Rabbi Jonathan Rietti & Rabbi Chaim Kramer - A Fire Burns in Breslov

everyone please find your seats we're going to get started let's go tonight's lecture is being sponsored by me and my wife as this host for the aliyah of the neshama of mordechaitzvi our first cousin mutty cast who unfortunately passed away at a very young age just a couple weeks ago from los angeles mutti was a friend of ours besides being our cousin and he really enhanced the community of los angeles and really all of claudia stroll in such tremendous ways and it's an honor for us to be able to do something small as an aliyah for his neshama it's also as close to see so many people come out of their homes on a weeknight to be inspired by the words of rebechman by two very prominent breast lift speakers our first speaker tonight is rabbi jonathan riyetti originally from england whose thirst for tyra brought him to rabbi kramer who's he's been rabbit kramer's talmud for 45 years and he's been teaching many people all over the world he's now a renowned speaker how to live a true torah life hi beretti [Applause] thank you shimmy for your kind uh introduction and uh and sarah for uh inviting us to your home tonight um the only reason i'm speaking before my rabies because my republic told me that i should speak first so i'm stuck can you hear clearly um could i trouble you to turn your cell phones on to vibrate out of respect to those who are trying to fall asleep knew some people might laugh because they thought i was joking uh this is this very special occasion it's uh the week of the yacht site of ravnasan zal ravnatson of nemarov who without him himself foresaw that not a single page of his teachings would remain if it weren't for renassen so it's quite extraordinary that there are so many hundreds of thousands of jews around the world and more non-jews as well who relate to rab nachman it really ought not to be surprising because nachman himself foresaw this but that was 200 years ago but fast forward to today with the incredible variety of mindsets cultures religions family dynamics there's every single person in this room is different and you are here with your different mind and yet there's something that's extremely generic about the teachings of nachman that speaks literally to every human being my simple understanding of that is because he touched on in his short lifetime on god's reality and that is his body do it to be close to hashem by having a relationship with oneself in the presence of god le hit boded is reflexive which means to be alone with oneself and there's a very big difference between lonely and alone is lovato hey i slavade which is the expression god said that it's not good ly type heyos adam lavarde refers to a person not being lonely meaning without themselves what's it mean for me to not know myself i'm so busy with my career with family i'm so busy oh sorry uh distracted by various technology technological devices is it possible that i have no time for me and what would that time be most valuable for a relationship with myself and i think what rav nachman did was open up for us a phone call and you might want to if you don't write this down you can memorize it because it's a very easy number to remember um this is the phone number of a therapist that can help you for anything and it's 1-800 almighty rav nachman put this back on the map and so that's god's dictionary that's god's reality he also identified that nakutos tavis now a nakuda is a dot and every letter that you write has to begin with a dot so when you're writing with your pen or pencil you begin literally with a dot and then as you continue the curvature of the letter it's really a continuity of one long dot but each dot counts because without it you can't count the whole letter and what he told us to do is celebrate small in his expression abyssal is good that's one of the few words i know in yiddish a little is also good and my simple understanding of that is it's huge one good thought is huge why is it so huge so i'm gonna ask you honestly if a person is on their deathbed god forbid and the only way we could keep him alive for one more second would be if everyone in the room were to be mikhail shabas violate the shabbos would we have an obligation to save this person's life for one more second and the only way to do that would be to violate shabbos yes or no if it were theoretical theoretically speaking if the only way to save this person's life for one second would be if every jew in the entire world had to be mikhail shabas husband but had to to save his life for one second and break every mitzvah in the turret except for three would we be obligated to violate the entire terror minus three mitzvahs and sharpest to save this person's life for one second yes or no so the question begs what could one second be worth on one side of the scale that would outweigh all the mitzvahs that we're not doing and all the barriers that we are doing to save his life for one second what could he possibly accomplish in one second and the answer is for those still awake one here of teshuva excellent 10 points for gryffindor one thought i wasn't expecting anyone to get that one thought of teshuva would be worth coming into this world because in god's dictionary abyssal is that good now a little bit is also good doesn't mean a little bit good it's huge and if only i could hold on to the thought that every word of governing counts every word of our personal 1 800 almighty session with the ultimate therapist makes a difference if only i could hold on to the belief that every smile to one spouse to one's children makes a difference ravnathan came to give us god's reality now we already have it in the torah but it happens to be that he himself made the claim that my fire will last till mashiach in the sense that the generations prior to and including when mashiach comes are going to need a certain emphasis in certain areas in order not to be shaken by the confusion we are going to be exposed to or perhaps you may argue we are already being exposed to and that confusion is dissipated from one word emunah if you want to get a little bit more sophisticated emunah tamimus not sophisticated in munna 100 percent certainty god knows what he's doing and in that sense i think rabindra's alder if nothing breslav gave us the clarity to know that you are perfect by design to handle this world those are my words but it's really what ravnathan says in his message in terror 46 in the second part of the qutim iran he tells us that nobody will ever get an asylum no one will be ever given a test that is too heavy to carry that's beyond their cohort or beyond their strengths or they couldn't stand up to that's simply impossible god doesn't work that way we are perfectly every person in this room every person listening to this every person who's not listening to this by default is designed perfectly to handle this world what gets in the way so i'm going to suggest that what uh one possible answer that the renault would tell us is what gets in the way when i get myself down what gets in the way of me being basimka what gets in the way of me holding on to god is good all the time hashem is one of the expressions rav nachman would say god is good all the time so what gets in the way of that clarity and then me falling or being down on myself because the marriage is not always that easy and extended family are not always that easy to get along with especially my father or my mother in law sorry just swallowing just one i'm sorry i need a mother-in-law joe my mother-in-law came to visit um a few hours drive and she parks in the driveway just i'm going out to minka and i say oh hi mother-in-law um wasn't expecting you uh how long are you staying with us this time she said well as as long as i'm welcome i said oh so you're not staying for coffee pure humor no reflection on reality whatsoever what gets in the way of god's clarity that he gives through the torah through his sardikim in every generation and especially through rabindrazal of nahum bressler and i think i think one of the answers is something that took place in a conversation that the ravnasan his main student had with him on more than one occasion himself records the conversation in 506 in kaiye moran which is a tremendous almost encyclopedia so to speak up it's just one volume but it has hundreds and hundreds of anecdotes and statements that when one reviews you you just dig out more and more each time so i'm going to share with you that rav nassen himself by his own admission in his tether in his nature was a thinker and possibly even an overthinker and that when it came to the performance of mitzvahs um he sometimes had doubts as to whether he was performing it to its fullest and this is someone who already before he met rob nachman was already bucky bakki had a mastery of sukhana so it wasn't as though he didn't know what the halacha was it was more have i fulfilled the at its optimum according to all opinions and so the language he describes here in his concern for his performance am i pleasing god enough in his words to raven he said there was one time i was speaking with of nachman me inyan marshava's with regard to many many thoughts hamilton's oc that confused me me indian maharashtra asia's mitzvahs in the arena of getting down on myself when it came to doing whitman's he gives the example of netilat i had all sorts of concerns and those thoughts kept knocking on my mind they were confusing me the haitian lee and rav nachman responded to me i've already spoken to you on this subject you don't need to look at this you don't need to reinquire don't need to analyze do the mitzvah and celebrate in that regard in that moment and move on but don't overthink what was nussen's response he is his his terror coming through again and what was that ever he would think about things but to the point of overthinking so he then said the amazing and then i said to him look um i see this itself that you're telling me i shouldn't think about it now i'm thinking about not thinking about it so that's also getting at me and i think some of us can really relate to this and then rav nachman close the subject with the following words the haitianly he responded to me don't begin thinking then wrote this is an amazing wondrous advice for everything not to overthink so i wanted to share with you a question i have not rev nachman says it's also in high run in memda paragraph 44 that your mind is created to never stop thinking you can't stop thinking and over here he's telling ravnasan the problem over here is that you're thinking stop the thinking it's not really uh steer a contradiction but i want to share with you with using a couple of props how we can better understand what we're talking about over here so for example we mentioned in term member that hashem will never give me an asylum this is my messiah what's my desire and my marriage my finances my health issues what my doctor is telling me about how i'm and a candidate for cancer government and and heart disease if i don't change my diet or exercise more take more care of my health um in this messian i'm carrying wherever i have to go uh all the concerns i have with my children and my mother-in-law my father-in-law and my caboosa uh the community my my boss my client my co-workers have i covered everybody so here's minus sign can you see minus sign i can listen it's a bit of annoying i've got to carry it wherever i go but god says says rabbanizal hashem will never give you a test that's too heavy for me to carry and that i'm not able i don't have the cajus to withstand because you and i have been perfectly designed to handle this world so what's the problem here's the problem i look at my neighbor and i just know i don't know what it is they have such beautiful children they are all so cooperative so helpful and respectful i just don't know where i went wrong i don't know what it is my spouse is so understanding and i look at my neighbors and got friends their spouse is so supportive in every way imaginable you know emotionally and they're just there for them and i just like i feel like i'm carrying so much and my boss you know i don't want to get into my boss but he drives me crazy i put the work of three employees in this company and he shows me no appreciation i i i'm so upset with him that most of my commute home i'm thinking about how my boss has no understanding of how much i do for this business and i go to sleep thinking about my boss and now i'm really i just came back from the doctor and he says that i'm like you're so stressed out he told me i'm gonna take dragon i just get to sleep at night [Laughter] it's getting too much i feel like life is just so overwhelming i don't know where to begin to turn myself around you have no idea what i'm going through and god's answer to me is reati i gave you this this is the problem not the messiah the nasoian you're already pre-designed to handle this world i would never put you in this world and with your parents and your siblings and in this marriage or your second marriage or with this mother-in-law father-in-law i gave everything perfectly designed and you are perfectly designed to handle it all this is not the problem it's my overweight thinking that's pulling me down oh sorbenzal is essentially telling us something which i think is simply profound it's profound but it's simple one thought makes all the difference but while i'm spending my mind on thinking about people circumstances unfair my neighbor this my neighbor that what's actually happening is i'm spending my mind which is the only friend i really have because my mind is mainshama in the lotion of ravnasan in the coutinho in the main person is the thoughts he has in his brain shihihana sharma oh your maya contains your thinking and your thinking is operated by your soul you're in the sharma so i better start getting on good terms with the only person i live with and that's me over here but when i overthink about my wife about my husband about my children about the career about my boss about my health about my learning career and i'll never become a time with her and i pull myself down and since i don't believe i'll ever become tom and tarkum why would i even bother to start and open up a safer and turn the page today and tomorrow another page and another page the next day oh so comes longer of nachman to tell me abyssal is like good count the small one little bit is also good because if i don't count one i'm not going to count two if the only thing that really counts you want to keep it there okay i'm just gonna get some more props hashem wants me to know where do i truly operate i only operate over here oh my gosh my wife's right it's empty all right now here is a snow globe i i didn't mean it to be particularly timely at this time of the year but here you've got a snow globe and let me ask you ladies and gentlemen is the sun always shining yes or no is it always shining yes or no yes no okay we've got it's a mark locust um even when it's a cloudy day and it's overcast is it still is the sun still shining yes or no absolutely and when you go above the clouds even on a rainy overcast day um and you get above the clouds you'll see the sun is always shining and and if it's nighttime that's fine you're just on the other side of the earth but is the sun still shining yes so what gets in the way and the answer is well the clouds can get in the way and i can i can stop seeing the light of my neshama that's shining all the time because your neshama can never be never dies it can never die you can't put a bullet through in the summer you can't put a sword through in the sharma the body can die but not the neshama oh that that continues forever and even the body is going to be reunited with the shama after trisam asim so the problem is not that the sharma has stopped shining but my cloudy thinking what type of cloudy thinking i'm worried am i being a good enough jew and ruben zelda if nothing came to help me pick myself up and say stay focused on the good because every thought that i'm bringing myself down with is wasting my ability to pay attention to the good that's always there because god is good all the time there's good in my life all the time there's what to be basing for all the time but the problem is not is the sun shining the problem is not is my sharma able to shine it's always shining so what gets in the way oh it's the cloudy thinking but as soon as we stop the cloudy thinking and if you want to check this out i think it's in torah yut in tanyana where robinson says the icca is the main real peace of mind or settled mind is when we are paying attention to why i'm in this world in the first place oh i'm not in this world for this world i'm in the world i'm here for preparation for the next and he says that's called especially freedom and when the mind settles can you see the sun shining can you see the sun i'm not sure if i've got this at the right angle can you see the sun shining yeah a little bit that way or that way lower thank you is that now can you see the sun shining it's always shining it's my cloudy thinking that gets in the way but the soul inside us is perfect constantly the problem is i outsource my happiness starting when i'm really young and if you take my teddy give me back my daddy my daddy and i get attached to my blanket my teddy but is it possible as i get older i've never said this in public but i had a teddy bear till i was 14 years old and when i went to my first sleep away camp i was petrified how there was no way i was not going to take my teddy with me but what on earth was i going to say to anyone who'd see that i've got my teddy with me so i'm not going to tell you what happened next but i i i relate to this this is my teddy he's got all my secrets and if you were to take my teddy or i can't find him was gone missing i would because what's happened to my happiness i've attached it to something outside of me but when i attach my happen to something outside me and i get older more sophisticated and i attach my happiness to my spouse and my health and when i'm healthy then i'll be happy when my spouse is more respectful of me understanding of me then i'll be happy but who defines my happiness me or my spouse in this new outsourcing it's not my teddy bear now it's my spouse who has to be a certain way or respectful or understanding or more sensitive and then i'll be happy in this marriage can you see what i've done my happiness is chained to something or someone outside of me but it happens to be i've got a few more chains my children you know one hour of your husband is more than i had in a lifetime to my parents and i chain myself to my kids that when they're more respectful cooperative then i'll be a happy parent i vay and my mind starts getting clouded by my job i hate my job i work so hard i would love it if i had a bit more appreciation and so i've got all these chains and guess what do these look light or heavy these are heavy chains and if i have to carry this around wherever i go omg i'm in trouble money i can't stop thinking how am i going to get out of debt how am i going to pay off some credit cards into this month and i worry and i worry anxiety fear frustration overwhelm worry about the future worry about covid vaccine no vaccine my mind is getting so flustered that no wonder the sun inside is not shining it's always shining but i can't see it who's blocking it i've changed my happiness to something outside of me so comes along robinson we've knocked on a breast lift and tells us something extraordinary mitzvah goodaila an aveda godzilla well you could argue an availa a really bad violation that would be something that gets mises based in death penalty or worse then the shama gets cut off karis what would be a mitzvah good oiler on the other side of the scale but refnagment hasn't finished mitzvah godzilla leo simcha whoa that's heavy and the the immediate question we have to ask is revenge lola master of the universe why why why is it that all the minor myths there's not one counts tarry entire yog there's not one that counts being basimka as a mitzvah out of all the target mitzvahs not the rambam say the kingdom follows the rambam um not safe he cannot tell us that it's a mitzvah to be basimka if simcha is ever something that's outside of me because the minute i've sold my simcha to a person or circumstance then it's the circumstance and the person who has to change for me the center and if they then change in some other way i'm there again and i'm chained and i think the simplicity of what nothing is telling us is i have to pay attention to the things i had nothing to do with how many of you in this room were conceived okay majority of you um how many of you your mother aborted you zero how many of you uh were a miscarriage zero you just won three mega naturals ask a gynecologist what are the chances of being conceived one in millions miscarriages that that's fairly frequent rahman islam not wishing it on anybody abortion happens you won three mega lotteries and a quick show of hands how many of you were actually born oh you won a fourth mega lottery and here comes the winner of all four and this is the fifth and robinson says whoa omg you're born a jew wow you had nothing to do with any of those five items and especially that you were born as part of a nation whose dna from avraham avinu and sorry menu is resilience you have resilience as part of your dna this is our national dna every jew has the same ability to stand up to whatever we go through but part of rav nachman's mission if you want to call it was to tell us god's reality [Music] it never existed not in history not now or ever in the future there's no such thing as giving up hope why not 1-800 almighty why not because every thought makes a difference one thought of hero teshuva is worth every jew theoretically speaking violating the entire terror except three to save this person's life what's his life worth one hero of teshuva gets eternity but i don't always think that way someone sent me a clip recently and even though the message was one that i've heard and even have taught this time it taught me that i've been talking about it but it didn't really penetrate and it was some talk show guy it wasn't even say whose name it was and he was he was offering to the people on his talk show there were two candidates there he said um if i gave you uh 10 million dollars would you get frustrated by anyone's provocation to anger over the next 24 hours or your mind would be on your 10 million dollars ladies and gentlemen help me if someone tonight gave you 10 million dollars cash would would you be good with that would you be happy would you be grateful yes or no would that last at least 24 hours if someone provoked you to anger it really wouldn't matter true or false listen to this blew my mind how he then gave the following clarity the only condition is that you can have the 10 million dollars but you will not wake up tomorrow morning dead any candidates here no he upped it to 100 million is there anyone here who would be willing to receive a hundred million dollars tonight but you don't wake up tomorrow morning nobody so his question was very potent oh so that means that waking up tomorrow morning is worth somewhere between 10 and 100 million dollars whoa see how much is life worth wow now this is not a guilt trip this is trying to point fingers in a direction of why am i here oh i'm preparing for eternity every here thought makes difference every smile makes a difference i believe this is part of what the yerusha if you want to call it over of nachman was rabbi zilberger or malek zlubuka from manchester un uh england he once um told a group of wrestlers who were learning in gateshead yeshiva he said breast love is not a hasidis i know i thought about it many times since then and i really really believe that he wasn't saying as acute expression the way he qualified it next made total sense and as you learn more over the years and experience more of life especially through the the books of ravnasan the kutihalakas sikha saran khaimran and especially the easy tarzan in the cotton rod those the only ones i could i i personally can really uh digest you start to realize that the second part of his sentence makes total sense breast lift is not a hasidis it really isn't it's a yerusha to clarithral it's an inheritance to the jewish people via a towering sadiq who understood the pulse rate of where the jewish people will be for the next few hundred years before masjid comes and prepared us with everything we need to plug into to not let go that god is with us all the time because god is inside us all the time in the words of nassen the main person is his thinking and that's taking place shiba maya which is in here hanashama that's your nashamah god is inside us all the time there's a similar terror like that in i think it's in kuflam zain and kuflam if you look there in tanyana the simplicity of this the god is with us wherever we go all the time and so god does not want me to give my key to happiness to anyone because you can't even if you think you have it's still that person never owns your happiness it's always here and therefore it is possible to hold on to happiness how far am i away from thinking a happy thought how far have you ever been angry with someone not you personally but have you got a friend or neighbor who's been really upset with someone you drive me crazy you drive me nuts i can't take it anymore now you know why i'm bold i gave you the best years of my life and one second later while i'm in rage the phone rings oh michael how are you really sure yeah i'll be there in five minutes awesome yes five minutes okay now how do i switch from [Music] outrage to taking the phone from michael i need to give you a little bit of a background michael's a client that i've been working on for a long time if i get this commission on this deal it will be equivalent to two-year salary i've been chasing him for months this is the first time he's calling me i'm in the middle of a rage with my wife or my kids or whoever it is and do you think i'll i'll i'll take the phone and say look i'm sorry this is a bad time i'll call you back later or will i go from you to me michael how are you yes in five minutes i'll be there this is where we operate it looks as though the world is happening outside in but rabinzar of nachman tells us again and again you know where we're really experiencing life over here so even though i think you've got the key to my habit give it back that's my that's my key that's my key to my happiness give him pain i want it back it's mine it's never lost not only is it never lost it's never damaged do you know why because it's always here the question is am i celebrating being alive being born a jew am i celebrating all the gifts god has already given me as david says until him i believe it's in chapter 4 verse 8 you've already given natate is lost in ava it happened already you've already given me the reasons to be happy believe me in my mind the moment we think it we feel it the moment we think it we feel it one hundred percent of what we're feeling is what we're thinking that's why the late really means both simultaneously as robin says on on the possum to it's what i'm thinking that's the battle that's where it's all taking place it's not outside in it's inside out and that's how we can understand how some of the greatest personalities in world history jewish and non-jewish not only surmounted their challenges but really became elevated because of them because it's not the challenge outside in that's the real challenge the real challenge is taking place in the mind i close there was a lady my wife and i met at a conference a few years ago she was in stage four cancer ninety six percent of nation of ladies that have this form of cancer don't make it after five years she was in a fourth fourth stage of cancer and she stands up on a stage and she's eight years into this cancer she gave a speech i memorized it verbatim because it only took about 10 seconds i'm going to share with you her speech blew our minds she said the following her name was wendy suggessy i have cancer i'm not cancer my body has cancer i'm not my body and of speech the rest of the 45 minutes allocated to her presentation was question answers and the most obvious question was how did you come to this clarity and she admitted that she was in and out of depression more more in the depression than out for four months after the initial diagnosis she couldn't get out of bed she could hardly sleep at night she was worrying i'm gonna die i'm gonna i was gonna be with my husband my two sons i'm gonna die i'm gonna die and then she realized something very interesting the cancer was a poison in her body but the thinking she was having about the cancer was poisoning her mind and she wasn't living while she was alive and it was in that realization she switched because this is where we are always operating whether we are aware or not that's the reality his body do it is one of the ways to get in touch with ourselves in front of our maker on a daily basis nikolas davis looking for the good holding onto a munna when it's not always easy these are just some of the menu that rav nachman offers when we look at his books study his works which what breslau research institute is all about providing for the english-speaking population and indeed many other languages too because it speaks the full gamut of all human emotion all human experience and it's in the merit of knowing that god never let go of us and he's always provided for us the greatest minds and righteous individuals throughout history and if you want to look at seeker surround that's of nothing's wisdom translated by rabbi kaplan no less it was his first book he ever translated and he credited all his success in writing because he translated ravnakman's wisdom as his first book so look at paragraph uh 307 and 308 where rav nachman says no matter how bad the world looks it's getting better all the time don't ever say the words the good old days and here we're living in cobaird and the aftermath of covet and all the confusion that spilled over from all the politics surrounding this none of us know what's tomorrow none of us really know what's going to be next year it's difficult to make plans and god is making it easier and easier for us to turn to him and if nothing says in that paragraph 307 308 god is making the world better all the time it's getting closer and closer to its final ticken in disgust in the merit of us knowing that god is good always and that we just are always one thought away one hero one thought away from plugging into the happiness that's already in our lives in our wives in our spouse in our house in our health in our wealth i'm a whole a poet and i know it in this course of knowing that god is everywhere all the time and his pointless is that master key we should have to see the common sheep from here are men [Applause] thank you very much rebetti august 6 1945 rabbi kramer my rebbe told me that he was born on august 6 and something else happened on august 6 we dropped the bomb on hiroshima so rabbit cramer says that his mother says two bombs were dropped on that day i would not have the audacity to say that if rabbit cramer did not tell that to me himself breast of research institute as rabbi riyadi just mentioned is the foremost authority on authentic breast lift teachings in english rabbi kramer himself has translated many of robin ashman's farm i believe 40 to 60 farm i don't know the exact count a lot of them are beautifully displayed on that graphic behind me it's really an honor there are the kramers with us tonight and without further ado at colin rabbit kramer okay he had props i also have props anyway i thank room shimon for that warm introduction it's true by the way i was born on that day i didn't cause the damage that the other bomb caused at least not yet um where could i begin i don't know it's a hard act to follow the only thing that controls me is that the gemara says that reviews said i've learned a lot from my rabbis i've learned more from my friends but i learned more from my students than i did from all of them so i have to thank rabbi rietti for teaching me how to speak publicly or a little bit anyway because i can't follow that act but we'll do the best we can he talked about the brain so i think she gave me a subject to talk about and let's examine the brain it cannot see you cannot hear you cannot smell you cannot touch you cannot taste the brain is just an organism it can't do anything it has sensors ears eyes nose mouth feeling these are senses that feed the brain and that's what helps the brain make its decisions and that's why we do what we do so let's go back and uh examine what review and they teach that you not just your brain is an organism but you are an organism and you have tremendous powers and tremendous koyak to do incredible things if you want to know how take a look at some of the people that accomplish things they just determined to do it right there was a fella what was the name ross the ibm guy who juan ran for president for ross perot right you ever hear of ross perot right he was born in poverty he lived in terrible poverty but he became the owner of ibm he ran for president of the united states a guy who was nothing but he became a great man in his world whatever his world was anyone could do that just have to try he believed in himself and therefore he did it so rabbi nachman tells us that you have to realize that you are a helicopter you have a godly spirit within you what does that mean god is all powerful 800 almighty right i learned that from my student right god is all-powerful you as a human being have incredible powers too because you're a portion of god you are a khelik of hashem so rabbi nachman teaches that in many of his lessons and ribnasan [Music] explains it in a short word and then we'll get a little bit into ribnasana but ramnasun explains that we have to have faith which we heard about before you have to have emunah what is emunah brimnotsun explains it as a four-legged table you need to have emunah in hashem after all he's the boss he created the world i believe in god you have to have a muna in the torah the torah is god's gift to us a god the word torah is like the word mare to teach to guide to show us what's the path in life a third stage a third leg of emunah is to have emunah in the true leaders there are false leaders and there are true leaders we have to look and search for the true leaders and that way we'll be able to understand who is teaching me how to come close to hashem but says renault that there's a fourth leg to emunah and if you don't have that one leg the other three won't matter too much to you what is that fourth leg of faith faith in yourself faith that you have tremendous powers you could recognize hashem right you who am i what am i what have i studied how have i grown up you could recognize hashem you have that power you have the power to accomplish that which you set your mind out to do you have that power so rabbi nachman it's not his your side we won't talk much about him even though everything goes back to ribbing ahmed but we'll talk about ramnasun renault was born on tu bishrat in 1780. he grew up in a family of misnagdam those who are opponents to khasiduv and he studied he was brilliant he knew all of shaas when he was in his like 20 shaas medrish zoya he knew the he was chosen he could have been a rough at 20 years old or maybe even younger in any city in europe but he felt he was missing something there's something in my life i have all this knowledge where do i go with it what do i accomplish with the knowledge how so i get up in the morning and and i serve hashem and i put on talos and fill and maybe i like candles friday night and maybe i do some other mixes where am i going with all this there's got to be a reason there's got to be some kind of draw some kind of power that gives me life the torah says this is your life and the length of days if this is what it is then where's my life what am i doing i'm existing is that what i'm all about to exist to get through the day right how many times do we get out on the wrong side of the bed and how many times do we get on the right side of the bed and we still mess up today so what it what is what is life regnussen was searching for that he was 22 when he met ribby nachman and he was so overwhelmed with the presentation that rabbi nachman gave him of what judaism is all about that he said this is my house this is where i stay the first thing or one of the first things rabbi nachman spoke to him about he took him out for a walk in the city he put his arm around him and he said you should know my dear friend that it's very good to talk out your heart to hashem every day just like you would talk out your heart to a good friend speak to hashem he's your best friend and ramnasan became so ignited by it he said i'm going to run through the streets and scream out this advice to everybody maybe knock him on how to restrain him he says you won't convince everybody stay back just do work on it on yourself so ramnasun became the breast of a hosta his family went bunkers is that the word that they use all right they went crazy here they snag them their opponents they hate the whole idea of khasidas are you becoming a bresliver the breslau then had a very degrading name attached to them called the vedu knickers because rabbin ahmed insisted anyone who comes to him confess confess what you did wrong i want to hear it it's embarrassing right i mean would any one of us think to go to somebody i want to confess right it doesn't happen ibn achman had this idea come to me confess all right we'll get back to this in a few minutes so ribbi nachman took ribenosan and he started training him teaching him talk whatever is on your heart everything is fair game everything that you think about oh yeah she ever tried that did you ever try do you know what kind of release it is to yell out oh right hashem where are you in my life you created me to serve you you created me as a human being where am i what am i accomplishing what am i doing with my life where am i speak it all out before hashem this turned renassen into the fiery breast of ahosa rivnos understood rebbi nachman he had his fair share of difficulties fights in the family and whatnot his father who had supported him because he was a genius and he even helped his father in his stores his father had several stores and businesses with nelson was a genius at that too and his father threw him out of the house you could no longer i'll support your wife but you get out you threw him out of the house right nothing managed and it took a year or two until this family father's friend said to him you got such a credible kid take him back in support him make him a partner in the business that he'll enjoy some of the fruits of your labor so he took him back in it took a while and how did it come about because rebel nelson said hashem you know how long it takes to be a real real jew for the time being i don't want to be bothered with parnosa i don't want to have to look for parnosa so you support me and let me become an elephant shortly after that feeler his father's friends got together and they got with nelson's father to help him out so rab nelson was able to study by rebbi nachman he would travel back and forth he lived in nemarov breslau was nine miles away horse and buggy right that's how they used to travel and he used to go there all the time six years later in 18 this was 1802 revenues writes in his diary he says you know what i just realized that rebbi nachman is not just my rebbe the ideas of rebbi nachman make him a rebbe for the entire world and he began to realize that and he began to record more and more of rabbin ahmad's teachings excuse me and the legacy that we have of verbenachmann is all from rubinosun mostly from 1808 till the end of 1810 when rabin akhman passed away this is rivnasan as a student ramnasan then took over the realm of the helm of the breslip khasidus and he was the one the driving force that brought out rebbi nachman's writings teachings he would print the books he began to build a shul in uman where rabbi nachman was buried and he led bresliver whatever you hear about the rest of today is all due to that one person rip nelson it's all due to him okay so let's go back a little bit and uh examine some of the things have any of you heard of the alcoholics anonymous yeah have you heard of the 12 steps yeah one of the 12 steps that the whole world talks about is confession admit what you did wrong right it's called honesty it's called being honest with yourself you did something good be proud of it you did something terrible admit it if you admit it maybe i should just stop and drink and forget about talking um thank you admit to yourself be honest with yourself where are you going in life right today the whole world buzzes with 12 steps right taught this 200 years ago over 200 years ago be honest with yourself confess right you don't have to admit it to the world but you do have to admit it to yourself you have to take your emunah your faith that you can accomplish but you can't accomplish if you're held back and fettered by the chains as we saw earlier by the chains of all the things that hold you back what hold you back the things i did wrong right what am i worth look with how i messed up my life no verb was teaching ramnasan from the beginning with the exploitation we're talking to hashem he says you have it in you just learn to condense it so that you could see what's wrong with you and then you could overcome everything that's going on in your life you can overcome right you can do it you can't accomplish you can do great things you may have heard of a fella called winston churchill anyone hear of him yeah he was a brilliant guy i happened to admire him a lot of things right he wasn't a jewish guy but he was a smart man and he once said 98 of the people in the world stumble over the truth right or well let's say a hundred percent of the people stumble over the truth pick themselves up and keep on going they leave the truth down where it is and they don't face up to it no was teaching us think about the truth now we'll go back to the brain the brain is the seed of the soul it's a medrush in the summer and the summer is in your soul in your brain right but there are several parts in the brain one is the intellect right you study as a kid you grow up you recognize colors green red blue whatever the case may be right you absorb this is what an animal is this is what a human being is this is what food is this is what different things that you absorb as a child all these things are called intellect that's intellect the things that we absorb and integrate in our minds from childhood but then there's another very important part it's called the imagination anyone here ever been in disney yeah all right he has this show i think it's an epcot i'm not sure he has this thing the imagination with the figment right that's the important part the figment of the imagination figment right and they that little character accompanies you as you go through the variety of whatever the case is i admit my sins i was there i enjoyed it but whatever the case is when you start thinking about the imagination what is the imagination right as a child i want to be a fireman i want to be a policeman i want to be an astronaut i want to be a ball player right i imagine that how many people make it right a football team right they can get 40 000 people to come down to a freezing stadium in the middle of the winter sit there with a blanket and with a thermos so you have a hot drink right all to watch 22 people running around on the field jumping on top of each other in order to get to the goal right i i i enjoyed it as a kid i admit that but hey this is isn't this a little bit crazy i'm going to be a sports player i'm going to the imagination if nelson writes about hilhus matana all the many other places he writes that imagination is the highest point of the physical world because you're sitting down and thinking right you're using whatever knowledge you have but you're conjecturing up things that don't yet exist or that you'd like to have you'd like to acquire in life you'd like to make it part of you you'd like to reach that goal that's the imagination it's the highest point of our physical world but it's lower than what true intellect really is true intellect is knowledge i know how many of us struggle and strive to know exactly what i'm supposed to be doing how many of us are able to really overcome yes this is an obstacle right there was a fellow uh famous inventor the lear william lear if you ever hear of him there's a learjet this guy is the only guy to build the jet that was not funded by the government right he did it on his own he was a kid they used to have radio tubes this big i remember them i don't think anyone else here looks old enough you know to remember those big radio tubes right okay and um someone came out with a tube that was only this big he says this is the smallest you'll ever be able to make a tube so bill leah was a kid and he made a tube that was half the size of that too that's the small the man was a genius right but he always said that i know i can do it right you take the imagination and you condense it to the intellect to know to know rabbi nachman and rabinowson throughout their writings tell you that your intellect is connected directly to hashem as we said earlier you're a godly portion from above you have that godliness in you right do you know it are you aware of it are you able to tune in to hashem that's in you in your heart right does anyone here want to hear a little kabbalistic teaching right you're interested in that okay there's the name of hashem the hummus uses it in next week's parasha in schmos i will be who i will be that's the name of hashem there's something in the kabbalah called achoraim acharaya means it's behind me i don't recognize it i don't see it because it's behind me right but remin ahmed brings down from the result he says take the name of hashem ekia and figure it out numerically take an aleph is one take the next letter hey right but go back and start writing alef and hey so now you have six with the one is seven right now go back and write the name alef hey ud right so aleph is one hey is five that's six and you is ten is sixteen sixteen with seven is how much twenty three okay for those who have difficulty you may have right i heard they have a new math these days you know whatever so for those who aren't familiar and then take the name ikea the whole name olive hey you're the hey it is up to 21. 21 and 23 is how much huh 44 right 44. the hebrew word for blood is what damn nam is a dollar 44. right the arizona is teaching us rabbi nakman stresses this in lesson six in the coutinho that hashem [Music] i want to be my whole being my whole desire my whole wrote of being of living in life right hashem is there in my bloodstream hashem is within me 24 7 in my blood telling me i want i want i want to be i want to become i want to accomplish and all of us have a want we all have a want because that's the lower soul the the shama is the highest soul that's your brain the lower soul the nephesh the measure says is in the liver that's your bloodstream that's what purifies your bloodstream so what you have is hashem hidden within your bloodstream 24 7. the nephesh the hebrew word nephesh means desire by avrom in genesis 23 right he says if it's with your desire and he uses the word nephesh so that nephesh means desire every single person has a desire for whatever it may be if it's the desire for money if it's the desire for immorality if it's the desire for depression to lay in bed the whole day it's a desire it's what you want at the moment and that is in your bloodstream you have to learn to take the bloodstream right and purify it with your intellect with the brain this is what rebbi nachman is teaching us the imagination is the most powerful thing jules verne conjectured a submarine 20 000 leaks under the sink right he had that idea of the submarine before anyone ever thought about making a submarine right imagination imagination it's powerful i can imagine myself as a good jew it's hard right there are things i have to overcome but i can imagine it and if i imagine it then i have to take my intellect my brain my unseeing brain my unhearing brain and i have to deliver to it the messages of what my brain wants to hear and what it wants me to accomplish in life so i have to listen to what people are saying i have to listen to what i'm saying to myself here's a commentary from rebnossen someone here may have heard it the other night i don't know but we'll see maybe he was sleeping at the time whatever but we say every day israel israel hashemble hashem all right here god is one so the governor is what is the word shema doing here your declaration is hashem the keno hashem what do you need the word for the gemara says two explanations one explanation of shema is let your ears hear what you're saying right why because when you hear something if you internalize it you bring it down to your heart and you let your heart hear what your ears are hearing then you say hashem hashem get it into you internalize it in your body in your soul that hashem another commentary the gemura offers is shema listen in any language that you could speak if you understand english you're allowed to say shma in english if you understand french or spanish or swahili you could say to shema in any one of those languages right so digimore offers two commentaries on shma ramnasan [Music] who felt hashem through rebbe nachman's teachings he felt him he felt part of him he says it's really one commentary if you're going to listen to what you're saying that hashem god is one you're going to internalize it then whatever you hear during the day you're going to get the message that hashem anything you come across during the day in business and pleasure whatever it may be right you're going to feel hashem this is what rab nusselman was trying to bring to us trying to bring to us acknowledge the knowledge not just the imagination but the knowledge that hashem hashem is with us 24 7. he's in our bloodstream right take advantage of it internalize regnussen right into your ideas to know that hashem hashem is always always with us he'll never abandon us that's the ideas that ribnasam called from rebbi nachman's teachings and uh give one short example reverence teaches in a lesson that the screener god's presence is in the depths it's concealed nobody really sees hashem in the world how could you elevate the shriners so that people could see it doing the mitzvos with simcha with joy with happiness be happy whatever you're doing be happy that you're doing it right and then he goes through a whole process teaching us how you go from level to level you can elevate the shriner till it comes to the point where it's manifest over the entire world okay now i'll admit rebbi nachman himself said that the lessons this lesson this teaching is so very very deep that how it can work that you you as an individual with your happiness could make it happen how ravenous and writes in the beginning of he says you the reader who's going to read what rebbi nachman said understand that these words were said to you you are the person who will make it happen you you can make the difference in the world you whoever you are wherever you are whatever situation you're in you are the person that can make the changes in the world just by being happy and doing what you can this is what reynoldson taught and we have a book called through fire and water through fire and water okay uh these are my props i'm sorry you understand but whatever it's uh the story of rebel nelson's life it's a biography it was written by one of the staff members of breast lift research institute and you'll find the difficulties that rebnossen faced during his life despite all the difficulties he overcame he left behind a legacy as you can see when i got into breast lift in 1958 i was a kid 12 and a half and i dived in and almost nobody heard of rebbi nachman at that time that was 1958 whereby nachman breast right they had a memorial here after 9 down uh the place where the world towers were knocked down they had a rabbi and a priest and a mufti whatever you want to call it each one had to speak the man chosen to speak was a reformed rabbi okay he gets up to speak and he said rabbi nachman of breast lift said the world is a very narrow bridge the main thing is not to be afraid this was a reformed rabbi at the memorial of the world trade center all right today the whole world knows of riviera last week i got two emails which really surprised me one was from some lady in california i think redwood city was the name of the place she said i went to rebbi nachman i mean i went i went to my doctor and he recommended that i buy a book called the empty cheer the empty cheer was put out by breast of research institute right and uh he shrieked he says it's amazing what rebbi nachman taught i'm a non-jew but these words spoke to me incredibly the next day i got another email from someone i don't know where and he writes i'm a non-jew i'm a noah hyde i'm a noah hyde so i want to know which books of verbee nachman i am committed am i permitted to read because uh i know that you're not supposed to teach terror so which books am i allowed i got these two mail last week i got the bill and i'll tell you interesting story about the empty chair the empty chair is a small book it's not here now but um it's uh statements of rebbi nachman it's about a hundred pages it's got on each page one or two sentences of urbinachman's teachings it's divided into different parts and whatnot i'm sitting in my office in yerushalayim and i get a call from the south korean embassy right the ambassador would like to come meet me okay so he comes down on the appointed date and i figure this guy will probably be on time and it's a couple of minutes late i'm uh you have to know my office to understand it's like in the backyard it's in a maksan what they call a cubbyhole right that's the international headquarters of rest of research those who have been there right you've never been there right whatever but there are a couple of bits a small place it measures from there to here right it's about five feet wide that's our headquarters all right so you should know that the money you donate to us doesn't go for luxuries it goes for actual printing the books at any rate so i go outside and i see this mercedes going back and forth in the street looking for the institute right we're in the backyard of someone and it was march there was rain there was mud on the ground but i called them over right this is the ambassador of south korea to israel and he comes into the office he's looking the institute right right what do you got here and he starts talking to me he says he was in the bookstore in israel there's a chain called slimetskys right steimetzky's bookstores they're known all over the country so he was looking for a book and he found this little book called the empty chair and he bought it because it was amazing book he said the book starts off if people would know what one of my lessons and the music and the dance that goes along with it they would go out of their world right he said since that day i dance every morning with my wife that's the first thing he says i read this book it's an amazing book i uh i want to translate it into korean yes i have the copies he printed it twice 6 000 copies right and uh he was so amazed by the book he knew it by heart if i mentioned one word he would quote me exactly from when one of the sayings in that book was a man was a bucky he knew he knew what the book what rebbi nachman was all about a couple of weeks later i get a call from the embassy the ambassador would like to take my wife and i out to eat with him and his wife so i know the koreans hate the chinese he says where do you recommend i said it is a chinese restaurant i did it purposely he said great uh we met here right and you know that there not every letter could be pronounced by the koreans the japanese and whatnot and it was very funny but i spent the whole night speaking about lebby nachman right that's that's the way it was but this happened for real right his name was dongsun park if you ever want to check him out but he invited me when he left the country i should come to be with all the ambassadors in his home in tel aviv right which i not for me anyway whatever the story is rebbi nachman this little book empty chair has been translated into 15 languages in german in french english by we started with that it's in hebrew it's in a sanskrit it's in czech it's in romanian it's in polish it's in catalin it's in portuguese i forgot the rest but it's amazing verbenachman today is all over the world it's due to redness if nothing was able to take the awesome lofty teachings of verbenachman and bring it down to us you can see part of it in this book through fire and water we're in the process of translating ribnasan's magnum alphas it's called the kutaya holt what ramnasan did was take a concept that's in she took a lesson of rebbi nachman and he wove them together in the most beautiful mosaic to explain what the torah is all about keep shabbos keep kasras is the body of torah rip nothing put a soul behind every allah every set of allah ramnasan was not only that his poitus pray it to hashem speak to hashem so rebnossen put out a book called collected prayers of ragnarosa what he did was take the lesson of verbenachmann and he wrote it down in prayer form we managed to loyal how could i get to this level we buddhist loyalty how could i fulfill this teaching we bonus delay them i'm so far from you what do i know what could i accomplish but you taught us through the tsadikim through the true leaders that there's always hope even for someone like me no matter what i did i could come back to you so renaults and wrote the kute trailers we are in the process now of printing they have these flyers in the back we're in the process of printing the quotations in english write hebrew facing english right and if you want to join there's a program you can join you can sponsor a prayer that prayer will be yours there's a hundred there's no there's over 200 prayers we have about 70 left for anyone who wants to sponsor a trilo right 50 a month for 20 months 50 bucks that's all it is right i'm sure we all waste more than that every month right here's a way you don't have to waste it you can just pick up a prayer and say i want it i want this prayer whatever is left it will be your prayer nobody else will have that prayer we'll sponsor that prayer ribnarson brought us to the point where we could understand what prayer is all about that we could understand how i me little old me could pray to hashem from the bottom of my heart from the top of my heart from the whole heart i can express myself before hashem i can try it you'll like it i think there's only one other person who may remember that advertisement right it was alka-seltzer right right try it you'll like it but try it try to express your heart before hashem and i'm going to conclude with this book it just came off the press it's not even available yet in the states of course it's on the ship and you know what's going on with the shipments and all that kind of stuff in the ports but uh the potency of prayer you pray every day yeah whatever you pray do you know what you're praying you know what it's all about this book is a commentary on the sitter it tells you why we say this why this prayer why this paragraph why in this order and so on it lets you know what davening is all about so that not just your own authored prayers before hashem but you'll even be able to understand what the prayers that ghazal made for us 2500 years ago so this is what rest of khasidis is all about and this is what ribnasan was all about to teach us that we are a godly portion to teach us that we can come close to hashem we can and we will and we'll see that when the mashiach comes on me any questions here's my son i'm at it right i want to thank have shimmy idols and his wife sarula for setting up this evening and with all the chinese food we had back there right we should have been korean food right but whatever we want to thank you all for coming for giving your time and effort for uh hear a little bit about rabbi nachman may hashem help that we internalize his teachings and we come to see the truth we stumble across the truth let's stay with it let's believe in it and with that we will see moshiach or main dme [Applause]