Overcoming the Petty Mind | Rebbe Nachman's Yahrzeit in the Sukkah

[singing][singing] So Reb Nachman would always say that a person has to always be mitḥadesh.

A person always has to renew himself, renew himself.

Everyone wishes they knew the secret of renewal.

Because feeling old, feeling old is really not shayech.

Feeling zaken is something that no one wants to feel.

But you don't only feel zaken, you don't only feel old when you're going into your mid-80s or l- mid-90s.

You can feel old when you're 18.

You could feel old when you're 21.

You could feel old when you're 30.

What was the Rebbe speaking about, Rebbe Nachman? You all know Rebbe Nachman passed away tonight, Chol Hamoed Sukkot in Uman, two hundred and eighteen years ago.

And Rebbe Nachman himself was only thirty-eight years old when he passed away.

Reb Nathan, his Breslov, gave Edus, he gave testimony that, um, he was there when Rebbe Nachman was taking his last few breaths.

He was there when Rebbe Nachman said the Viddui, was saying the Shema.

And Reb Nathan says that he could swear that when Reb Na- Rebbe Nachman was saying Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad, on his deathbed at the young age of thirty-eight due to tuberculosis, he could swear, Reb Nathan could swear, he could promise that it was as if Rebbe Nachman was saying the Shema for the first time.

You know, as we saw here in Gush Etzion, painfully enough, about nine, ten days ago, how people live their Torah till their last breath.

Like Ari Fuld lived his Torah till the last breath that he had by protecting Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

Rebbe Nachman, till his last second, was living the Torah of Hitḥadshut, of becoming new.

So I give us all a berakhah tonight that when the gates are open and the tzaddikim are etzet, it's the day that they re-welcome the neshamah back to Shamayim.

That in the zkhut of Rebbe Nachman, all of us, you and I, should be privileged to give over to our children the secret of Hitḥadshut, the secret of renewing themselves.

Of always feeling that, uh, yesterday really does not have to be our slave driver.

I love the famous teaching from Rebbe Nachman's great-grandfather, the Ba'al Shem Tov, who always said that our greatest slave drivers are our yesterdays.

Maybe Rebbe Nachman was saying about Hitḥadshut, about renewing yourself, was that do not ever let the limitations of yesterday, the pettiness of yesterday, or the fears of yesterday have anything to do with dictating to you what today is going to be like.

So for many of us who are about to go to sleep, hopefully some of you in the States or wherever you are, it's a little bit earlier in the day.

But whenever it is that we find ourselves with some type of anxiety, some type of fear, some type of a feeling of stress inside, stop and ask yourself, "Does this have anything to do with today? Or is this really a build-up from something that happened yesterday or a few minutes before?" And that's why we say, really like my dear chaver Yaron just said, "Chadesh yameinu kekedem." Renew our days like they used to be.

Like what? Back then in the Garden of Eden, which we'll talk about in a second.