Likutey Moharan

You simply start engaging with the source code.

You read Rebbe Nachman's books, his dense, complex theological work like Likutey Moharan or his highly symbolic mystical tales.

Okay.

But more importantly, you adopt his primary spiritual technology, which is the practice of hit bodhidat.

Now, the next two pieces we're not, we're not gonna do right now, but I just wanna give you basically what Rav Kook is saying over here.

And the Rav Kook is saying that, is that when we embark on a path of teshuva, and Rav Nachman speaks about this in Likutey Moharan as well, that the first thing that you'll-- How do you know if you're on a path of teshuva? You have zak, piknak, dvut.

If you have opposition, if it doesn't come easy.

That's how you know you're actually in a path of teshuva.

And he's-- and they, they-- they're about to send him to the hospital, and he's-- and they-- and he-- and, and, and he says-- His father says, "Call everybody together." Those times when you went to the hospital, there was little chances of you coming back from the hospital.

And he tells his kids, "I just want you to know you're probably wondering what happened to me over these years." He said, "Remember, you had a friend that brought a sefer, Likutey Moharan." He said, "Ten years we put it into the genizah.

Ten years later, I heard a vort that really touched me from Rabbi Nachman, and I found out that he's the author of the Likutey Moharan.

And I remembered the sefer that we kept saving every year, Likutey Moharan, in the genizah, and I took it out of the genizah, and I started learning, and this sefer changed my life.

And this sefer," these are the words he said, "is as if it was written L'Kavod Eliyahu Hirsch." That was his father's name.

"L'Kavod Eliyahu Hirsch.

So I'm asking you, my children, and encouraging you, learn this sefer because it's going to change your life." And he says, "Nachman, my father, died in COVID, and I forgot about this.

A few months ago, I, uh, reminded myself that my father said to learn Likutey Moharan.

It doesn't mean I don't have reverence and awe.

But maybe I could think about it a little differently, where even though I'm not perfect, we read in Likutei Moharan, Rabbi Nachman says, we read it in Sivat, that class, that it says Hashem loves each and individual Jew in his details.

Meaning, even as you stand today with the imperfections, with the service that you're currently operating at and lack thereof, right? If a person might not be at the level he aspires to be at, or maybe that he feels Hashem expects him to be at.

Rabbi Nachman says clear, pshat, he says, b'dyuk, Hashem loves you exactly as you are.

This is where Hashem wants you, and that's another form of teshuvah, believe it or not.

Because Rabbi Nachman says the greatest form of teshuvah is when someone shames you or embarrasses you or hurts you, and you stay silent.

Rabbi Nachman writes in Likutei Moharan, he says that is the best form of teshuvah that cleanses you.

You're squeaky clean.

Okay, arkan l'shon azal Rabbi Nosson writes, this is the end of Rabbi Nachman's own words.

Like I mentioned in the past, in the beginning of this Torah, if you turn to the end of most editions of Likutei Moharan, you'll see Hosafas Miktsav Ya'ad.

You'll see extra Torahs that were added that are not part of the regular standard accounting of the Torahs in Likutei Moharan, which are four hundred and eleven.

But it's post that, after that, and the very first of those teachings is another version of Torah Samech Beis.

Kedai me'od to look that up if you can, because there are slightly different inflections and, and focuses and stresses.

Yes, please.

Don't you ever look at animals? Oh, there's an amazing lakuta in Maran.

We have to learn it together.

17.

And, uh, I get on the pl- I get on the plane, ah, I see Rav Motta Frank, he was sitting, uh, a few rows up, uh, in front of us.

And we started schmoozing, it was great, and I was sending him, I was texting him the whole flight, Reb Shlomo's Peirush on Likutey Moharan, and he kept on writing me back.

We had this great back and forth throughout the flight.

Yishai Fleisher is sitting two rows behind him, right? And then there was this, there was this, uh, beautiful Hasid Ishid, kept on walking to the front of the plane and back, and he kept on passing by me and looking at me, looking at me a little strangely, till finally like an hour before the flight's over, he came by, he's like, "Yeah." It happens a lot 'cause of, whatever, 'cause of social media, so the faces get around.

It's also brought, that through tefillah, especially when a tzaddik, or a prayer leader, includes his soul with many other souls, and daven is like that.

That's how this Rabbeinu Zal speaks about in chapter 65 on the Keturah.

Through this, the person brings down Torah.

And these two, what Rabbi Nisrael describes there in chapter 13 and 65, are really one.

Because on the level of me describing what the contents of a Chumash is, that's the bechina tzurah.

It's distinct from a Likutei Moharan.

And a Likutei-- even though they share many, many, right, overlap, but the, but Likutei Moharan is distinct from, bahavil, you know, a, a, a math book, right? It's-- they're both books, you understand? But every single thing has its tzimtzum, which doesn't mean a, a negative thing in this context, right? Neg-- It's not usually negative at all, right? Tzimtzum is not negative, but it means constriction, constriction, constricting.

But over here, it just means that every single thing has its own identity.

Ki kol davar shebaolam yesh lo tzimtzum acher bekamos v'eichos.