R’ Joey Rosenfeld Torah 1 Shiur 1

Why does Rebbe Nachman begin Likutei Moharan with Torah Alef, and what makes this teaching the foundation for understanding his entire sefer?

In this introductory shiur, we explore Rebbe Nachman’s place in the unfolding revelation of Pnimiyus HaTorah, the unique role of Reb Noson in preserving his teachings, and the deeper significance of learning Likutei Moharan as a living connection to the tzaddik.

Drawing on the teachings of Rav Avraham ben Rav Nachman and other Breslov masters, we discover why Torah Alef serves as an introduction to the entire sefer and how its central themes of Chochmah, Malchus, Torah, and tefillah reveal the purpose of our spiritual journey.

At the heart of the shiur is a powerful idea: the goal of Torah is not simply to elevate ourselves toward Heaven, but to bring the light of Heaven into our everyday lives. Through learning Torah, transforming Torah into personal tefillah, and developing a deeper connection with Hashem, we can restore the chen and chashivus—the beauty, grace, and significance—hidden within ourselves and the world around us.

An introduction to Rebbe Nachman’s vision of Torah as a path toward hope, joy, dveikus, and discovering Hashem’s presence in every part of life.

There is the Shir Naim, which is a song that's ascribed to Rabbi Nachman, which is an acrostic poem about, about Moshe Abbeinu.

And there is.

Which is a small teaching about Rabbi Shimon by Yochai.

And then we enter into the first teaching.

So we see that basically the Hakdama to Lakute Maharan is a poem about Moshe and the teaching about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yoghai.

And one can say that Rabbi Nachman really saw himself as being part and parcel of a unique unfolding of Pneumiya Satorah, that there's a five stage expression we see in the Arizal that Moshe Beinu's Neshama can be expressed in five different ways or in five different places.

And all of the Tzadikim are really an extension of Moshe.

But the way in which Pneumi yos Hatorah has been revealed is Moshe Abenu, Rabbi Shimon, Bay Yochai, the Arizal, the BAAL Shem Tov.

And then ultimately Rabbi Nachman doesn't say it himself, but his Tamidim say it, that the fifth of the Tzadikim is Rabbi Nachman.

And so obviously we're not going into the discussion of what that means, but it doesn't mean anything about better or worse in terms of other Tzadikim or the role that other Tzadikim and they're play.

It just means that there was a unique element of revelation added through these particular Tzadikim that was not revealed beforehand.

And as, I'm sorry, same neshama for sure, it's the Nishama of Moshe.

And ultimately, as Rabi Nachman says that before the light of the Tzadik and his Torah is revealed, so a person can live without the light of that Tzadik's Torah.

But once the Tzadik reveals his light and his Torah, it's no longer possible for a person to live without it.

And we can say it doesn't mean that every person is going to be forced, you know, with a club over the head to come to start learning Rabbi Nachman's teachings.

That's obviously not the way.

It's also obviously true that a very small Hasidus with a Rebbe who announced that his fire would burn into the coming of Mashiach.

You know, that's a strong statement to make, but we're living in a historic moment where it's pretty undeniable.

But I think that there's a statement in Chaim Haran that says Basof Kulam yu breslif.

In the end, everybody is going to be breastless.

The way that I like to understand that is basof Sof means when a person hits a limit, we're at a limit point.

The saf, the sof is where a person feels that there's no more room for me to go.

I'm kind of trapped in a certain area closed in on, and there's a moment of enclosure that I can't break free from.

That's the end.

That's when a person reaches their wits end.

And in that place, there's no other way out other than the teachings of Rabinachman of Breslav, which are ultimately what.

Which are a refusal of hopelessness, a radical affirmation of hope, a resiliency, and a stubborn demand of joy, personal prayer, faith, creativity, learning, Torah, davening.

And so it doesn't mean everyone is going to say, I'm a Hasid of Rabbi Nachman now and that's what's going to save me at the end.

It means that Rabbi Nachman was not the owner of his wisdom.

Rabbi Nachman was a pipeline that came to reveal a new potency of spiritual illumination in the world.

And as such, it doesn't matter if a person identifies with the light of Rabin or not.

The whole world is saturated with the light of Rabin's Torah.

There's a story told about the Bas, the Bas Yosef.

The Bas Yosef, the.

The Mahabir Akados that he spent a week or so struggling over a toast that he couldn't really figure out an answer for.

He couldn't find clarity on it.

And he davened and he fasted and he davened and he fasted until finally he was able to kind of behold the answer.

Then the next day, he was walking around in a BASEMAJER she in TSVAs, and he saw, you know, two young Chevre who were learning and they were in the same place and they had the same answer.

And so he was a little bit crestfallen because here I am struggling so much to find this answer, and suddenly it seems that even the people in the Shuk are able to have the answer.

So it's recorded in the Magid Meisharm that the Magid said to him, he says, what do you mean?

The only reason they have easy access to that teaching is because you've paved the path for that illumination to come down into the world.

So whether or not a person knows that their stubborn hopefulness and positivity, bias and demands for joy and singing, whether they know or not.

It comes from the gates that were opened by this Neshama Ibn Ahman Ben Simcha, right?

That it doesn't matter.

It's not.

It's not about how many people are going to, you know, tally up to be Breslav or Hasidim.

It's how many people are going to live with a frail, with a happiness, with a stubborn hopefulness.

There's a few reasons that Lakuta Maharan opens up with Torah Aleph.

And surprisingly, it's not the clearest of Torahs, certainly not the most potent of Torahs, necessarily.

Many of the editors and the later students and Breast Love writings have gone through enormous amounts of censorship over the years because there was an immense amount of criticism of Breslov.

There were statements that were misattributed and also radical statements that the students themselves.

There was like an inner censorship that they wanted to kind of deal with whatever the problems were going on outside without having more of these internal problems.

But Maharashtra from Yavniel at a certain point decided to publish, you know, all of the writings are always held to.

Decided to publish the Hashmatos of Chaim Haran, all these mysterious kind of messianic movements that were taking place within Rabin Ahmed himself.

And what he saw is going on in his life.

And he decided that it was time for it to be written.

And once the Tzadik decides, once the living Tamidim decide that these teachings are meant to be revealed.

So now we have much more of an awareness of kind of the inner architecture through how Breslov literature kind of emerged, especially Lakuta Maran.

You know, we know about the books of.

There was Lakuta Maran was one book that Rabbi Nachman wrote.

He also wrote Sefer Haganuz, which was a book that he wrote, and then demanded that it be hidden.

And there was also Sefer Han Nisraf, a book that he wrote and that he demanded be burnt.

And the way that Ravichemayer Slita understands this is that these are not three separate books and they're in fact all one book.

And that they're all embedded within Likute Maharan.

That it means that there's different ways of learning the Torahs.

There's learning the Torah strictly as it's written and going through the radical associations and the profound hermeneutical creativity that Rabin Ahman exemplified.

Then there's also the ability to kind of be mapshit with the Varm, to abstract them from their textual grounding and to encounter kind of the deeper wisdom that's coming out of them.

And then there's layers upon layers and, and lo and behold, it's even, you know, there was not much of a rich history of academic study of press Love Hasidus.

I'm giving this just by way of introduction, a lot of what was written about Rabbi Nachman in the early years of kind of English scholarship that was not from a realm of kind of orthodoxy, but was a bit offensive to say the least.

And it was more kind of self reflective of the author than it was the, the, the true reading of the literature itself.

It's not to say that, you know, that what he found in the writings of Rabbi Nachman, it's real texts, but he developed an image of Rabbi Nachman that's not, you know, what we necessarily follow.

That's not a surprise that if a person wants to take certain elements of Rabbi Nachman's writings, it can be an incredibly depressive thing, right?

It can become a very sad way of thinking about the world.

Feeling like a person is forced to live at the extreme, on the brink of hopelessness, to live like at the edge of despair.

And those teachings are there even though Rabbi Nachman said, learn from everything except my tendency towards that place.

But that's only half the story and not even half the story.

So if a person is, you know, all eyes and jest to the man who hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, if you're only taking the one element of it, you're going to be able to caricaturize the Tzadik in any way.

So that was all that we had.

And then from the Gush came who's still alive.

He should live and be well.

His name is TV Mark Zvi Mark is really the second wave of Breslov academic textual study and he is rooted in holiness and he's had a relationship with many, many, many of the Zikne Breslov.

He had access to different writings.

His brother was Rav Mikimar Kashemim Komdomo from Oat Niel, I believe, and he has written first.

His first response was a book called Mysticism and Madness, showing that any of the attempt to try and psychologize the Tzadik, God forbid, and to take that out of the context of the previous Tad Tzadikim and the Talmid, the BAAL Shem Tov, is a deliberate misreading.

And in truth, everything that Rabi Nachman is saying is fundamentally part and parcel of what all of the Tzadikim has always done.

But in addition to that, he's published these beautiful, beautiful writings of the Sipurima.

Rabbi Nachman finding old, censored writings.

He published the scroll of Secrets, which is Rabbi Nachman's kind of messianic hints about Russia and a young child who's going to be very strange things.

And he continues to do immense work.

And so we're seeing.

We're living in a real heyday where Rabbi Nachman's Torah is able to be taken very seriously by way of textual study and textual analysis.

So the first teaching, if you look at the Talmidim, you see that it's a teaching that was not.

It was before Rabbi Nassen arrived, before Rabbi Nassen, who was like the Talmud Muvhak of Rabbi Nachman, the scribe of Rabbi Nachman, without which there would be really no Torah of Rabbi Nachman.

As Rabbi Nachman himself said, without my nasanal, you wouldn't have anything left.

There were other Tamidim, obviously.

But what was most unique about Rabbi Nelson was that what he saw going on in Breslov at that time, he understood fundamentally that there's something here.

There's something here that must be recorded and preserved forever, Right?

He didn't become the new Rebbe.

He became the Talmud Mufak.

And there's always Tamidim Mufakim of Rabbi Nachman each and every generation.

They're the Tamidim of the Tzadik.

And because this teaching was before Rabbi Nasan and it was collected by other friends, meaning it's not a fundamentally clear text, the.

The Tamidim themselves express that.

They're not quite sure, you know, how to orient the text or how to place it.

But nevertheless, there was something about this Torah that becomes the first teaching of Lakuta Maran.

So it's not its textual clarity, but it has to be something even deeper than that.

Have you with me on these Hatamu so far?

Now, another way of looking at why this teaching is the first teaching is what Rav Avram ben Rav Nachman writes.

Rav Avram ben Ravnachman is the Biyur Halikutim.

The Beor Halikutim is referred to as the fourth generation, really, of Breslov, because there was Rabbi Nachman and his Tamil Mufak.

Rabbi Nasim and Rabbi Nassim's Tamil Mufak was Rabbi Nachman Tolchiner.

And Rav Nachman Tolchiner's son was Rav Avraham ben Harav Nachman.

Rav Avraham Ben Ravnachman was the fourth generation.

He came to Eret Israel.

He was one of the founders of the kibbutz and Eret Israel.

What he developed, and it was an old tradition, was that the book of Lakuta Maharan is the most potent way to access the light of the Tzadik.

That it's a book that must be read with deep precision and intentionality and hyper focus on the words that are being written.

Ravafram bin Rafnachman wrote something called Chai Klalim 18 principles, meaning like we have Yud gim o Midoshatar and address Aspahan.

He wrote Chai Klalim 18 principles.

As to how to approach the text of Lukuta Maran.

One of the rules is mine.

U be that you need not access any other Torah in Lukuta Maran to understand the Torah that you're in.

That every Torah can be understood from the beginning to the end and the end to the beginning.

That if Rabbi Nachman brings down a pasuk, that you look at the pasak with the Radak and the Mitzudah stud, that when Rabbi Nachman's talking about the Tzadik, he's talking about Moshe and Mashiach, he's talking about the collective soul of the Tzadik and then mystical principles as well.

But what it does is it opens up an entire pathway into living with the Torah.

This shear is part of Latayal Betaraso, which is ultimately a project that's based on Ravavan Ben Ravanachman's writings, which is that you live in the Torah.

You don't try and rush through the Torah, you don't try and bifurcate the Torah.

Go elsewhere.

I have a hard time doing that sometimes.

But to believe that the text is offering not only words of strength, and this is one of the most important things.

When you're reading the words themselves, you're reawakening the spiritual potency that was conveyed in the words themselves in the moment of them being given over.

This is not a principle that's unique to Rabbi Nachman.

It's true also for Chabad Hasidus or for the Sfarum of the Ramchal or the gra.

But you know, when a person is learning Torah, it has to be as if they're receiving the Torah anew for the first time.

And so Rav Avram Ben Ravnachman writes that the reason Lakuta Maran starts with this Torah, he writes it in Osiud in Bir Halikuttam and Torah Aleph is that this Torah speaks of the relationship between the sun and the moon as we're going to see.

And while it doesn't necessarily get identified as the tzadik and the Talmud, Hazal themselves have already established the relationship between the sun and the moon as the rebbe and the Talmud.

That Moshe Beinu is like the sun, and Yehoshua Ben Nun is like the levana.

And because it's impossible to separate the rebbe from the Talmud, the tzadik from the Talmud, who's receiving those teachings and drawing it down and allowing it to flow forth into lower places, so then you can't even begin to enter into the book of Lakuta Maran.

Again, it's like we spoke about before.

If you take this book and you sever it from the living spirit of Rabbi Nachman, this book can bury a person.

It's a.

It's a chaotic book.

It's a.

A book that can bring a person to the brink of despair.

It's a book that says radical things and profoundly creative things, wondrous things.

But in the end of the day, if you do not learn this book with the deep belief that the tzadik continues to live within this book, then you're only giving yourself a dead text and you're not allowing it to become a book of life.

A safer Hachaim Rabina himself writes this elsewhere, that the tzadik places their nefesh panav vasekhel in each and every word of their Torah.

And if you want to access the nefesh panim and seikal of that sadiq, then you learn their words.

Because I already have this principle that when a person is learning, it should be as if the BAAL Hashmua is standing in front of them.

And furthermore, the tells us that when a person is learning Torah, then the lips of the person who gave over that Torah are quivering in the grave, meaning there's a direct bond between the Torah that remains and the righteous person who gave over that Torah, even if it's separated profoundly by time, space, and all sorts of circumstances.

So Revavram Ben Ravathman says that the reason this Torah is the introduction is because it's teaching us about what our role is.

And the only way to properly enter into this text, which is to be like the levana of the Shemesh, to be a vessel that's receiving the light of the tzadik.

If you don't have that, then you can't enter into the Text properly, Ravicha Mahayashlita points out, based on the GRA in the beginning of Mishle and the beginning of Safer Ditsnayusa, that the haktama of a Sefer is not simply a preface or a way of introduction, but rather it actually informs for us what the entire book is going to be about.

And so Even though there's 412 Torahs in the Kuta Mahran, nevertheless the first Torah in the Kuta Mahran reflects what a person can really see in each and every Torah.

And I don't want to kind of go too deeply into it right now, but what Ravitchemayer points out as the.

The key functional modality of Lakutamaran as coming out of this Torah is that we're going to see a three pronged relationship.

There's chachma, there's infinite wisdom, infinitude, light beyond capacity of grasp.

There's the vessel, which is the thing that can hold that light, drawing that light down into a place of measurement, the Shemesh and the levana.

And even though it appears that that's a descent from on high, down low, and that we're losing out, nevertheless the descent is for the sake of revealing something even more potent that could not have been revealed without the original descent.

This is what we've been talking about in the Otzvis Chaim Shiram as well, that it appears that there's a descent from Chachma into Binah, from light into vessels, which is, oh my gosh, I'm losing out on the light, and now I'm stuck in vessels.

But the whole secret is that specifically, by drawing down the infinite light into the vessels of formation and capacity of grasp, were able to reveal the wondrous beautification of divinity that comes about specifically from down here.

And that's going to be the whole Torah of Rabbi Nachman Al Ragalachas.

You go down from the highest place into the lowest place, not to linger in the lowest place, but to reveal that the lowest place is in fact the site of the highest lights imaginable.

That's the Taisef as Kishat.

And we see this most explicitly in this Torah.

The Ches of Chachma has to go down into the nun of Binah and Malchus.

And it's not just staying there.

It then reveals the Tav, which is.

Which is the light of Kesser.

So it's going from the general principle down into particularity in order to reveal something even more than what was revealed beforehand.

Finally, Khevra the.

I'm forgetting exactly who says it.

But the other reason that Rabbi Nachman seems to have started the sefer with Torah Aleph is because it's the first teaching of Rabba babrakhana.

The first 19 teachings.

No, the first eight, 16 teachings.

I think that you're right.

It's.

There's Tesla of.

There's Tesla of Mama.

The first 16 teachings in Lakuta Myran are all commentary on the Agaratos of Rabba Barbara from the 5th Parak of Baba Basra, Right?

And then afterwards, they continue to be teachings on the beginning of Safra Ditzniusa.

In Chayim Aharon, Rabbi Nachman explains that the reason he wanted to teach on Rabba Barbachana, because Rabba Barbachana visited Rabbi Nachman and asked him, why are you not teaching my teachings now?

It's not a foreign topic to write about.

The GRA wrote about it immensely.

There were many tzadikim of the gra.

One of the only Svarm that the GRA gave a haskama on was a commentary on the Mysim of Rabbi Barbachana.

So it's a very rich area of study.

But Rabbi Nachman wanted to specifically start his sefer with this and this.

I want to read something from Ravicher Meyer so that we can understand why we're going into Rabba Babrakhana, because who was Rabba Rahana first and foremost?

The Rebbe explains that Baba Bastra, all of the Babas, right?

Babakama, Baba Mitzian, Baba Basra that Samah Tzedek says in his commentary on Tehillim correspond to Beis Hamikdash Rishon bes Hamikdashlishi, Beis Hamikdasheni and Beis Hamikdash shlishlish, or Chachma Bina and kesser.

And so Bhavabasra is already the last gate, which is holding the secrets of redemption, is the place of the redemption of this world, which is the emergence of the watery depths of experience, is all about going down into the sea.

Tales of the ocean, tales of the yam, tales of the Amh, literally.

And Rava, as we're going to see, is Chachma Barhana is Binah.

And we're going to see how Rava Barhana himself exemplified the same dynamic that we're going to experience in the Kutamaram.

So the Rebbe writes as follows.

This is on his commentary on Rava Barbarhana, Tafshin Ayin Gimel.

He says that we have to Understand that the stories of Rabba Barbara are the aspect of Sipurima Kan Munios.

Right?

Like Rabbi Nachman shifted at the end of his lifetime to tell stories rather than teachings.

This is what Rabin Ahman hints to in the 60th teaching when he talks about the need to draw down an even higher level of Torah than Torah itself, because we have to wake ourselves up.

And as Rabinosan himself writes in what's happening in these stories, there's the revelation of the deepest types of secrets which come from the loftiest place imaginable, a place so lofty that it can't be revealed in any way other than by Remez or by kind of hidden strange stories.

And the only way we're able to receive the wisdom of these stories is through the Lavush, the garment of like the strangeness of Agaratha.

The Vilnagon also writes this explicitly.

The Ramchal writes this explicitly.

The future is Agaratha.

Agaratha is the technology that will bring us back into Ghanaidan.

But until it's revealed fully, it's.

It's belittled, it's despised.

It's like the burial of Moshe Rabbeinu, which is outside of Eretz Yisrael, which is mul based poor, where everything that's most deep appears to be cheapened and low.

And with this we can understand why Rabbi Nachman wanted to open up his safer, his wondrous Sefer Lakuta Maran with the explanations of the stories of Rabba Barbarana.

Because what Rabbi Nachman of Breslav is doing with his Torah is he's preparing the world for the revelation of the Torah of Atikastima, the Torah of Kesser, the Torah of Gula, which reveals that God is not only above in Chachmah, but he's down here below as well.

This is the essence of the Torah that exists beneath all of the Levushim.

And it's only given over to the biggest sadiqim to try and give over.

We don't have the ability to grasp it yet.

But what Rabin Ahman is doing is he's revealing little by little until the point that in the future the true potency of the stories of Rabbi Barwakhana are going to be revealed without their garment.

And what's going to be revealed is that everything is all of the strange stories, all of that which appears ridiculous and strange in our lives, and all of the sea creatures we have to fight, and all of the difficult kind of tangents that our lives Take us through what's really being revealed there is, because all of the stories of the world are Torah.

That's the secret of redemption to come and see within the news, within our narratives, within the mundanity, the light of Akadish Baruch Hu.

And this is what Sipurimacio's help awaken us to.

They help reveal to us that whatever we see going on on the outside in truth has deep, deep secrets hidden within it.

And this is the reason that Rabbi Nachman wanted to start off as safer with these profound stories that have an endless depth hidden within them that are hinted to in the stories of Rabbi Barchana, as it's known that Rabbi Barhana himself came and told Rabbi Nachman that it was time for him to begin to begin telling over his stories.

And so with that, I think we can begin to Ezra Hashem, enter into the first teaching.

You know, we're not going to finish the teaching, obviously, tonight.

I. I don't imagine it'll be more than three or four shirim on the first Torah, because I think that, you know, we want to try and cover ground, but we're going to start Ezra Hashem.

So even before the teaching, it says, but Ezra El Elyon Asher Shamayim of the Aretz Kana, the help of the supernal God who has acquired both heaven and earth, above and below.

The Nasan lanu estaroso Miminbar matana.

This is the Lashan of Rabbinasin.

He's given us the Torah from the desert itself, from a barren place.

Miminbar matana means that it's specifically in the place of desolation that the deepest lights eventually emerge.

Explains that the Torah was given in the midbar to help us realize that it's only when we feel empty of all things that we become Kalem ruyim to receive a new revelation of Torah.

We're going to begin to write one Juris commentary on the tales of Rabba Barbarhana.

Right?

And the merit of this we should be zocha to first and foremost go to TZ is the first stage of rectification and redemption.

And then.

And then from there to Mashiach Ben David.

So everything about Lakuta Maharan is ultimately trying to prepare us and awaken Ghula Ashray.

To me, Nachman always starts with a pasuk.

Sometimes it's clear why he starts with that pasak.

Sometimes it's not clear.

But Ashray, Timmy, Meydara, Chahohim, Batory.

The first command is Tmimus Tamimas empshitos meaning to say that a person has to accept that there's power to these words, right?

You can't be convinced by the words that there's power in them, because there's no end to cynicism.

There's no end to the mind's willingness to question things, no matter how creative they are, no matter how wondrous they are.

One word of late sonus is able to, you know, I think it's a gemara.

One word of the late sonus can.

Can, you know, undo a thousand pounds of seriousness.

And we see in the maisa of the chacham and tam that the tam, the one who's tamim, the one who's simple, is willing to hear anything anybody has to say with one tonight.

Rakbili late sanus.

No mockery, no mockery.

Don't come and belittle the value that I place in these words.

So to me means that I accept, prior to any attempt at investigation, the truth and the veracity of these words, not because they're clear to me, not because I have the depth of understanding, but because if I can't have that, what do I have in this world?

If I can't believe in the words of the tzadikim, if I don't have the.

The ear miklet of the books of the tzadikim to rest my head in, then asavarati bi oni, right?

A person has to serve something in this world, right?

We have to choose the lane that was going to infuse us with meaning.

And Tamima sampitas means that I accept as the first step that this is my meaning.

Then come and ask me any question you want, because my.

My connection to these words is not based on logic, it's not based on wisdom.

Sure, I'm going to try and be as wise as I can, but in the end of the day, it's tzmimas and pshitus, which means that there's no question strong enough to dispel my bond and connection to these texts.

Ashray, to me, me darach, this world is a derach.

This world is a path.

A path by definition means that there's disturbances along the way.

As Riv Sadok writes in the first teaching in Risi se Layla Derek means the opposite of intentionality.

A person who's on the derek cannot have kavana, which is why certain statements in Chazal imply my entire life I didn't have kavana.

And why death is referred to as that there's a calmness that Comes to the soul because this world is referred to as a derek.

And it means that it's going to be a bumpy road.

But Ashray Tamim Darak says David Malcolm praiseworthy are those who embark on the path, but with a tamimus, with a comfort.

The opposite of a tam is misa when you reverse the letters, because everything is able to kill a person.

Then.

Malachim referred to as omdim.

They're static in their spiritual orientation.

They live only in infinitude.

They live in divine revelation.

To be a human being, to be a year is to be a hoyle.

To move, to get up and to fall down and to get up and to fall down and to stop and to go and to stop and to go.

So this is the beginning.

Ashrei to me medarra embrace tamimus along the path.

Somebody came to Rabinachman and said, my TV are not being answered, not being answered.

And ever since, you know, I've come close to Hasidus or close to the tzadik, my teles have not been answered properly.

Rabin Ahman gave him the aidsa of sitting after davening and learning Torah.

And that if you learn Torah after davening, so then it's going to be mesogul.

It was an aitsa to get the tfilos in this kabil, to have a clarity of your tfilos being answered.

The story goes that afterwards this person came back and said, the Torah that I'm learning, I can't even focus on after davening.

And Rabbi Nachman says to him, so you have to daven afterwards.

And he says, what is there in this world other than davening, learning and davening?

And that is said to be the story that kind of influenced this teaching to come out.

So as we're going to see, there's nothing but davenant learning and davenant.

Da.

Da.

Da means there's something self evident here, right?

Know there's an announcement to know something, to know something that you didn't even know that you knew, right?

There's a masorah that anytime Rabbi Nachman starts his teaching with da, what he's doing is he's awakening us to a point in consciousness which is of the loftiest potency, That it's through Torah that all of our tfilos and all of the bakashos that we ask and that we daven are going to be answered.

From here we see that the goal is to have tfilos answered.

The goal is to have the TV and the Bakasha answered the way in which you have your tila or your Bakasha answered is through the Torah, right?

Da.

Know that it's through the Torah that a person is going to have their tilos answered.

From a statement like that, it implies that the main thing is that the tilos be answered.

And the mechanism through which you're going to have your tilos answered is going to be through Torah.

Because we're going to see in the next paragraph that the directionality switches.

It's no longer focusing only on Tefillah.

The hyper focus is going to be on the Torah itself.

What is Torah and what is Tefillah?

Torah is Chachma.

Torah is Chachma, divine wisdom, Ayin, the place of connection to contemplating Hashem's presence.

Tefillah is Malchus.

Tefillah is this world.

Eternal life is the Torah which is outside of this world, infinite in nature.

It's the mind itself and is the body, it's the heart.

It's this lived experience in this world.

Because what's Tefillah ultimately rooted in Bakashos, right?

We're asking for things that we need.

We're asking for health, we're asking for wealth, we're asking for peace.

And so chazal of a very clear orientation that Torah is of a much higher level than which is tfilah.

This relationship between Torah and Tefillah on the Kabbalistic kind of tree is the relationship between chachma and Malchus, which is, in the end of the day, the main relationship.

This is the essential relationship, the shame, Havaya, the five letters or the four letters.

Let's say Chachma is the yud, Bina is the heir, Anpin is the vav, and Malchus is the hey.

Now, very often when we look at what Kabbalah is teaching, it's talking about the relationship between the first he and the vav, between Binah and Zerantpen, the mother and the son.

But the true relationship, even though at first glance it appears to not even be a relationship because they're so distant from each other, is the first yud and the last hey, the father and the daughter, Abba Yasabarta, Right?

So this is what Rabinathman is introducing us into, the relationship between chachma and Malchus.

How do we draw Ayin, divine nothingness, wisdom, contemplation into this worldliness?

This world is Malchus.

This place, this encounter, that's the place of Malchus.

It's the place of Tefilla.

Rabbi Nachman is introducing us to how to draw Chachma Divine wisdom, divine nothingness, infinitude into Tefillah itself, into this world itself.

Why is Rabbi Nachman implying at the beginning that the main thing is that the Tefillah be answered and that the way in which you answer the Tefillah is through Torah?

Which implies what?

That chachma is needed in order to activate malfu.

But malchus seems to be most important.

And the truth of the matter is that that's the deepest secret in the world.

There's nothing more important than embodying and inhabiting this world with divinity.

The main goal is for our tfilos to be answered.

The way in which we do that is we draw chachma into our malchus, into this worldliness.

The concept of.

So he made the Rabbi Nachman here directly expresses there's two categories of tila.

There's tfila and bakasha.

So it would imply that even the tefilla that's not rooted in the human bakasha is still contained within the realm of Tefilla.

As Rabbi Nachman explains in the Second Day of the Seven Beggars, that even when we're praising something in this world, it's through the contrast of the opposite of something that's praiseworthy.

And so no matter what our Te is rooted in, it's still rooted in the human condition.

And if it's rooted in the human condition, then by definition it's going to be something that's kind of grounded in.

Does that make sense?

Meaning there's gradations in Tefillah.

Obviously.

That's not.

That's not.

There's nothing in tefilla.

Turning to what Rabbi Nachman is going to reveal to us throughout the sefer, is that tefillah is ultimately going to be much higher than Torah.

The job is to transform all Torah into Tefillah.

Because the goal is.

The whole purpose of this book, in one way or another, is to teach a person how to talk privately, talk in their own language.

That's the unity of Torah and Tefilla, where all of the things that I thought today, all of the thoughts that went through my mind today in the aspect of Torah, are now being expressed by way of personal outpouring of my soul to Akadosh Baruch Hu.

So there's a unity of Torah within Tefillah that's going to be higher than the level of tefila that we're describing here.

Meaning that's the.

That's the radical thing is we're going to see for Rabbi Nachman, he's ultimately saying in this first paragraph that through Torah all of your tfilos are going to be answered.

That's, that's contrary to what most people were saying at the time or what the Torah has really oriented us to, which is that Torah is the main thing.

Tefillah is a byproduct of the human condition that you have to engage in.

But the main thing is to learn Torah and the main thing is to not be bothered with your own stuff.

Rabbi Nachman here is saying that the entire purpose of the Chachma is ultimately to have your telos answered, which is turning the entire system on its head, showing that that which is lower is in truth going to be rooted in the highest place.

He says it more explicitly elsewhere in in Mayan y that there's a tila that gives birth to Torah and there's a Torah that gives birth to tila.

That's why in the story we see what do we have more than davenant learning and davening.

At first glance there's a lower level of davening which seems lower than Torah.

And then you enter into this place of wisdom and Torah.

But then the goal of Torah is tila to transform all of our lived knowledge.

Like the Ramban writes in Igaras Ramban that after you're done learning anything, stand up and daven to Akadosh Baruch Hu.

To take something practical out of it.

This is the whole, this is what's unique about the Torah of Rabbeinu is that it's a Torah of being human.

It's a Torah that reveals to us that specifically down here in our physical avoda, in our hispoidas, in my isolation and bringing to Hashem everything that I've gone through during the day, everything, sharing everything with Hashem, not being ashamed of anything, not being afraid of anything, having no busha in the face of a kadish Baruch Hu and talking to Hashem like a friend.

And talking to Hashem, the way that I speak to someone in my most vulnerable state, that is the apex and the purpose of existence, to be human down here to Daben.

Yes.

And so it's through the Torah that feel is going to be answered.

The chain and the hashivas is malchus gracefulness or finding favor, finding something to be valuable.

Those are judgments of this worldliness.

Those are categories of what's valuable or what's unvaluable.

Right.

Those are economic terms, those are judgment based orientations.

So this world can either be a place that's defiled and ugly and disgusting, or it can be something that's beautiful and conveys a deep sense of meaning.

Just as Malchus is low and it appears to be nothing, it's devoid of chain.

If we want this world to shine forth in its vibrancy, if we want to walk around in this world feeling that there's significance to my life and what I go through, and that as a Yid, I can walk around with courage, with the knowledge of what I am and who I am, it's only through drawing the Torah down into Tefillah that not only will your tefilos be answered if you draw Chachmah and Torah into them, it will also elevate chain and Hashivas.

It will allow this worldliness, Malchus, to shine forth with the brilliance that truly belongs to it.

The goal of Akadosh Baruch in this world is Malchus on its own is Noga.

It's a.

It's a middle ground.

There's no judgment on it.

Left to its own devices, it can become very ugly very quickly.

If human beings had refined things and.

And we hadn't partaken from the, it would have grown into Ganedan.

But now this world by nature is a neutral thing that more often than not is defiled.

Right?

We all know this, that to be human is to live in a state of defilement in one way or another.

The question is, how do we restore the true luminosity and light that Akadosh Baruch Hu wanted to reveal?

In this world prior to creation, the only way to illuminate Malchus is by drawing Chachma down into it.

Because the only way to illuminate this world is to realize that in truth, it's fundamentally continuously rooted to the infinite light that's revealed in Khafma above.

And so this way of having your Teflos answered is also another way of saying that you want to illuminate Malchus.

You want to illuminate this worldly condition.

You have to draw Chachma down into it.

It's the whole thing.

That's what we said.

It's the entire.

It's the entire thing.

The Rebbe says that this teaching is setting the stage for all of the teachings in the Kuta Maran, which is coming down from into Bina in order to reveal Kesser, coming down from Torah into Tila, to be able to reveal the secret of turning your Torahs into tilos, which brings the greatest level of pleasure and joy to our Kadish bar, to elevate the human condition and to reveal that only by way of being human.

Do we have the capacity of revealing far more than what the Malachim could ever conceivably reveal?

I think infinity in this essentially plays itself out via flywheel concept.

It's adding each time.

Ravava and Ben Ravanachim explicitly states this, that this is an endless process.

Person has to perpetually be drawing down infinite light into the vessel Torah down into Tzila, davening for it, and then realizing that what I previously thought was my grasp of Torah pales in comparison to my next level of grasp.

Because a person, that's the wisdom of Hasidus and Kabbalah, that the Chachma, the Ayin that I thought I grasped was minimal compared to the next level of grass.

The same way true chadushe Torah revealed to a person that I thought I knew the Torah, but obviously I didn't.

Not that I'm pastel to Rishonos, undoing them, but in relationship to the endlessness of it all, there's literally no limit to the.

To the work of spiritual growth.

And I think.

I think also, like, let's say you have any software, you have, like, not in this reality, like you said, in this reality, you need sort of one man and an opportunity to sort of grow.

You need that constant.

This is the fluctuation.

The fluctuation, the fluctuation.

That's the secret of chain.

And ultimately, like you're saying, it happens rapidly enough that it merges into something new, which is the tav.

And what does a tav mean?

It's vitvisa tav.

There's an engraving that's taking place.

And so after the friction is relationship between nothingness and something, ideals and self, right.

Once I spark that process enough, I begin to create Rashimon, right?

Tav is roshem la'.

Atikim.

And I begin to create a space in which I can have a spiritual identity.

And my chain begins to grow, and I begin to feel confident with myself.

I no longer see myself as only and strictly a physical entity, which, left to our own devices, we know where we come from, we know where we're going.

It's enough to cause a person to go mad.

The only way in which the human being can properly inhabit this world is to draw the infinite wisdom down into the external shape of this world.

And that's drawing Torah down into Tzila.

So that's.

But that's what he said.

Meaning it's surprising to see, exactly like you said, theoretically, Malchus should be going all the way back up to Chachma So if you want to learn Torah, well, then Davenport.

But here Rabin Ahmed is saying the opposite.

If you want your davening to be in this kabel, learn Torah.

Because really, the deepest secret is the relationship between chachma and malchus.

That chachmah descends in order to reveal the light of godliness, specifically down here in this world.

That soif maase, which is Malchus, is rooted.

It's the first thought that Chachma has.

It wants to reveal itself down here.

Ah, but down here is so much lower than up there.

And I thought my job is as a spiritual creature is to schlep this world back up to shamayim.

That's only half of the story, because first I have to schlep shamayim down into this world, then bring this world back up to shemayim, then shlet more shamayim down into this world until I create the refinement necessary for melech hamashiach to be in a scholar.

The way I think about tefila, you know, the Gemara says that, I mean, there's many ways to think about tefillah, but the ikarim, the sefer ikarim says that the fundamental role of tefillah is to recognize our dependency on God, to realize that we are deficient creatures in need of the fullness of godliness.

And that's how Ravavram Ben Ravnachman is going to explain it.

Ravavan bin Ravnachman describes that this Malchus, this Tefilla, what is it?

He says it's kisaron itself.

The reality of lack, the reality of deficiency, the fact that there is emptiness in this world, that is the vessel necessary to draw the light of godliness down.

And so a shifting of perspective is certainly one of them.

But also, tefillah works.

You know, I might not have personal evidence of tefila working in the way that I assume it to work, for example, but we believe very deeply, I mean, we're learning a book here that believes very deeply that tefilla can change the teva of the matziyas.

Whether the teva of matzias is my own consciousness.

That's.

There's a lot to be said about that.

Right, but.

But like with that, as Rabbi Nachman said, when he goes out for an hour of hispoidas, when he comes back, the world has changed entirely.

So what has changed?

Perhaps nothing has changed other than the inner frequency.

Right.

The Gemara says that Rabbi Akiva would start off in one corner when he was davening shemaine asrei and by the end of his tila, he found himself in the other corner.

So I think of that as, like, vantage points, right?

Like the corners represent, like a Karen zavit, like a way in which I look.

And so I start off in one way, and then by the end of my Tefillah, I should be able to look at the circumstance differently.

But as the Tzadikim, you know, there's a lot of suffering that needs to have a sweetening, and there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of poverty and sickness and pain that without relegating it to a shift in consciousness, needs kind of actual fixing.

You know, that's the Tzila of the Tzadikim, but Amikulam sadiqim also.

So I think it's both and always.

So I'm wondering if it is a.

If it is correct or appropriate to say that the relationship between Torah and Tevila is finest.

If you go through this cycle of Torah, teela, tort, fila, does it become something where what you're really experiencing in the real way that you're relating to Hashem through either, both Torah and Teva, is in some way something bigger than either?

Because, you know, I feel like it's a bit dizzying to think this, but, you know, if you're davening there, if you.

There could be a sense in which that itself is a.

Is a Lima Torah and the sense.

In which Lima Torah can be davening.

But you standpoint, it's something that you can't really put.

It's the third, right?

It's exactly.

It's Torah and Tefillah together.

It's what Rabbi Nachman describes as turning your Torah into Tefillah, which is also why he's starting with Tehillim.

Because Tehillim is David Malka Mashicha.

It's Torah that is Tefillah.

There's no other book that Torah is Tefillah.

In Sefer Tehillim, and Rabbi Nachman writes that this is the Hispoidus of David Amelech, that it was Hispoid.

This is not just davening.

His point of this can be narrative description simply of what I went through today.

What is it that happened?

What were the events?

What was my.

My Suboratius, what was my Shamos, what was my Vayikra, my Bamidbar, my Devaram today?

And suddenly, like you're saying, the blurred boundary between these two modalities of spiritual experience are ultimately revealing the hidden third, which is the unity of both of them.

But that's the very architecture of the whole process.

We go from Torah, from Chachma down into Tefilla, into Binah.

But the only purpose for that descent is to reveal kesser, which holds Chachma and Binah together as one right phrase differently.

It's like you're going from Ayin from nothingness, the contemplation of divine will into Ani, dealing with like selfhood and all of my stuff.

And at first glance those appear to be contradictory and paradoxical to one another.

But the goal is ultimately to come to a place of realizing ani vayin b'.

Vasakhas.

There's self and no self at once.

And that's what's happening.

It's exactly right.

And so we see we're being, you know, inoculated at the very first paragraph of this sefer with the most potent formulas available in kit vah' ari in the writings of Rashby, which is the secret of that the human being has the ability to reveal more down here than we would be capable of revealing above.

And that's where the chain va khashivas comes from.

Because is when I could walk around and there's a certain shine that's coming out of my day to day life.

All things shining is a very subtle thing.

Hashem, all of this farm point out is not like oh, this is so obviously wonderful because if it was obviously wonderful, it wouldn't need, it wouldn't need grace or favor in order to be responded is when there's at first glance an external reason for kind of pushing something away, an initial sense of almost like disgust.

And then there's something that overwhelms that and allows favor and grace to enter back into the scene.

So as we're going to see, the chain is only by tehila.

You don't need chain by Torah because the Torah is already revealed in all of its brilliancy and all of its colors.

It's only by the Tefillah that we have to figure out how to re establish the cheyn and the Hashivas of this world.

So he saysrichim, hein Baruchni hain begashmi.

Right?

Baruchani might mean the shift of consciousness.

Begashmi means the fact that, you know, we find favor in, in world leaders and the, the, the historical materialistic process of politic.

Right.

There's endless situations where the chain that an actual ruler leader will have in the natural world, in the political world will have on clay Israel.

That's you know, difficult to understand in any other way than the tefila of clay Israel.

But it's an awakening of the true form of this worldliness.

Malchus is not revealed.

This world is not revealed to be the garden of Akadosh Baruch Hu.

It doesn't show itself as a deer betaftaynim.

It still appears to be a jungle and not a garden, as Levavitcher Rebbe said.

Right then, that's the result of avanosena horabim.

Not our avonos, our avonos add to it, but avanosena rabim, the chate of the eight sadas.

But the odun is there.

It creates this distortion of reality where this world feels hard and difficult and painful and a person wanders around in their own frequencies of not knowing and this and that.

The reason for that is because the chain and the hashivas, the true luster and shine of what this world should truly be revealing, is hidden.

It's fallen.

It's not gone.

It's fallen.

Hanofeles Malchus falls.

Raglah yardumavas, the legs of Malchus dangle into the territory of death.

There's nothing more defiling of meaning than death itself and absence and the possibility of disappearance.

But that's the nature of the world.

Ki ach shav kids.

Right now the ikar hashivus of this world is etzlum everywhere but the Jewish people.

The world has not yet revealed itself to be the garden of God.

The Jewish people have not yet revealed themselves to have the most potent element in all of existence, which is mishmash Yisroel.

The Torah itself is still contained in the boundaries of the way that it's taught, in unhealthy ways and negative ways and angry ways.

Tefillah is still taught in these twisted kind of vending machine type modalities of spirituality where our struggles are blamed on us rather than opening ourselves up to this ahava that covers over all things, right?

The chain and the hashivas is etzlum.

The Torah has lost its brilliance, Tefila has lost its brilliance and this world has lost its brilliance.

And right now everything else seems to be significant.

Materialism, probabilities, provabilities, all of the things other than Emunah aval.

But through the Torah, which is chachma, Right?

By drawing chachma down into Malchus, by allowing meaning and endlessness to inhabit the external shell of this world, to draw divine wisdom of nothingness into my day to day self consciousness, that's what's going to allow this world to be filled with that soft light.

Of chain and hashibus again.

That's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to restore this place into its true original form of Adira Betheinim Sula Bhavacherabi's first mimer.

It's Basilagani, right?

That originally the Shekinah was in Ganedan, and then the Shekhinah slowly but surely was dispelled and exiled one level after another until it went upwards back to all of the rakios.

And this world appears to be a jungle, worse than a jungle.

But the job of Nishmas Israel, of Baati Lagani, is to draw the Shechina back down.

And when the Shekhinah is drawn back down into the vessel of Malchus, into this world, all things shining.

And Heid has the capacity of microdosing this even before the rest of the world is aware of this.

Talking about a personal process of drawing chachma and bittle down into Malchus.

It's through the Torah that the chain and the hashivas of the Israel, of this world begins to shine again.

Why?

Because the Torah is called ayelet havim viyalat khain.

It's explicitly referred to as something that awakens chain.

The Torah does not need chain.

Like we said, Chachma doesn't need fixing.

Up there in the Ayin, in the world of Atzilas, everything is fine.

There's no problem.

The Torah is not struggling.

The struggle is down here in the world of Tefila, in the world of Chayisha, where a person feels that it's empty and it's heavy and my words are heavy and it's meaningless.

The Torah is the way that we're maale khayn within mawruss.

How?

By drawing Chochmah, drawing the yud, chochma Kaduma of the awareness that everything is einu and chachma is bitto.

The true form of what chachmah means is bittle in the face of, or ein sof.

That's what Torah lishma means, to be masdafik oneself to the giver of the Torah.

If a person lives with that consciousness in the thickness of this world, and the chain and the hashivas of this world begins to shine.

Because you could be in line at a grocery store, you could be in a traffic jam, you could be in a fight with your spouse, you could be struggling with your children, you could be struggling financially.

But if you're living with the mindset of Yudchafma kaduma which is Bitul be'mitzius.

So then there's a chain in a hashivus that shines forth.

Rabbi Nachman is not lying.

He's not saying there's a Simcha Arblidai that emerges, that you sweeten all judgments.

That's not what he's saying here.

He's saying there's a subtle glow of chain and hashivus and purposefulness and meaningfulness that begins to flow back into existence again.

This is what the first Torah is teaching us, how to rehabilitate a world that externally has lost its meaning, where it appears empty.

My tefilos are not being answered, and all I'm hitting is the ground.

Rabbi Nachman is giving a very, very powerful eitza that all of the Mikbalim have given through the bittle of Chachma, which is the Torah.

You reawaken the vibrancy and the potency of what this world is actually capable of revealing.

And Chazal tell us that those who are learning the Torah, there's an awakening of chain and a gracefulness and a pleasantness within the individual who's learning again.

The Torah doesn't need the king.

It's the learner that needs it.

Once you've reestablished the sovereignty of the Shekhinah down here in the world of Malchus, so then Avada Tefila begins to be answered.

Because what's the goal of tefila?

The goal of Tefila is to be.

The goal of Tefillah is to be dovik to Hashem.

So Maisa.

And then I'll take more questions.

I don't know.

Where are we holding in time?

Oh, good.

Okay.

So.

So then I probably don't even have time to answer a question properly.

This is a story about the Hiligatzadik Rafila Paracher.

And Rafila Paracher never met the Tsemach Tzedek, or he wanted to meet the Tsemar Sadiq for the first time.

And so he was trying to find a wagon driver who would take him to Lubavitch.

But they all knew that hill Parach Davins for hours and hours and hours.

And so nobody really wanted to commit to driving him because it was going to share their entire day until there was one driver who basically said, you know, Rapillel, I'll take you as long as you probably promised.

You'll do your avoda when you get there.

You'll daven long when you get there.

But don't hold us up.

Let's get there on time.

Rafila promises that's what he's going to do.

But the first stop by Mincha Rafila goes into his pasta Sagashmius and Davin's like a two hour Shimon Essre.

And at the end, the wagon driver is like, what happened here?

And he says, let me give you a muscle.

A person once a year gathers all of his fares in order to go and sell them by the arid sell them at, you know, at the shop in order to make his money for the year.

But suddenly, as he's walking out of the door, a GVIR walks over and he says, I want to buy all of that off of you.

So what's the person gonna say?

Is he gonna say, no, I have to go to the fair in order to sell them?

No, he's gonna sell immediately.

Says, why am I going to the tzadik?

Why do I want to go to the Tzemach Sadiq?

Because I want.

But if the opportunity appears right in front of me to daven, so what am I gonna do?

Wait and not do it right now?

So that's the avoda of Tvekos, Tefillah being this kabel, through the recognition that a kadish baruch hu is fundamentally present.

And next week we'll go viter and we'll see how Rabbi Nachman is going to now hone in not to the tefillah element, but what chachma actually means.