The Blog @ Breslov.org

For this year’s Rosh HaShanah gathering in Uman, Breslov Research will again be hosting a few hundred people for the yom tov and Shabbos/Shabbat meals.

The value and power of providing even a single meal for a traveler, especially a poor one, is quite great. Take a look at the following pieces of Gemara and see for yourself how you can dispel the anger caused by idolatry, touch the depth of your Jewishness and increase the security of your family—and more!

Sanhedrin 103b [end]

Raba said to Rabbah bar Mari: Why did they not count Yehoyakhim [among those who have no portion in the world to come]?… He answered: I haven’t heard an explanation about kings, but I heard one about commoners. Why did they not include [the idolater] Micah [among those who have no portion in the world to come]? Because his bread was available to travelers, as it is said, “Every traveler turns to the Levites.”…

It has been taught: Rabbi Natan said, “From Gareb to Shilo is a distance of three miles, and the smoke of the [Mishkan’s] Altar intermingled with that of Micah’s idol. The angels wished to shove Micah away, but the Blessed Holy One said to them, ‘Let him alone, because his bread is available for wayfarers.’”…

Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Yose ben Kisma: A mouthful [of food given to wayfarers] is significant, since it alienated two families from Israel, as it is written (Deuteronomy 23:4–5), [“No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter into the congregation of the Lord]… Because they did not meet you with bread and water on your journey when you left Egypt.”

Rabbi Yochanan himself said: [A mouthful of food given to wayfarers] distances the near, and draws near the distant; it causes [God’s] eyes to be averted from the wicked; it made the Shekhinah rest even on a prophet of Baal; and an unintentional mistake (shogeg) relating to [feeding wayfarers] is regarded as deliberate (meizid).

“It distances the near,” [is learned] from Ammon and Moab.

“And brings near those who are distant,” [is learned] from Yitro. For Rabbi Yochanan said: As a reward for [Yitro’s saying (Exodus 2:20),] “Call him, that he may eat bread,” his descendants were privileged to sit in the Lishkat HaGazit (Chamber of Hewn Stones of the Sanhedrin)…

“It causes [God’s] eyes to be averted from the wicked” [is learned] from Micah.
“And made the Shekhinah to rest upon the prophets of Baal” [is learned] from the companion of Iddo the prophet. For it is written (1 Kings 13:20), “As they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back.”

“And an unintentional mistake (shogeg) relating to [feeding wayfarers] is regarded as deliberate (meizid).” Rav Yehudah said in Rav’s name: Had Yonatan given David two loaves of bread for his journey, Nob would not have been massacred, Doeg would not have been destroyed, and Shaul and his three sons would not have been slain (see 1 Samuel 21).

Bava Batra 10b

Rabbi Abbahu also said: Shlomo, David’s son, was asked, How far does the power of charity extend? He replied, “Go see what my father David said (Psalms 112:9), ‘He gives freely to the needy, his charity lasts forever.’” Rabbi Abba said from here (Isaiah 33:16), “He will dwell in lofty security, with inaccessible cliffs his stronghold; his bread is given, his water assured.” Why will he dwell securely, with inaccessible cliffs his stronghold? Because he gives his bread [to the poor] and assures [them] water.

If you would like a cheilek (part) in the mitzvah of hakhnasas orchim (hosting travelers), by hosting a guest or sponsoring a meal (or part thereof), please click here to donate on line (make sure to indicate what you are contributing for) or Ozer Bergman, in Uman, from Tuesday afternoon (7 September).

© Copyright 2010 Breslov Research Institute

Ozer Breslov Research Institute, Rosh HaShanah, Travel, charity Breslov Research Institute, Rosh HaShanah, Uman

Dear Chaver (Friend) of Breslov Research Institute,

After many years of hard work and tremendous help from the One Above, we are nearing completion of the multi-volume Likutey Moharan in English project. This is a milestone in Breslov Research Institute history. The series features full Hebrew-English text on facing pages, a running commentary based on traditional Breslov sources and profound, highly accessible notes drawing from the Written Torah, Gemara, Zohar, Midrash and kabbalistic works.

As you may know, Breslov Research Institute recently published Volume 13 of this series. There are only two more volumes that remain to be done. The zekhus (merit) of joining us is in completing this mitzvah is open to everyone and anyone who believes in bringing this unprecedented project to fruition.

Our Sages observe, “im ein kemach, ein Torah . . . Without money, there is no Torah” (Pirkey Avot 3:17). Breslover Chassidim point out that the Hebrew word kemach (literally, flour) has the same gematria (numerical value) as the name “Nachman.” This means is that if we give some of our “flour” for Rebbe Nachman’s holy books, we’ll surely succeed in connecting to Torah—and in helping others to do so, as well, for Rebbe Nachman’s works are keys to each area and level of Torah.

The Breslov Research Institute is in earnest need of your partnership. Our Sages teach that one who helps complete a mitzvah is accredited the entire mitzvah. Your contribution, great or small, gives you a genuine claim to this rare mitzvah.

For a generous contribution of $180 you can sponsor a page of Likutey Moharan with an opportunity to dedicate that page in honor or in memory of the person of your choice. Upon completion of the project, you will receive a complimentary copy sent directly to your home.

So please join us for the final leg of this project and be sure to share this opportunity with your friends. To contribute online, please visit www.breslov.org/LM/

If you are unable to contribute the entire amount right now, Breslov Research will gladly accept ten payments of $18 a month.

A list of lessons available for dedication is also available, please click here.

Additionally you may mail your contribution to:
Breslov Research Institute POB 5370 Jerusalem, Israel
Tel.: 972.2.582.4641 Fax: 972.2.582.5542
North America: POB 587 Monsey, NY 10952-0587
Tel.: 732.534.7263/ 1-800-33BRESLOV Fax: 732.608.8461

All contributions are fully tax deductible in the USA, Canada, UK and Israel.
Thanks for being a part of this monumental mitzvah!

All the best to you and yours,
Breslov Research Institute

admin Uncategorized Breslov Research Institute, Gemara, kabbalistic, Likutey Moharan, Midrash, Torah, Zohar

Based on Likutey Moharan I, Lesson #24:2

“Let Korach and his entire party…offer ketoret (incense)…each one took his fire pan…and offered ketoret…Moshe then said to Aharon, ‘Take the fire pan…offer ketoret and take it quickly to the community to atone for them” (Numbers 16:16, 18; ibid. 17:11).

Kelipot (literally, shells, husks) is a generic name which chassidic works give to the evil forces that weaken people’s mitzvah performance and diminish the honor of God and His Torah. Ketoret, the special incense that was offered twice daily in the Holy Temple, has a unique power to counter kelipot, even the darnedest of them.

One of the most pernicious kelipot is overreaching, wanting more than you can have, more than is good for you. This is true not only in material concerns, but even in spiritual ones. For example, if you’ve been given the honor of being a Levite, with the privilege of serving in the Temple, don’t insist on being a kohen (priest) who wears a fancy uniform and offers the sacrifices. One of two things happens when we overreach. Either we get what we desired and grow too big for our britches, or we don’t get what we want and come to grief.

For the time being we lack the Holy Temple. Are we at the mercy of kelipot? God forbid, no! Is there something that can substitute for the ketoret? Yes! Rebbe Nachman teaches us that simcha shel mitzvah, performing mitzvahs with joy, has the same effect. The Arizal teaches (Shaar HaKavanot, Derushei Tefilat HaBoker p. 85) that the eleven spices of the ketoret canceled and nullified the eleven “crowns” of the other side—that which makes them seem fragrant and alive. Genuine life, that which is sacred, is freed from working for the kelipot. In this way, ketoret brings joy (Proverbs 27:9).

Each mitzvah we do makes use of some piece of the physical world.

Until a Jew interacts with it, that piece was “extra,” not-yet-used in the service of God. It was still in the clutches of the Other Side, ready to be used for a non-purpose, a goal which leads to grief.

The simcha (happiness and joy) we invest in doing a mitzvah cancels the potential sadness that would result from misusing that piece of the world. The secret of creating within ourselves simcha shel mitzvah comes (in part) from realizing the privilege we have to be “Levites serving in the Temple”—ordinary Jews—even if we are not yet a “kohen”—a total tzaddik.

Happily doing a mitzvah may not seem like such a big deal, but the Arizal said that he attained his great success in Jewishness as a result of performing the mitzvahs with great simcha.

May we have full faith in the genuine tzaddikim, emulate (not mimic!) them, always side with them and never revolt against them. Amen!

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!

© Copyright 2010 Breslov Research Institute

admin Uncategorized Breslov Research Institute, Dvar Torah, Kelipot, Parshat Korach

Glory be!

Not only is Breslov Chassidus prominently and positively in a mainstream Jewish magazine—Mishpacha—it’s the cover story! (Rabbi Chaim Kramer, founder of Breslov Research [wearing glasses], and Reb Moshe Weinberger of Aish Kodesh are pictured.) Get yourself a copy of this week’s issue: 28 Iyar 5770/May 12 2010

Our thanks to the good people at Mishpacha, in particular Reb Yisroel Besser, the article’s author. May his love for tzaddikim continue to stand him and his in good stead, m’atah v’ad olam (from now and forever).

Ozer Breslov Research Institute, Tzaddik Breslov, Breslov Research Institute, Chaim Kramer, Reb Moshe Weinberger, Tzaddikim

We will meet at 7:00 PM EDT, February 2, 2010 on Skype to Study Likutey Moharan. Our focus will be building content knowledge, learning skills and an overall appreciation of the Rebbe’s Teachings.

The topic of this series of is: “You are HOW you Eat”.

Source Material:
Advice by Reb Nasson, Eating, Page 20 – 25, Breslov Research Institute
Crossing The Narrow Bridge, Food, Glorious Food, Page 215-225, Breslov Research Institute
Likutey Moharan, Lesson 17:3,Page 29-35, Volume lll, Breslov Research Institute
Likutey Moharan, Lesson 62:1,2,5,Page 282-319, Volume Vll, Breslov Research Institute

Please join us for this group study session if you can!

To join the class contact howard.o on Skype at the start time.
Email me at coliver@breslov.org if you need any help with Skype.

Chaim Oliver

Chaim Oliver How to Learn Lekutey Moharan Breslov Research Institute, Lekutey Moharan

Based on Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom #92

The Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah 9:11) teaches: Yesterday, “[Yaakov] rolled the stone off the well” (Genesis 29:10). Today, “[his] sons carried Yaakov to Egypt” (ibid. 46:5).

Rebbe Nachman once commented that an average human lifespan, seventy to eighty years, consists of three periods: growth, stability (“the prime of life”) and decline.

Rebbe Nachman—who died in his 39th year after suffering from tuberculosis for three years—is giving us a heads-up: Don’t expect to stay the same throughout your life. We all know that’s true, but we aren’t practiced in the downside of it. We’re used to growth, not decay. For the first two-thirds or so of life we’re growing stronger and more capable, and then enjoying those strengths. It’s only in the last third that we ask people to repeat what they said (A LITTLE LOUDER PLEASE) or to bring us our cane.

But decay and decline—and death—are parts of life. To spare ourselves grief and despair so that our Jewishness can get stronger even as the body gets weaker, we must have a strategy, a Torah, in place for dealing with the decline, before it arrives. We need to assume a positive perspective. We need to focus not on what the decline/decay is taking away, but what is it GIVING? (Not a far-fetched notion. Just as earlier maturation in the womb and childhood prepared us for later stages and events in life, so does later-stage maturation.)

This perspective helps in dealing with a physical loss. For example, the loss of mobility (no more driving/jogging/walking) is (or can be) a loss of independence. But it prepares us for the future, for life in the very cramped space of the grave (Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom #51). If one had to immediately adjust to it from a far-ranging, (near) unlimited mobility, it would be extremely difficult. Being slowly slowed-down makes the transition easier. In addition, being slowed-down gives us time to focus so that we can make amends and arrangements, as necessary.

But it ain’t necessarily so that the infirmities are the most problematic problem. Often (but not always), there are ways to compensate, or assistance to be had. Loss of identity is often a bigger problem; if I can’t do/have X, I’m no longer me. As in Rebbe Nachman’s parable about the farmer who found and then lost a diamond, the “diamond” that one loses was never really his since it was taken away. Knowing that a particular power or possession eventually fades inhibits one from basing his identity on it to begin with, saving one much existential anguish.

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!

© Copyright 2009 Breslov Research Institute

admin Weekly Parsha Breslov Research Institute, Dvar Torah, human lifespan, Midrash, Parsha, Parshat VaYetze, Rebbe Nachman

Please use the link below to get the first edition of the NEW Breslov Research Institute Newsletter:
http://community.icontact.com/p/breslov/newsletters/breishis/posts/breslov-research-institute-weekly.

You can subscribe to the newsletter at the top of www.breslov.org.

Also note UPCOMING LIVE VIDEO SHIURIM

Three live shiruim scheduled for next week.

1. Monday @ 6:00 PM Rebbe Nachman’s Stories, given by Yossi Katz
2. Tuesday @ 7:00 PM Crossing the Narrow Bridge – An Introduction to Breslov: Radical Simplicity, given by Chaim Oliver
3. Wednesday @ 6:00 PM Rebbe Nachman’s Wisdom, given by Ephraim Portnoy

To access these shiurim just save this email and click on this link at the times given: https://webmeeting.dimdim.com/portal/JoinForm.action?confKey=yossik@breslov.org or you can call: (702) 473-3463 access code: 967745

You can type questions or if you have a microphone you can ask questions. If you are unable to attend, these classes will be posted at http://www.breslov.org/video/ for your reference.

admin Breslov Research Institute Breslov Research Institute, Breslov Shiurim

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Beheimah v’Chayah Tehorah 4:45–46

Why do we eat honey with the challah and with the apple the first night of Rosh HaShanah? Every Jew knows it’s a siman, a sign, that we should have a sweet year. (It’s a testament to our faith that we believe that our eating honey has theurgical effect.) But there’s an even more powerful message in that sweet bite.

For a Jew, one of the most amazing things about honey is that it is kosher. Bees are not kosher, yet the honey they produce is. No other non-kosher animal or bird can make that claim! This is even more amazing when we consider that there’s no procedure or mitzvah that we need to do to make it kosher.

Reb Noson explains that in the on-going journey that mankind is making, there are two broad categories of tikkunim, rectifications, that are being made. There are those that we the people are responsible for, and those that God is doing. We’re supposed serve Him and obey. We do what we can, imperfectly because we are only human, and God finishes the job.

But being human we don’t always do what we’re supposed to. Sometimes our mistakes are unintentional, but sometimes—and let’s be honest here—they’re quite intentional. How can our mistakes bring us, as individuals and as a species, to our desired destiny? Reb Noson quotes Rebbe Nachman who said, “God is constantly getting the job done.”* What Rebbe Nachman meant, explains Reb Noson, is that no matter how badly a person or the human race botches the job, God will fix and steer things to the ending He wants**—if and when we do teshuvah (return).

That’s the lesson of the honey. We haven’t been so kosher for much too long a time. Yet, somehow, in some mysterious, unfathomable way, God can take all our sick and crazy ideas, our poisonous, filthy words, our laziness and greed, our cruelty to ourselves and others, and our disrespect for Him, and turn it all into the sweetest and best of all possible worlds.

May we live to see it and be part of it. Amen.

May you and yours be immediately written into the Book of the Tzaddikim.

© Copyright 2009 Breslov Research Institute

*Actually, what he said was, “Gott firt tamid ois.”

** WARNING! This is only for past mistakes and unintentional future mistakes. There is absolutely no license for behaving badly and relying on God’s kindness to clean up your mess.

admin Rosh HaShanah Breslov Research Institute, Dvar Torah for Rosh HaShanah, honey, Rosh HaShanah

The effect of Rosh HaShannah is to strengthen faith. There are great gatherings of Jewish communities everywhere. Especially significant are the gatherings of Jews around the true Tzaddikim. Through these gatherings, all different facets of Faith expressed in all the different souls are joined together in a common hole. They are refined, unified and elevated. The sparks of new intuitions and perceptions flash forth. New levels of understanding begins to develop. The process continues during the 10 Days of Repentance, when we work on ourselves and strive to return to God.

The theory details of the Rosh HaShannah ritual, and in particular the different notes blown on the Shofar, all have the power to bring about these tikkunim. How have you been moved by the blowing of the Shofar on Rosh HaShannah?

Adapted from Advice
© Copyright 2009 Breslov Research Institute

Chaim Oliver Uman Breslov Research Institute, Rosh HaShanah, Uman, Uman Uman Rosh HaShannah

From: Where Earth and Heaven Kiss
A Guide to Rebbe Nachman’s Path of Meditation
By Ozer Bergman

Appendix E: Don’t Lose Your Head

In a slaughterhouse, animals lose their heads. In our world, too, something causes people to lose their heads and get caught in the thicket of confusion and the vortex of illusion. What drives us to distraction? We lose our heads over a coin.

Money—not only for pursuing luxuries, but even for maintaining the bare necessities—takes hold of us. Wherever one goes—academia, sporting arenas, boardrooms, bedrooms, street corners—everyone has money on his mind, some version of gelt on his lips.

Of course, it’s always for something “good,” like dream kitchens, dream vacations and dream cars, and often for something noble, like ridding oneself or others of misery or solving society’s ills. “If only I had a million dollars, I’d…”

This is how money gains control of our heads. It plants a feeling of emptiness, a sense that “what I have is not enough and not good enough.” This puts us in a dissonant place, making our minds a perpetual-motion machine of negative craving. Once the mind’s eye is focused on “what’s not there” and on “what they have,” it can never be satisfied.

God is fullness, wholeness, shalom. Idolatry represents the opposite—it is a lacking, a deficiency. Idolatry is not an emptiness that needs to be filled, but an emptiness that consumes even what is there, making it impossible for you to enjoy even what you possess. Money, Rebbe Nachman teaches, is the idolatry that embraces all other idolatries.

The “it’s not enough” cancer spreads to other parts of your life as well: Your food and diet aren’t right, your wardrobe is all wrong, others have the power and respect that “belong” to you, and one partner (or at least the one you have) is not enough.

Can you buy your head back? Can you put a stop to the pursuit of material happiness before you go over the brink into a bottomless pit? Thank God, the answer is yes. The answer is to turn your mind to Shabbat—to think nothing.

The Torah describes Shabbat in this manner: “Six days shall you work, and the seventh day is an eternal Shabbat, holy to God…” {Exodus 31:15). The Talmud asks, “Can one finish all his tasks in six days? No; but when Shabbat arrives, as far as you ‘re concerned, all your work is done” (Beitzah 16a on Exodus 20:9). On Shabbat, you’re “retired.” You have no more pursuits to concern or haunt you. Your mind is liberated. You can devote your thinking and focus to keep it liberated seven days a week.

The ability to stop thoughts is not an option, nor is it a skill reserved for super model Jews. It is a necessary skill for every Jew at every stage and step of Jewish growth—for reining in your lusts and confusion, hushing your emotions (even positive ones111) and keeping your intellect in check.

Part of the quieting of the mind includes forgetting. Once something has passed, let it go. Don’t focus your hindsight on it. Yes, you may spend some time in hitbodedut to review whether or not a decision you made was correct or not, so that you don’t repeat a mistake, but do so without any “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.” What’s done is done. Forget about it.

Copyright © 2006 Breslov Research Institute

Click HERE to purchase
From Where Earth and Heaven Kiss

admin Breslov Research Institute Breslov Research Institute