Rabbi Nachman's Stories of Ancient Times: Yiddish Forward and Declaration

The stories in this book contain great secrets of the Torah; they contain very great things. There is not one trivial word in the them, and even simple folk can take great mussar from the stories, for the stories have a great power to awaken all people from sleep, so that one should not, Heaven forbid, sleep through his days for nothing. And whoever will look into the stories with an honest eye, can see and understand a little of G-d's greatness; even simple folk can also get some glimpse of hints of mussar - so that they take a good look around; what the purpose of the world is; so that they do not allow themselves to be fooled by this world. And one should pray day and night, to be saved from the fallacy of the world, and to merit to as Hashem yisburach desires. And furthermore, there are esoteric things in the stories that one cannot write or tell of, fortunate is the one who knows just a bit of them. And because we once heard from his mouth saying that he had great desire that the stories should be printed with Hebrew above and Yiddish below, therefore we have fulfilled his holy desire and we we have printed it so, because common folk also need to be acquainted with the stories; even though they will understand scant-little of the meaning and where the stories reach, even still it will be a great benefit towards the ultimate [life] purpose if they will look into them with an honest eye, because they have a great power to awaken [a person] to the Almighty, as mentioned, for the stories are not empty things, Heaven forbid. And the Rebbe, rest in peace, would each time, after most of the stories, mention certain verses and certain concepts so that people should know that he did not say any words of waste, Heaven forbid. [To that purpose] he slightly  indicated a hint as to where the stories reach, for all these stories are completely secrets of the Torah.

<Declaration!>

To make known and to inform explicitly that every word printed in this holy book is holy of holies; pure secrets of the Torah. Once should not think that they are simple tales, for the stories presented in this book were told by the great tzadik, of supernal holiness, the holy Rebbe, Rabbi NACHMAN, blessed is the memory of the tzadik; may his merit stand up for us. His intention was to teach us how to serve the Almighty. And if only we would understand the great secrets and the moral teachings that are inherent in these stories, we would be devout Jews like we should be. And Hashem yisburach should send us the Righteous Redeemer very soon in our times, quickly in our days, Amen.


Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman


Rabbi Nachman's Legendary Tales