#Breslov #LostPrincess #SippureiMaasiyos

"Who gave you the right to touch my Pandora's box?"

Facing shame is the hardest thing there is, and the reason is that we do not face it — we bury it. Sleep is the best trick: whatever you did, you go to sleep, and by the next morning it is locked away. Two sleeps and you are good to go. And then somebody walks into your life and triggers the exact place you buried, and you are certain they had no right.

This shiur opens there, with a story from that week the maggid shiur says he is embarrassed to tell — "and I love sharing about me, because it opens things up." I had the biggest ego in the world. I was gifted with a mouth that could convince anybody of anything. And I am telling you that I was wrong — not because I thought I was wrong. I thought I was right. And it could be that I was right. But I was wrong even when I was right, because the way you act when you are right does not give you a pass. There is no pass.

From there into the maaseh.

THE LOST PRINCESS

The Rebbe tells you the ending before he tells you the story — the greatest storytelling in the world — and then spends eight pages on the search. Through the deserts, the forests, the fields. He does not find her. So he goes back to start again, and this time he notices a path on the side he had walked straight past the first time.

The castle. The soldiers he was too intimidated to approach, who do not stop him. Room after room until the grand ballroom — the music, the delicacies, the king on his throne. And the announcement, and the queen.

WHO THE PRINCESS IS

The Shechina. Kudsha Brich Hu and the Shechina — the two energies — and the Shechina is in everything: domem, tzomeach, chai, medaber. V'asu li mikdash v'shachanti b'socham — b'toch kol echad v'echad, inside each and every one. So where is the golus? In us. The golus is the place where a man is cut off from his own self, and the Aibishter is in pain over it.

And the Sheni L'Melech does not wait to be asked. There is no dialogue in the story. He sees the king in that pain and he gets up on his own: I cannot take seeing you like this. I will go.

THE CHIDDUSH — UBIKESH SHEYITNU LO

Here is the piece to listen for. He asked that they GIVE him — u'vikesh sheyitnu lo. Not sheyiten, singular, one sum handed over. Sheyitnu — ongoing, constant, again and again. He does not know how long the search will take or what it will cost, so he does not ask for an amount. He asks for a connection that keeps giving.

Because if the king had simply handed him the money, he would have had the money and lost the king — and the king in pain is the whole engine of the search. Take away the connection and there is nothing driving him to look.

And the same word, u'vikesh, is used nine times in that one paragraph — each time meaning something different.

Also inside: ma'os l'tzois and the contract we signed; geulah pratis and geulah klalis; chatzos as the third halacha in Shulchan Aruch and why nobody does it; Reb Nachman's chatzos — six hours after tzeis hakochavim — and getting up at three in the morning to say one kapitel, Al Naharos Bavel.

It ends on gratitude. You stare at the one black dot and never count the 5,999 white boxes. Be grateful. U'vakeish — request. V'holeich l'vakeish — and go on searching.

May we all be zoche to find our lost princess.

#Breslov #LostPrincess #SippureiMaasiyos #RebbeNachman #RebNachmanOfBreslov #BasHaMelech #Shechina #Chassidus #Teshuva #Shame #Ego #Gratitude #Chatzos #Tikkun #Shiur #TorahShiur #JewishSpirituality #Emuna #Hisbodedus #GeulahPratis