Nisan 5734.

Copyright (C) 1974 by Holy Beggars' Gazette Reprinted by permission.

Transcribed by (Rabbi) Elana Rappaport (Schachter), Reb Shlomo speaking.

Rebbitzin Kaminker

The wife of Reb Heschele Kaminker was a very holy woman, with a special zchus (merit). In those days many women died in childbirth because the doctors in the little villages didn't know what to do. Everyone in the vicinity knew that if the wife of Reb Heschele Kaminker walked in where a woman was having childbirth pains, the woman would be okay, and the child would he born easily. Later they moved to Israel, and they we're so poor he could barely make a few pennies for Shabbos challah, but they managed. The Rebbetzin really wanted to hide her holiness, but she would secretly find out if there was a woman in childbirth pain, and she would just drop in to visit. Slowly, slowly people began to notice that as soon as she dropped in, the pain would end and the baby would be born with no problem, People wanted to pay her, but she would protest, and try to cover up the whole thing.

In those days Israel was under the Turkish government, so there was a Pasha, a governor. At one time the Pasha's daughter was having trouble having a baby and she was about to die. He called all the doctors. He also had Jewish friends who said, "Listen, don't waste your money on doctors who can't help. There is one woman here in Jerusalem, and if you can get her to come to your place you won't need doctors." So the Pasha came personally, because he didn't want his daughter to die. He knocked on the door of the broken down house of Reb Heschele and asked the Rebbitzin to please come save his daughter's life. It goes without saying, as she walked into the palace the baby was born. The Pasha wanted to pay her. Even though she was really poor she didn't want to take money for that. The Pasha spoke to all his Jewish friends. "Do me a favor. Talk to this woman. I want to give her a gift to show her my thanks."

Maarat haMachpelah, the cove where Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried was taken over by the Moslems who had a decree that any Jew who went there could be killed because it would be a desecration of the holiness of the place if a Jew showed his face there. So the wife of Reb Heschele said to the Pasha, "Okay. If you want to give me a gift, I want you to let me go into Ma'arat haMachpelah to pray at the graves of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." "When do you want to go?" "In three months," she said. Can you imagine? For hundreds of years not one Jew was there to pray, so she wanted to go in the name of all of Israel. She thought, "Maybe I am going to bring Messiah. I have to turn over the whole world." So she worked to prepare herself. She was very holy anyway, but she really prepared herself to the utmost.

I want you to know this is a true story. I heard it in Bobov, and it is a classic story which is in all the Chassidic books.

In the meantime all the doctors felt bad because with all their importance they could not get the baby out, and this simple woman just walks through the door and the baby is born. They were very jealous. They heard that the Pasha had given her permission to go to Maarat haMachpelah. Now it is all cleaned up and it looks good, but in those days there were just steps going down, down, down into the cave. The doctors went to the Muslim who was in charge of the Ma'rat haMachpelah and said to him, "You know the Pasha only told her she could go into the cave. He never said anything about coming out." They gave him a lot of money, and made arrangements.

The Rebbitzin came with a letter from the Pasha giving her permission to go into the cave. She went in and began to pray. After a few hours she wants to get out, so she knocks on the door but everything is closed and dark.

She begins crying and begging, "Please let me out, I'm dying here." She understood that they had closed her in on purpose, so what can she do? She went back down the steps and started praying again, saying the psalms. Reb Heschele Kaminker was a direct descendant of King David; he knew all the names of all the people from King David to himself. So his wife was stuck there in the dark, crying, so much, just about to faint. Suddenly she saw a great light. Someone was coming with a crown on his head and he said, I want you to know, I am your children's great grandfather, King David. Come with me and I'll get you out." She wasn't stupid, so she said to him, "I want you to give me something to remember you." She thought, "I'll come out and I'll say King David took me out. Who will believe me?" So King David gave her a little book of Psalms, then he opened the door and let her out. The strangest thing is that when he let her out the door wasn't in Hebron where the Ma'arat haMachpelah is. He opened the door and she was standing right in front of her own home in Jerusalem, and she had the book of Psalms in her hand. This little Tehilim, this Psalm book was handed down from generation to generation. I heard in Bobov that someone once came to visit the Sanzer Rebbe and he had the Psalm book with him because he was one of the great grandchildren of Reb Heschele Kaminker and his wife. 