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Attributed quotes — Nachman of Breslov

1772–1810 Ukraine

← All quotes by Nachman of Breslov

6 quotes

Disparage no book, for it is also a part of the world.
JOY
It is a great mitzvah to always be happy. (LM2 34)
It is even good to do silly things in order to cheer oneself up. (ibid)
It is good to set aside a specific time everyday to be heartbroken and to speak out all ones problems before God, but the rest of the day be only happy. (ibid)
The essential joy comes from mitzvot.
(LM 30:5)
PRAYER
Hisbodedus, personal prayer before God, is greater than anything else. That is, a person should set aside at least an hour or more everyday to seclude himself from others and speak to God in his own language. (LM2 25, see “outpouring of the soul” translated by Aryeh Kaplan)
A person needs to scream to his father in heaven with a powerful voice from the depths of his heart. Then God will listen to his voice and turn to his outcry. And it could be that from this act itself, all doubts and obstacles that are keeping him back from true service of Hashem will fall from him and be completely nullified. (LM2 46)
And know that it’s not enough to have yearnings [for God] in the heart alone, for a person needs to bring all his yearnings out into words. (LM 31)
When a person has a yearning for something and he brings it out into words, a soul is created. This soul flies in the air and reaches another person thereby awakening in him too a yearning. (Ibid)
Behold! Precious is the sigh (called ‘krechtz’) from a Jewish person (LM 8)
When one prays with all his energy as in “my entire essence speaks…” (tehilim 35), the energy (co’ach) that he enters into the words are the 28 (co’ach) letters which the world was created with. The 10 sayings of creation receive their energy from these 28 letters. The words that come out of this persons’ mouth are then actually the words of Hashem, as in the verse “I will place my words in your mouth” (Isaiah 51).
(LM 48)
Prayer depends on the heart, A person should put all of his heart into it, so that it shouldn’t be in the aspect of “With their lips they honor me but their hearts are far from me.” (Isaiah 29) (LM 49)
Everyone awakens and merits to pray with kavana for some portion of the prayer, in accordance with his qualities. Therefore, a person should not become disheartened if he sees that he has merited to pray some part of the prayer with some degree of kavana, but then it suddenly ends, and he can no longer pray properly, no matter what he does – for that is how it is. He should then try to pray the rest of the prayer with complete simplicity. And even if at times he tires himself out but is unable to pray at all – nevertheless, he should not be disheartened by this. For it is an important principle that he must not become disheartened no matter what, even if something comes over him, and even if he is unable to pray at all. He should simply force himself nevertheless to recite the words of the prayer in complete simplicity, exactly like a young schoolchild. And he should recite on and on, in complete simplicity. In most cases, he will merit, by God’s mercy, to awaken from this, until his heart is once again filled with fervor, and he suddenly begins to pray with passion. But one should not put this to the test. (Sichot HaRan)
ENCOURAGEMENT AND TESHUVA
When a person enters into service of Hashem and sees it is so hard for him, and it seems as if they are distancing him from above and not allowing him at all to enter, he should know that all this feeling of being “distanced” is truthfully only his being “drawn near”. He must remain very very strong not to be discouraged even if many years of hard work go by and he still feels that he is very far and that he didn’t even begin to enter into the gates of holiness, for he sees that he is full of materialism, evil thoughts and the like, and every time he tries to do something holy it is so hard for him and all his crying and pleading with God seems to be going to waste… On all this he needs great courage not to pay attention to these delusions at all. Because all this “distancing”, in truth, is only his “drawing near”, and all the great tzaddikim had to go through this kind of experience before they reached their level. (LM2 48)
You need to have great stubbornness in the service of Hashem (ibid)
And know! A person has to pass a very very narrow bridge, the main thing is to have no fear at all (ibid)
There is no despair in the world! (LM2 78)
If you believe that you can destroy, believe you can fix. (LM2 112)
You need to greatly encourage yourself in His service as much as you can, even if you are the way you are, you should rely on His abundantly great mercy which is beyond limit, for certainly he will not forsake you, no matter how badly you’ve acted. The past doesn’t exist. The main thing is that from now on you honestly resolve not to do it again. (LM2 49)
This is a great principal in Avodas Hashem – That a person has to begin everyday anew.
(LM 261)
When a person falls from his level he should know that it’s heaven-sent, because going down is needed in order to go up, therefore he fell, in order that he arouses himself more to come close to Hashem. Advice for him - Begin anew to enter into service of Hashem as if you have never yet even begun (Ibid)
Whenever a person rises from one level to the next, it necessitates that he first has a descent before the ascent. Because the purpose of any descent is always in order to ascend. (LM 22)
There is a lot to talk about here (in the above topic). Because each person who fell to the place where he fell thinks that these words weren’t spoken for him, for he imagines that these ideas are only for great people who are always climbing from one level to the next. But truthfully, you should know and believe, that all these words were also said concerning the smallest of the small and the worst of the worst, for Hashem is forever good to all. (Ibid as quoted in LE)
It is a great thing for a person to still have an evil inclination because then he is able to serve Hashem with the evil inclination itself. That is, to take all of the fire in his heart and channel it towards service of Hashem. For example, to pray with fiery passion of the heart, etc. For, if there is no evil inclination in a person his service cannot be complete. (LM2 49)
A person must know that “Gods glory fills the entire world” (Isiah 6), and “There is no place void of Him” (Tikunei Zohar), and “He fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds” (Zohar)… even in the most defiled places there is godliness, for He gives life to everything as it says, “And you give life to everything” (Nechemia 9). So even if a person is stuck in the lowest of places he cannot excuse himself and say “I cannot serve Hashem here because of all the thickness and materialism that attacks me always,” for even there you can find Him and cling to Him and do complete teshuva, “For it is not far from you” (devarim 30), only that in this place there are many garments.”(LM 33)
This is the Tikun Haklali, the complete fixing. Whoever destroys his sexual impulse, it will be easy for him to get rid of his other evil desires. For all other impulses stem from this one. (LM 36)
Anyone who wants to enter into the service of Hashem, the only way possible is to be like Avraham who considered himself to be the only one in the world. That is, he should not pay attention to anyone who is preventing him from coming close to Hashem, whether it be his father, mother, in-laws, wife, children, etc. or anyone else in the world who mocks him and tries to prevent him from serving Hashem. He should not pay attention to them at all, rather he should follow the verse “Avraham was one” (Yichezkel 32) As if he is the only one in the world.
(LM2 inserted after intro)
“Even when people are serving Idolatry, nevertheless, deep down, they are all submissive to G-d and serving Him, only it is taking place in a greatly concealed realm.” (LM 56)
“There are two concealments. When Hashem is hidden in one concealment it is certainly very hard to find Him, but nevertheless, since it is only one concealment a person is able to exert himself and to dig until he finds Him, for at least he knows that Hashem is hidden.
However, when Hashem is hidden in a concealment within a concealment, that is, the concealment itself is hidden from the person, in other words, he has no idea that Hashem is hidden from him, then it is completely impossible to find Him, for he doesn’t even know that Hashem is hidden.” (LM 56)
“But truthfully, even in all the concealments, even in the concealment within a concealment, certainly even there Hashem is enclothed. For certainly there is absolutely nothing that doesn’t contain in it the life-force of Hashem, for without His life-force it would not have any existence at all. Therefore, certainly, in all things, all deeds, and all thoughts, Hashem is, so to speak, enclothed within.
Even if, G-d forbid, a person sins and does something against the will of Hashem, nevertheless, there is certainly the life-force of Hashem within that thing, only it is greatly concealed and constricted. (LM 56)
“You should know. The torah which is enclothed within the concealment within a concealment is a very high torah; the secrets of the torah. Since it needs to enclothe itself in these low places, by those who have sinned a lot until Hashem became concealed from them in a concealment within a concealment, Hashem decided not to place there simple torah, in order that the evil should not be able to draw strength from there too much, which will cause much defect. Therefore He concealed and enclothed within there specifically very high torah, the secrets of torah, which is Hashems Torah itself. This is as it says with regards to Egypt (Shemot 12) “I will pass through the land of Egypt, I and not an angel, I and not a messenger, I, Hashem and no other.” For in the land of Egypt, the place of much evil, specifically there, Hashem himself is hidden and enclothed, that is, Hashems Torah itself, the secrets of Torah. Therefore specifically in the concealment within a concealment, even though one cannot find Hashem, his knowledge and belief alone that Hashem is hidden there, turns the concealment around into a great revelation and the secrets of torah are revealed.” (LM 56)
TEHILLIM
Someone who wants to merit to do teshuva (repentance) should make it a practice to say tehillim (LM2 73)
A person should find himself within the words of tehillim (LM2 125)
Tehillim was written with Divine Inspiration and includes within it each individual’s personal struggle, whatever he may be going through at any given time.

Attributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Nachman of Breslov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.