Q: Are there any plans to translate Likutey Halachos into English? I would defenitely buy the whole set and I’m sure alot of other people feel the same way. Thanks
We have been getting a lot of emails lately especially since the Likutey MoHaran Series is winding down asking us this exact question. The answer is … yes!
The first draft is already well along the way and we are beginning to start fundraising for the project now. The project will cost an estimated $14,000 to complete the first volume. Here is part of the upcoming introduction:
Introduction to the Likutey Halakhot Series
Reb Noson of Breslov (1780-1844) was Rebbe Nachman’s scribe and leading disciple, who edited and published his master’s works and who uniquely preserved and passed down Rebbe Nachman’s path in Divine service to all future generations. Likutey Halakhot, an eight-volume work in the Hebrew original, represents Reb Noson’s collected derashot, his original Torah discourses. Rebbe Nachman not only praised the skill with which Reb Noson wrote down his oral teachings (which led to the eventual publication of Likutey Moharan and the rest of his extant works), but also encouraged Reb Noson to develop chiddushei Torah, innovative Torah insights. He soon began to do so, basing his thoughts on Rebbe Nachman’s lessons. Since the Rebbe had instructed him to study the Shulchan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law) assiduously every day, he used the laws in the Shulchan Arukh as the starting point of his explorations. Thus, he was able to uncover in an entirely original way the multifarious connections between the mystical teachings and practical teachings of the Torah, the sublime and the mundane, and reveal them as one encompassing unity.
Reb Noson published Rebbe Nachman’s lessons as Likutey Moharan (“Collected Teachings of Our Master, Rabbi Nachman”), Part I, during the Rebbe’s lifetime, and Part II the year after the Rebbe’s death. But he continued to expound upon the Rebbe’s lessons and stories throughout his life, publishing the first volume of Likutey Halakhot in 1843, the year before his passing. Reb Noson’s profound teachings, empathetic understanding, and inspiring example are what drew the next generation of Breslover Chassidim to him. After the publication of the remaining volumes of Likutey Halakhot (“Collected Laws”) by his devoted follower, Reb Nachman [Chazan] of Tulchin, these teachings continued to enlighten and instruct all succeeding generations of Breslover Chassidim, as well as countless other spiritual seekers, down to the present day. Reb Noson’s Likutey Halakhot traverses all four sections of Rav Yosef Karo’s Shulchan Arukh and provides the primary source for the understanding of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, both in theory and practice.
Likutey Halachot is many thousand pages in Hebrew and the task to translate the entire project would take MANY years. We have therefore decided to focus on translating certain parts before others. The first book will be called: “The Water Castle” here is an except about it:
The discourses translated here are Reb Noson’s original Torah insights on “The Water Castle,” which is a sub-plot of Rebbe Nachman’s most complex tale, “The Seven Beggars.” This tale is the conclusion of his Sippurey Ma’asiyot (English: “Rabbi Nachman’s Stories”), which he called “tales from primordial times.” It might even be said that it is the high-point of all his stories. As Rebbe Nachman observed, “If the only thing in the world I knew was this one story, it still would be an extraordinary chiddush (innovation).”
This story-within-a-story corresponds to the sixth day of the wedding celebration of two nameless orphans. The story’s protagonist is the sixth of seven beggars, whose seeming defect is that he has no hands. Nevertheless, he tells the bride and groom, his defect belies his greatest power —the ability to heal all sickness with his invisible hands, through the “ten types of melody.” The “proof” of his claim is the story he tells, as a sort of wedding entertainment, about how he alone was able to heal a stricken princess, who escaped from an evil king into a wondrous structure called the “Water Castle.” And like Moses who conferred prophecy on the seventy elders of the twelve tribes in the wilderness, the Beggar With No Hands confers his wondrous powers upon the orphaned couple as a wedding gift…
At this point we envision a Hebrew/English translation with a commentary below the text.
Help bring this project to fruition and partner with Rebbe Nachman. Dedications are available. Please email: [email protected] or visit: https://breslov.org/donate-now/
