The Virtue of Saying Na Nach Nachma Nachman MayUman - and the great level Rabbi Nachman attained

HH

10

(This article is not so relevant to the subject matter)

I heard in his (Rabbi Nachman’s) name that he said, that he attained “yecheeduh[1]” (-the 5^th and highest level of the soul) in its utmost supernal level[2]. Because it is known that the “nefesh[3]” (lowest level of the soul) of the “neshumuh[4]” (3^rd level) is higher than the “yecheeduh” of the “ruach[5]” (-the second level of the soul), and similarly with all of them[6]; and he attained “yecheeduh” in its utmost supernal level (-yecheeduh of yecheeduh)[7]. And he said: “It comes out, that I know ‘a little’, and I stand on a lofty level, nevertheless I still want more, because who knows, perhaps there is yet ‘higher above higher (Ecclesiastes 5:7)’ until no end (-infinitely) etc. etc..

(The Life of Our Leader Rabbi Nachman 267)

Once, he lifted his hands until his shoulders and he lowered them from his shoulders downwards, and he said, “All the tzadikim are by me from here to here,” that is, from his shoulders down[8], and afterwards he lifted his hand(s) above his head and lowered them from there close to his head until his shoulders, and he, “and I am from here till (here),” that is, from the head until the shoulders, and the matter is primal/esoteric. And look in the writings of the Arizal, and comprehend (this), if you have the mental faculty (“eyes) to understand from there[9] the greatness of man when he merits to do the will of his Creator until he completes the tzelem Elokeem (-image of Gd) perfectly.

(The Life of Our Leader Rabbi Nachman 266).

11

He (Rabbi Nachman) said: I will sing a song of the future which will be the Oalum Habuh (-future world, reward) of all the tzadikim and chasidim (-pious).

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MayUman!

---

[1] “Yecheeduh” literally means single, sole, solitary, because this part of the soul is completely one with the One G-d.

[2] Every soul has five general levels, and each level as well has these five levels on its own scale.

[3] The “nefesh” resides in the liver and blood, as it is the life force of the body.

[4] “Neshumuh” resides in brain and intellect, and it is the highest level of the regular levels of the soul, because the two above it are “makeefeem” - peripheries. Neshumuh has the same root as breath, for it is like a breath directly from the mouth of G-d so to speak.

[5] “Ruach” means spirit, and it resides in the heart, and fluctuates between the lower nefesh and the higher neshumuh, hence the name – ruach-spirit.

[6] Every level of the 5 levels of the soul, also has five levels, and the highest level of each level is still lower than the lowest level of the level above it.

[7] This is a very enigmatic revelation, because according to the Arizal, even the Messiah will only attain such a level after the complete redemption, and according to the Zohar, were such a high level of the soul to be in the world, it would dramatically change the entire world. Therefore great Kabbalists admitted they didn’t understand what Rabbi Nachman meant, and we take his words on faith until we merit to understand them.

[8] See Samuel 1:9:2, and see Tractate Niddah end of 24b.

[9] The difference between the head and the rest of the body is enormous, for all thought and intelligence is almost exclusively in the head, as well as all of the senses other than touch.

Self sacrifice in prayer - - Likutay Moharan 26

HH

Rabbainu (Likutay Moharan Torah-teaching 26) explains the Talmud (Bichoaroas 8b) - a bird the dies before it hatches, where does its spirit escape (the shell), and he said, from where it entered: that it is asking where a person should literally expire his soul, pouring it out in utter self sacrifice in the words of the prayer.

It is known that prayer is the aspect of conjugation. Recently the media ran some statistics of the numbers of people who kill themselves while attempting to max out and reach the highest pleasures of se*. Most of these deaths are from asphyxiation, as they reach their climax apparently the sensual experience is heightened by the lack of oxygen, and before they know it they black out or completely suffocate, may the Holy Merciful One save us, for as we know from the holy Legendary Tale of the Prayer Leader there is a type of idolatry which worships this pursuit, Heaven spare us.

So from here we can learn to the side of holiness, that as one effects the Divine conjugation with his prayers, he should be literally pouring out his soul completely till he actually expires his soul in the holy letters which are one with HY. The truth is Rabbainu revealed in Likutay Moharan (Torah-lesson 60) that when a person ejac*lates he is breathless, and this can be what the other side is trying to build upon.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman

Hear the Voice of God

BH
Maybe we are mistaken in trying to hear the voice of God with our body faculties, what we should be trying to do is hear God with our souls and have our souls transmit the voice to our body.
Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman

The innate prohibitive problem with movies and tv

HH
Much has been said to explain why movies and tv are so detrimental, but even they don't address the main core of the issue, and therefore when it comes to really kosher educational media there are allowances and approval. The truth however is that the very nature of movies is harmful and the quintessential opposite of Torah values.
The Talmud extols Rav, one of the sages, praising him for never ever glancing out of his four cubits, and this virtue is an instruction enumerated and highly encouraged in the classic work Raishis Chuchma and other ethical works. In these holy texts we find a term "chaizoo (the sight) dihigh (of this) almu (world)," the Ramchal in Adir Bamurom goes so far as to say the senses we have are actually inhibitions which block the true senses of our soul! And in one of the greatest revelations of Rabbainu Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me'Uman, the Story of Ancient Times of the Seven Beggars, Rabbainu revealed how the saints completely transcended the sensory faculties of this world. Now even though these are obviously tremendously high levels which at best we can pray for from our very remote vantage point, nevertheless they are the true reality of this world, and even if we do not see ourselves achieving their recognition it is definitely forbidden to give power and strength to the false reality. So as much as we are trapped and enslaved by the facade of this world, and we must contend with it, there is really no excuse to bring upon ourselves extraneous succor to the allusion. Such is the nature of every movie, even a very kosher and educational one, it entraps a person in the facade of the world. For the lessons we learn even with our physical senses are seeking the truth which is really imbued and transpiring, whereas a movie is really intent on the visual scenario which is the antithesis of the reality. So even when there is a good message the loss might far out way the gain.
Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me'Uman

Chulent

HH

Rabbainu made it very clear that even though the main honor of Shabbos is eating, and on Shabbos all the eating is Divine, even still it is forbidden to eat harmful foods even on Shabbos. Even still the accepted holy custom of the Jews, especially with the holy custom chulent, is to push the body to the limit, and for many this means that after Shabbos they will be attending to their bodily needs for many hours. This is a strong show of faith in the sanctity and eminence of Shabbos, that even the body on Shabbos is more important than the soul of after Shabbos, and it is proper to indulge the body with even a fleeting delight, a few minutes of gorging, at the price of a few hours of non-Shabbos time which would be put to Torah study, prayer, and good deeds.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman 

The senses are restrictions on the souls perception!

HH

The Ramchal reveals that without the senses a person's soul would have infinitely more knowldege - knowledge of the whole existence in its very essence, the senses restrict the soul from knowing the existence in its reality, forcing it to only perceive and know the existence through them. If a person can rise above the restrictions of his senses he can achieve prophecy. This is an amazing introduction to the awesome story of ancient times Rabbainu revealed of the seven holy beggars (you can find as a page on this blog).

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!

מעשה יג - מז' קבצנים – ביטול החושים

רבינו מגלה ענין התגברות על החושים, ונציג דברי הרמח"ל בענין זה (אדיר במרום תנט-ס) ז"ל כתוב (איוב י:ד) העיני בשר לך אם כראות אנוש תראה. וזה, כי כשרצה הא"ס ב"ה להגביל ידיעת בני האדם שם החושים לנשמה, שלא לקבל הדברים אלא על ידיהם. ואז היא משקטת עצמה על החושים האלה, ואינה מציירת דברים חוץ מהם. ותראה שהנשמה מצד עצמה אינה משועבדת לחושים, ואז רואה הכל ושומעת הכל, דהיינו רואה את הנשמע ושומעת את הנראה, כמו שאמר הכתוב על העם (שמות כ:יד) רואים את הקולות, ויודעת הדברים מצד עצמם (-דבר זה מבואר שם עמוד רה”ע), לא מצד מה שמצטיירים אליה על ידי הכלים. ולכן הנביא יצא מחושיו,כדי לקבל הנבואה, ואלו הם עיני הבשר ואזני החרשים, שהם דרכים שהוגבלו לנשמה, שלא תקבל הדברים אלא בדרכים האלה. ומה שאינו נכנס בדרכים [אלו] מפני טעם מה, לא תוכל לקבל אותה. והנה בכללות העולם מתפשט מציאות אחד בסוד הטבע, שהוא כמנין אלקים, והוא מתהפך במסיבותיו, ומנהג כל עניני העולם. ואין לך דבר בעולם שאין לו פנימיות מנהיגו. ועיקר ההנהגה – בפנימיות הזה, כאשר פירשתי למעלה (עמ' רלה) כבר ענין השמש והליכותיו. אך שום אחד מאלה הדברים אינם נופלים תחת החושים, ועל כן נעלמו מן הנשמה בעולם הזה, ואינה מבינה אלא מה שרואה. ובראות בני אדם דברי העולם רק לפי חושיהם, הביא בהם מה שאינו אמת ועיקר, אלא דבר נראה לכאורה ולפנים, ואז בא כל סברותיהם הכוזבות, עכ"ל ע"ש.

נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן

It's not worth peeking

HH

What is so terrible about having an improper thought? Yes, we know it is forbidden, and it causes damage in the supernal world, and that really those worlds are very much the actual reality, and that it will G-d forbid lead from one thing to the next until it really brings one to no good, but even still we say to ourselves, let me be for a bit, a few thoughts, a little pleasure, what's the big deal?

So here's something to consider. G-d is completely above the paradigm of existence, He created existence, however in the existence He created, He also exists, and this existence of His is infinite. Anyone familiar with algebra knows that infinite can remain in a very small value – as a number approaches another in different increments, increasingly getting closer but never reaching. Such are the various classes that G-d created, the worlds of doing, speaking, thinking (asseeya, yetzeerah, breeya) and infinitely more, as the worlds approach G-d Himself, never reaching, but infinitely getting closer, each one in it's own class and restraint. In all of this, the prophet refers to G-d as continuously hiding Himself (Ail misstattair). The direction of the infinite existence of G-d in the whole layout of existence is to the esoteric, the more spiritual and hidden. The Ramchal asserts that the entire study of Kabbala – the study of G-d and how He runs the world, can be summarized as inner and outer (peneemeeyoos and cheetzoaneeyus). Always the inner, which is more spiritual, more refined and hidden, is the soul of the outer body, and completely encompasses it, rules it, and is it's very lifesource. Except for the final world in which man exists, where the body has a certain independence not recognizing its soul. The Torah (even the "revealed Torah") as well must be kept hidden and should not be taught in public places (Moed Kutun 16a). 

All sexual gratification (which the Vilna Goan clearly classifies as a sin between a person and himself, any damage done to another person by this sin is purely collateral) is the body's insurgency over the soul. This is hijacking a person's manifest, from going in the way of G-d, and ever increasingly give strength to the unseen, the soul of yet a more esoteric plane, which by the way is the ultimate eminence of the traits of humility and tznius (modesty), where one hides himself preferring to reach further inwards than to show an outward, superficial exploitation, and all of this is hijacked and reversed by even a small improper thought and desire, which empowers the body, giving it precedence, giving it the dominion to drag and subjugate the direction of the soul to be reduced to an expression of the body (and if a person G-d forbids generates seed wantonly, this is the actual reduction of the ultimate spiritual manifest, to a coarse superficial coarse goal, HY).

The idea I presented above is actually found explicitly in the holy books, particularly in Rabbainu's Likutay Moharan, regarding fasting. Rabbainu reveals that on a day that a person eats, the food goes to his stomach and inners, and from there energy is sent up to the brain, it is the liver that is propelling the brain. When a person fasts, the direction is the opposite, the brain rules over the body (MeLeCh – king, rule – Moach – brain, Lev – heart, Cuvaid – liver, as opposed to the reverse order of CuLaiM – meaning embarrasment/incarceration – locked into the embarrassing control of the body).

The main thing is to sing Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman, which is the ultimate direction!

NNNNM!

Float Your Boat

HH

Rabbainu revealed in his Stories of Ancient Times (of the Seven Beggars, the Blind Beggar), that our bodies are like ships which our souls sail (This is in fact a well established allegory, also alluded to in the agadatta of Rabba Bar Bar Chana, of those who go down to the sea, in other words, human souls who board their ships and sail around in this world).

The secret of all the Kabala, the Ramchal revealed, is pinneemiyews (inner) and cheetzoaniyews (outer), these are the aspects (lined up in Likutay Moharan Torah 37) of body and soul, material and form/function, knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness.

Every inner layer is humble and modest in face of the outer layer that clothes it, it hardly shows itself at all. The inner element has great haughtiness the free reign it grants the outer layer which clothes it.
[ה' מלך (על הבריאה שכביכול מלביש אותו) גאות לבש לבש וכו'' ועוד כתיב ישראל אשר בך אתפאר, שישראל שהם מציאות שבו מתגלה יחוד ה', השם יתברך מגאה בהם]

In this world of 6000 years, our bodies have reign, and conduct the main functions of our existence, they host our souls who are like guests. Even in the seventh thousand year, the body will be the main player, but it will be with the full force of the soul. In the eighth thousand year, the soul will be the main player, and the body like a guest etc. as explained at length in the Ramchal's Da'as Tevunos  (76-84, Klalim Rishonim 9). Soon it will be very very apparent how ridiculous all the attention to the body is. The body is of foremost importance as a wick for the flame that is our soul - and the soul of our soul, and the soul of the soul etc., and most be cared for properly, but any attention given to it as a means of its own, working out, and the competitions surrounding the feats of the body, are utterly rediculous and stupid. When HY will allow for the soul to shine forth with, not even in full force, just with much less restraint, the body will be seen as powerless and almost completely inconsequential. It will be impossible to comprehend how one could be so foolish to have pursued any bodily concerns and pleasures whatsoever. There will be great embarrassment.

HY is infinite - Ein Sof (without end - i.e. we don't even call him infinite, because any positive description we have is limited in its definition (as anyone familiar with algebra will know that infinite can be caught in very small fractions), so we describe HY as bereft of any limit, Ramchal), and the way of HY is to hide himself in infinite layers, each one more material than the next, and HY is infinitely hiding in the humility of more and more esoteric existences. This is the way of HY, this is His Glory.

Rabbainu revealed (Likutay Moharan Torah 6) that our role in the month of Ellul is to go in this way of HY. First we must appint the king, and gain complete conviction, we must be strong in our ideals and decisive in what is right and what is wrong. This is our first teshuva. One could easily get stuck here, as many sensationalist do, getting caught up in self-righteousness of all types of worthy causes and campaigns. Kings have great honor. But this honor is so external, it is so full of cracks and disallusion. It is just a shell, and in fact quite puny. So we must not get stuck there, but must look further, to realize that everything that we see, all the Jews and the actions, are all the glory of HY, we gain complete embarrassment from our own course, myopic, mundane understanding of existence -- how we percieved that we were players -- going after such an external approach ignoring the true reality, from this shame, we can drain out our own ego which pumps through our blood, distorting our vision and perception -- we cleanse ourselves of all the constrictions of the cravings and lusting of the seventy nations, and we can proceed to build a holy conception to house Divine Inspiration in ourselves. This Divine Spirit is utter humility which delights and takes pride in allowing it's surroundings to have full expression and atonomy. This is a taste of the future world.
[Notice in the Story of Ancient Times of a Prayer Leader, the Kings men who were finding each other and celebrating with tremendous joy, while those accompanying them had no idea what the joy was about, just like Rabbainu said that two people could be sitting next to each other; one delighting in Gan Eden, and the other completely confounded. It is not enough to get to the tzaddikim physically, as long as someone is attached to a fraudulent leader - i.e. a represntation of a some sort of society and course of life - like those who were accompanying the king's men, they will never figure it out, what it is, the reality. But even still since they stuck to them till the end, they got their tikkun].

When Rabbi Nussun once got an inkling of the enormity of the awsome level Rabbi Nachman was on, he almost went berserk, he shouted, "GEVALD! What is the world thinking?!" He wanted to run into the world and try to knock sense into them to get with the program. Rabbi Nachman had to physically hold him down, and told him to stay put, going out there screaming would not help. If we would have any conception of the real reality staring straight out at us, we would be on fire. We gotto get there, for ourselves and for humanity.


Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!

The stupidity of the Olympics and similar competition

HH the absolute stupidity of sports, running around for nothing, and all the passion for nothing, doesn't need too much mention, anyone aiming for the truth will be abhorred by it. What sometimes can be misleading are the physical achievements that athletes can achieve or once in a while we hear can be pulled off through meditation. Here it is important not to fall for how pathetic this all is. If a person could empower himself with the smallest of angels he would literally be able to skip and fly around the world and lift the largest building, all the more so a person's soul which far greater. So here people are caught up with puny accomplishments of their body, while they are sitting on the awesome power of their soul. Like showing off picture of toy cars instead of drag racing in the most advanced model cars.
Yes, there might be something to keep the body a little fit, but anything more than little bit is and will be the source of eternal shame of the sheer stupidity. In days to come the body will altogether be secondary to the soul, and will be like a guest, just as now the soul seems secondary and like a guest in the body, there are a few stages to this, until eventually the body will just be completely swallowed by the soul, all the 5 main stages are delineated in Daas Tevunos of the Ramchal.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me'Uman

Remember who you are! Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!

HH

A very large percentage of movies are based on forgotten identity and memory loss. The great search to find out who we really are. Rabbi Nachman also addresses this issue at great length. E.g. in Likutay Moharan, Torah 17 he reveals the origins of the proselyte and the Jewish soul, inspiring them to remember that they predate the creation of this world, when they were consulted by G-d Almighty, and cohorts in creation. Also in the Legendary Stories of Rabbainu, in the story of the Seven Beggars, particularly the first beggar, the holy blind beggar who remembers "nothing", that is even before his soul was drawn into his fathers mind and seed.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!