Spiritual Inspiration by the Bucketful!

Welcome!
With God's help, Chambers of the Palace: Teachings of R. Nachman of Breslov will soon be available as a printed book. If you want to be notified when it comes out, please email me, at yacovdavid@gmail.com.

In addition, God willing, this blog will post other teachings of R. Nachman on a regular basis. Please visit often.

Here is what some reviewers have said of Chambers of the Palace.

“I thoroughly enjoyed The Chambers of the Palace. The editing and translations are superb – kol hakavod!”—R. Lazer Brody

"For those seeking an entrance into the realm of Jewish spiritual and mystical teachings, there is no better guide than Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Nor is there a better introduction to Rabbi Nachman's teachings than The Chambers of the Palace. In this beautifully translated work, Shulman has selected the essential teachings from a vast library of writings and organized them into 42 primary categories”—Howard Schwartz (Gabriel's Palace, Elijah's Violin, et al.), St. Louis-Post Dispatch.

"A scholarly, well-researched, well-written contribution to Judaic studies”—Wisconsin Bookwatch.

Again, send me an email and I'll let you know when the book becomes available.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

We Raise in Holiness, and We Do Not Bring Down

by R. Nosson of Nemirov

“We raise up in holiness and we do not bring down” (Berachot 28).

Would it occur to anyone to bring holiness down, heaven forbid?

But the following is the meaning of this statement.

There are some holy people who are so truly great that because of their essential holiness they cannot bear people, and because they are so incredibly holy, they push away and push down people whom they are angry at, because they cannot tolerate their corrupt actions.

But this is not what God wants, for “He desires kindness,” and he wants those who are righteous to have compassion on the Jewish people constantly and bring them close, however they may be.

And even if He Himself is very angry at them because of their wicked deeds, He wants the righteous people to pray for them and bring them close.

Thus, when Moshe removed his tent from the camp (Exodus 33) because the Jews had sinned so much, our sages teach that God said, “If I am angry and you are angry, they who will bring them back?”

So do we find regarding a number of prophets and saintly men to whom God Himself complained about His great suffering, as it were, because of the many sins of the Jews—yet when they ratified His worlds and did not defend the Jews, He grew very stern with them.

That was the case with Hosea (Pesachim 87) and Elijah, who said, “I have been exceedingly zealous Kings 19), to which God responded, “Anoint Elisha son of Shefat as prophet in your place”—meaning, state our sages, that God told him, “I do not want your prophecy, because you accuse the Jews” (Yalkut Shimoni).

This is because God wants us only to defend the Jews and have compassion on them, even the lowest, bringing them all to God, like Moses, who was entirely dedicated to help the Jews, and who said, “And if not, then wipe me out” (Exodus 32).

And so “we raise in holiness”—the more we toil and reach holiness and come closer to understanding the divine, the more souls must we raise up, and not bring down—i.e., we must take care not to lower other souls due to our own holiness—i.e., we should not grow unforgiving of the Jews even if we attain great holiness and awareness of God, which makes it impossible for us to tolerate lowly people, until we might grow angry at them and might lower them, heaven forbid

Rather, we must “Raise in holiness and not lower,” for when a person comes to a higher level and achieves greater understanding, he must shrewdly make new constrictions, utilizing wondrous strategies, so that he will be able to bring many people ever closer, and heal even the lowest and the very ill.

Likutei Halachot, Orach Chaim, Hashkamat Haboker 4

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