Nathan of Breslov

“ The Rebbe answered, 'It is possible to know the wisdom of Kabbalah without this. For it is wisdom. 'The reason why the main Kabbalistic work, Etz Chaim, is so difficult to understand is because it is not written in order. Where science and philosophy end, that is where true wisdom, Kabbalah, begins.' Scientists and philosophers can only speculate within the limits of the physical world. They can reach up to the stars and galaxies, but beyond that, they know absolutely nothing. Even their understanding of the physical world is very incomplete, as they themselves admit. ”

“ The Rebbe said, 'If they really know, let them predict the different types of weather that occur in a single day. There are many kinds of weather each day. One day may bring cold and heat, rain and snow, wind and calm, and countless other variations. Who can know all this, much less predict it in advance? Thus it is written, 'How great are Your deeds O God; very deep are Your thoughts. A brutish man does not know; a fool does not understand this' (Psalms 92:6, 7) . Only a fool would claim to know with non-Torah wisdom the changes that take place each day. ”

“ If you have eyes to see and a heart that truly understands the world, you know this. If you have absorbed the wisdom contained in the Rebbe's awesome teachings, you know the truth. The Mishnah means exactly what it says. The wealthiest people in the world will tell you that the world is filled with worry and suffering. The rich suffer as much as everyone else. Thus, our Sages teach us, “The more property, the more worries” (Avot 2:7) . The poor may not realize this. They may think that they would no longer have problems if they were wealthy. ”

“ The Rebbe therefore stressed, 'Repent one day before your death.' 'Before your death' is your entire life. During your entire lifetime, you may only be worthy of one day of repentance. This one day is more precious than all treasures. For what does a person gain from all his worldly effort? ”

“ We cannot write any more about this, for every man's knowledge of God must enter the gates of his own heart. We can only present enough to open these gates. There are no Biblical verses that teach us to know God through human speculation built on confused sophistry. Heaven forbid! The only way to know God is the way taught by our holy forefathers, who struggled all their lives for Him. They divested themselves of all worldly matters, totally subjugating every desire and emotion. ”

“ No longer will you suffer from the worldly misfortunes that affect all people. You have already accepted them upon yourself for the sake of the Torah. All your life, all your “good” is the Torah which is the true good. Then your life is a true life and you will be happy even in this world. The person who wants to live at ease in this world and enjoy its delights will only find bitterness. ”

“ The same with everything he learned, Gemara, posek, and so forth — it was all in great speed.
He told us a great deal, a great deal about this, that it is good to learn quickly without too much fine detail. Just learn simple and fast, without confusing one's mind a great in his learning with interrelation of one matter to another. Just see and understand the thing simply in its place. And if sometimes he cannot understand one thing, don't stand a long time there; leave that matter and continue learning further. ”

“ Most people who say that times have deteriorated are those who have recently acquired wealth. Now that they have tasted wealth, they are no longer satisfied and want more all the time. They now live ostentatiously and cannot meet their expenses, so they complain that times are not as good as before. But we ourselves recall that not too many years ago most of these complainers were suffering in poverty. People cry that 'the first days were better than these.' Why pay attention to this foolishness! ”

“ One who is ill, or who is caring for someone who is ill, God forbid, shouldn’t say, "On whom should I rely? Certainly, I must do something. I can't just abandon the patient and not try to save him!” (see Tzaddik #194) . This is a foolish conclusion, since a doctor is far from life and closer to its opposite. In the end, one must still rely on God, so why not do so from the beginning? Why place the patient in the hands of doctors, most of whom are the messengers of the Angel of Death? A person should imagine that he is in a forest or a wilderness. ”

“ They would want to speak about it but they have no one to speak to about it, and to open up everything that's in thier heart. So they walk full of suffering and worry. But when someone approaches them with a happy face they could enliven them, and literally give them life. ”

“ Whether you are rich or poor, you cannot avoid worries. The world is filled with pain and suffering and there is no place to escape. If you are a man, you must worry about earning a livelihood. You are concerned about your wife and children. If you are a woman, you imagine that you are troubled by your husband. No matter who you are, you will find the world abounding with real suffering and pain. How many people suffer because of sickness and accidents—God save us! There is no escape, except in the Torah. ”

“ A person must accept upon himself to endure all that happens to him. But all their words are of no avail in a world without the Torah. No person can endure this world and not be overcome by its suffering. Only the Torah which we Jews have been fortunate to receive can provide this strength. If you really think things out, you will realize that this world has absolutely no purpose. Imagine a world filled with good and riches. Imagine a world where there was no pain, no suffering and no worries. ”

“ If you have eyes to see and a heart to understand, you will perceive that the past had as much suffering and troubles as the present. Look in books written hundreds of years ago and you will find that their authors also suffered from poverty and had the most difficult struggles just to earn a livelihood. ”

“ As soon as they begin to expound and innovate, their great fund of knowledge confuses them and they weave many extraneous concepts into lengthy introductions. Their thoughts become so muddled that any new concept they may have had is irrevocably lost. The Rebbe gave as an example one of his contemporaries, who could not expound on the Torah for this reason. From what the Rebbe said, we understood that if you wish to innovate, you should concentrate on the subject and not confuse yourself with extraneous introductions. Pretend that you are totally ignorant of everything but the subject at hand. ”

“ The Yetzer Harah is literally the same; it fools the entire world and everyone runs after it - and it tricks each and every individual until it appears to everyone that it has what they want in its hand, each person according to his foolishness and desires. And after, at the end, he opens his hand - and there is nothing there at all, for nobody's desire is ever filled. ”

“ It is filled with pain, sorrow and suffering without end. The life of every person, from the greatest to the smallest, from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor, is filled with worries and concerns. Every person is trapped by his limitations. The greatest emperors and kings are filled with worries and fears without measure. Even the pagan philosophers realized this. The only way out is to choose the Torah and its commandments. Make up your mind to be satisfied with an absolute minimum in order to immerse yourself in the Torah. ”

“ He told us that in the End of Days Jews will be refined in faith, for many will rise up to pervert it. These are the 'enlighteners' and atheists of our generations. It should be easy to withstand this test, since it has already been predicted. But the temptation will be so great that many will stumble and fall to the depths. We are writing this so that all who desire the truth of our holy faith should know that the Rebbe already predicted this. Let this restore their soul and strengthen their heart toward God and his holy Torah as taught by our sages of old. ”

“ We have no need to enter at all into philosophy, which is anyway strongly forbidden. We just need to keep true to H"Y in Emunah alone, that His Blessedness created all the worlds entirely, sustains all of them, and will in the future renew His world.
41 Brokenheartedness and depression are not the same thing at all. Brokenheartedness comes from the heart but depression comes from the spleen. Depression that resides in the spleen is the Sitra Achra and Hashem hates it. Brokenheartedness, however, is very beloved before Hashem, because a broken heart is very very special in the eyes of Hashem. ”

“ Your devotion should be enough to block out everything else.' The Rebbe said, 'The truth is that this is no argument. The greatest tzaddik may pray with great strength and attachment to God, but he can still be disturbed. No matter how great his enthusiasm, no matter how deeply he is bound up in prayer, he can still be greatly disturbed by one who makes fun of him and disturbs him. All his feeling and emotion will not prevent him from being disturbed and distressed.' The Rebbe once said that sometimes a person is given great wealth. ”

“ Ideally, it would be best to have a broken heart the entire day but people like us can easily be lead from a broken heart to depression. Therefore, you need to set aside an hour a day in order to have a broken heart. That, is to seclude yourself and break your heart before Hashem, as we explained elsewhere. But the rest of the day be only happy. Rebbe Nachman warned us about this many times to strengthen ourselves that we only have a broken heart one specific hour a day. Depression however we shouldn't have at all. ”

“ We could see that every word, both holy and mundane, was only spoken to bring faith into the world. It is written, 'All your commandments are faith. This is the foundation of the entire Torah and its commandments' (Psalms 119:86) .
220 The Rebbe once told someone, 'I will tell you a secret. Great atheism is coming to the world. Atheism will come to the world as a test from on high. I know that my followers will be strong and remain firm in their faith without this, but I am revealing this to further encourage them. ”

“ This is like two people fighting against one another: when one sees that his opponent is strengthening against him, then he strengthens himself more in response. It is literally the same when the evil sees that some good is starting to awaken within them ”

“ For since there's no craving or desire at all for anything, only Hashem Yithbarakh and the Torah, hence all is equal to him, whether in this world or in the grave or in `Olam haBa. In all of them he cleaves only to Hashem Yithbarakh and the Torah. For any person who is connected to this world, there is a difference between this world which is wider than you can stretch your hands, and the grave which is a tight space and so forth. But whoever's brain is purified and has no yeast in his brain, it's all equal to him, as mentioned above. ”

“ This is the joy of being a Jew, of believing in God and it flows through the gates of every man's heart and cannot be communicated. Within our group, when we rejoice, even the least accomplished one among us experiences a feeling of closeness to God that is beyond all description. ”

“ Because it would be impossible for that wisdom to come to that scientist, were it not that it sparked upon him from above - when the period and time came for that wisdom or invention to be revealed in the world, they were sent the invention from above into their minds, in order for it to be revealed in the world. ”

“ And because a person doesn't settle himself, he has no Daat, and even if he occasionally has Yeshuv haDaat, the settled Daat doesn't last and it's fleeting for him. That's why people don't realize the nonsense of this world. But if a person had a settled mind that's strong and determined he would realize that it's all nonsense and vanity, especially the craving that many people have for being well known, or being a public leader, or to travel the country. ”

“ But when the Rebbe returned from Lemberg, he spoke all the more strongly against medical practice. He strongly cautioned us to avoid doctors, devoting many lessons to this. He may have spoken about this earlier, but after Lemberg, he stressed it all the more.
51 This world only exists to bring about [God's] eternal purpose. There is no need to be upset whether one has money or not. Because either way he could waste away his days, for this world distracts us entirely. For it keeps displaying to a man as if he'll prosper, but in the end it's nothing. ”

“ But in these books [from philosophers] there is no intelligence at all to be found them; for they speak only in the way of questions, back and forth until they come to some proof. However, the intelligence that is in our holy Torah (not to compare the two) is not there [i.e. in philosophy] at all. And he said: happy is the one that does not know at all of their books, only going in wholeness and having fear of punishment. For the essence of serving G-d, at the start, is only due to fear of punishment; without fear of punishment, it is impossible to begin at all in serving G-d. ”

“ As an understanding person will understand by himself if he puts his heart to them with an eye of truth to understand and perceive holy wonders of the boastings of each one mentioned there each day, and in particular the greatness of the holiness of the boasting of the seven beggars themselves who boast each day: that the blind one boasted that he doesn’t look at the world at all, therefore he is actually blind to this world ”

“ From the belly of Hell I cried out!
303 The Rebbe once spoke to me about the folly of sexual desires. He said, 'One who occupies himself with lewd thoughts is a fool. Even an ordinary person would not want to be caught doing this. Even if he has no fear of sin, he still has no desire for the public humiliation of being caught with a strange woman. Why engage in lustful thoughts? Why trouble your soul for nothing? We have spoken of the fact that every man can have absolute control over his thoughts and direct them as he wishes. ”

“ The Rebbe said, 'A man takes time from Torah and prayer, and struggles to earn some money to support his family. After he earns the money, he becomes a hapless shlim mazelnik and does not take care of it at all. Honest Jewish money must be guarded like the eyes in one's head.' It happened occasionally that one of the Rebbe's followers would lose his money while travelling and come to the Rebbe and complain. ”

“ Who knows any bit of His Blessed Greatness? I don't know how one can say he serves the Blessed One. Nor can any angel or seraf boast of serving the Blessed One. Just the main thing is the will, that his will should be strong and powerful to constantly draw close to the Blessed One. ”

“ A good portion of of people desisted entirely from their learning because of their excess concern with details and they were left with zilch. But when a person accustoms himself to learn quickly as mentioned without a lot of minutia, the Torah will endure in his hand and he'll manage to learn a very great deal: Gemara and all the poskim, Tanakh, Midrash, Zohar, Kaballah and other [mystical] books, entirely. And it's already explained above (#28) Rabbeinu obm's discussion that it's good for a man in his lifetime to go through all the books of the holy Torah. ”