#Breslov #LikuteyMoharan #UmanRoshHashana

In 1958 a twelve-year-old boy asked his mother if he could daven Rosh Hashana with the Breslover chassidim on the Lower East Side. She said no.

So he went to the Mir, and he closed his eyes, and he imagined himself standing with them. And then he asked Hashem for one thing: that next year he should be by the Rebbe's tziyun.

This was Cold War Russia. There was no getting into the country, let alone to Uman. Nobody was talking about Uman at all. He got there in 1969.

That boy was the maggid shiur's father. The letter he wrote about it — to Moshe Yaakov Eisner a"h, an elter bochur already learning in Eretz Yisrael — turned up years later.

Part 1 of Torah 4 at Breslov New Hempstead, given 16 Elul, exactly two weeks before Rosh Hashana.

"WHO SAYS?"

The shiur opens on a question from the room, and the answer goes straight at the word itself. Who says Reb Nachman is true? Who says the Tikkun HaKlali works? Who says Reb Noson didn't write Likutey Moharan himself?

The word "who says" is already kefirah. Because "who says" means: I do not want to believe, I want to understand.

And the first platform of Yiddishkeit is not understanding. It is belief — and belief means I do not understand. Only from that platform does Hashem give the matanah we ask for three times a day: da'as. You start understanding from the platform of not understanding. Tachlis hayedia shelo neida.

Which is the whole problem of this Torah, because Torah 4 opens k'she'adam yodea — when a person KNOWS that everything that happens to him is for his good. Knowing, not believing. The Rebbe never says the word emunah here. And yet the entire mechanism that gets you to that yedia runs through emunah and through vidui devarim to the tzaddik.

THE TRAILER

Everybody has had the moment: that was Hashem. That was clear Hashem.

That moment is a sneak preview of a trailer of a tiny piece of the movie. Because for that one thing to happen to you at that hour, the whole briah had to be built a certain way. The dots go all the way back to brias ha'olam — and you will never see far enough back to watch them connect.

ROSH HASHANA ON SHABBOS

Two weeks out — and really two weeks to the second day, which is when the ungezetzt actually starts. The first day everybody is still excited. The second day your head is already leaving, and you start asking: what did I do here? What did I get?

A year when Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbos has no shofar and no tashlich the first day. October 7th was such a year. COVID was such a year. And so were good years.

So what makes the difference? Not the answer you would expect — the answer given here is about what you bring, and why you came.

MEN HOT ZICH GEFREGT

And then the thing the maggid shiur heard from his shver in the name of Rav Gedalya Kenig zecher tzaddik livracha, about the years the tziyun was shut and there was not even a minyan there:

מען האט זיך געפרעגט דער רבי רשות פאר מען האט פארמאכט

They asked the Rebbe's permission before they closed it.

Sit with what kind of emunah says a sentence like that.

Also inside: the kibbutz on 16th Avenue and 55th Street, fifty or sixty men, and a father telling his son the whole world is going to come — while the son, embarrassed, looked around the room and counted. Reb Shmuel Breines and the Breines boys before Ne'ilah, and Likutey Tefillos ayin-vav, and being told that if you say it you will stand at the tziyun next year. Reb Tzvi Aryeh Rosenfeld's Talmud Torah for boys who went to public school, and what came out of it. The Rebbe and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai — mi ron, who will sing when they cannot come to me — and ani ron. And 216 years later, fifty thousand people, thirty hours of travel, to a town in the middle of nowhere.

יא געדאווענט נישט געדאווענט, יא געשלאפן נישט געשלאפן, יא געגעסן נישט געגעסן — אבי זיי ביי מיר ראש השנה.

He is not asking for your feelings. He is not asking for your da'as. He is asking for your presence.

Part 2 goes inside seif ches.

#Breslov #LikuteyMoharan #RebbeNachman #RebNachmanOfBreslov #Uman #UmanRoshHashana #RoshHashana #Torah4 #AnochiHashem #Emuna #EmunaPeshuta #ViduyDevarim #Tzaddik #Chassidus #NewHempstead #Shiur #TorahShiur #TzviAryehRosenfeld #GedalyaKenig #Elul #JewishSpirituality