FROM THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED ‘REBBE NACHMAN’S SOUL’, ADAPTED FROM HIS AUDIO SHIURIM ON SICHOS HARAN 2, SICHOS HARAN 88, AND SICHOS HARAN 235

Placing Everything in HaShem’s Hands

Based on “Rebbe Nachman’s Soul” (Sichos Haran #2)

Pesach comes along and it’s the most dreaded holiday for women. A woman thinks about Pesach from Isru Chag of the previous Pesach. The second that Pesach is over, she begins to worry about the next Pesach because of all the cleaning and the transferring of the dishes. This is not a simple thing. No one should take it lightly because the prohibition against eating chametz is so serious. The tiniest drop can make a whole house treif, chas veshalom. The issur of chametz is not like any other issur, not even eating pork. Eating pork is a lo sa’aseh, which has the punishment of lashes, whereas the penalty for chametz is a death penalty from Heaven. How can a person who is not an angel avoid the tiniest pinhead of chametz? No matter how hard he tries, there might be some left, chas veshalom. A person can worry about this to the extent that it destroys his whole simchas Yom Tov. Therefore, Rabbeinu zal says that when Pesach comes, he says to HaShem, “I have cleaned my house to the best of my ability. I have sold my chametz properly. I’ve fulfilled all the laws preparing for Pesach. I purchased the best shemurah matzah. Now, HaShem, I’m giving You my problems. All the problems about chametz are Yours. I am now free to celebrate the simchah of the Yom Tov of Pesach.”

Redeeming speech

Based on “Rebbe Nachman’s Soul” (Sichos Haran #88)

Rabbeinu zal says that although speech is intangible, there is a concept of speech being imprisoned or redeemed. You can’t touch it. You can’t hold it. You can’t sell it. Yet, speech can go into exile, and speech can be brought to geulah and freed. For example, HaShem gives a person the power to speak words of Torah or words of kedushah. If, instead, he uses that power to speak lashon hara or words of impurity, he is desecrating a treaty, a bris. Two levels of tikkun habris We can refer to tikkun habris in two senses — the lower tikkun habris and the bris halashon. The bris, Yesod, also involves the tongue (Sefer Yetzirah 1:3). The person who contaminates his words is also being mechallel the bris. He is desecrating the bris halashon, the tongue, which automatically sends his words into galus. Now they must be redeemed. How does a person redeem his speech? By noticing faults in his speech and correcting them. Then he will be able to daven with more kavanah. If a person speaks evil, slander, or nivul peh, impure profanity, he will find that when it comes time to daven, his speech is imprisoned. He cannot release it to daven with kavanah. He cannot arouse himself and daven with pure thoughts, with concentration and with feeling, because his speech is not free. This is connected to the topic of “Semikhas geulah letefillah”( Berakhos 4b). We say, “Barukh Atah HaShem Ga’al Yisrael,” and then the Shemoneh Esrei begins. First, we must release speech from its bondage, and then we can use it to speak to HaShem. This, Rabbeinu zal says, is what happened in Egypt. When the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, speech was also enslaved. The Jews could not speak freely. They were confined, unable to speak words of Torah. Speech itself became so constricted that it could not be expressed bekedushah. This was the situation during the entire time they were in bondage. When the Jews were released from Egypt, their speech came out of slavery, too. The meaning of Pesach Therefore they had, first and foremost, a holiday called Pesach. PeSaCh comes from the words PeH SaCh — peh, the mouth, sach, speaks. The mouth could finally speak. SaCh comes from the word SiChah, which means speech. The mouth could finally speak because there was a geulah for the mouth. Peh sach, speech came out freely. Of course, when we divide the word PeSaCh ( פסח ) into PeH SaCh ( פה שׂח ), we have an additional letter, the letter Heh. The letter Heh is Malkhus, malkhus peh. This is added to show that Malkhus also came out of bondage. Malkhus is free. Now the mouth can speak. 188. Berakhos 4b. Free Speech 209 Speech means words, milim. Milah stands for the bris, and milah (85 = מילה ) has the same gematria as peh (85 = ,(פה which is the key to speech through the Malkhus. Rabbeinu zal says: “A person can live all his life talking a great deal, yet his words are imprisoned, chas veshalom, and therefore he is not free to have direct contact with HaShem. Once he purifies his words, his speech comes out of galus and is redeemed. Then he is free to speak to HaShem with true kavanah.”

Do Not Go Overboard

Based on “Rebbe Nachman’s Soul” (Sichos Haran #235)

Do not be extreme even on Pesach

One mitzvah in which many people go to extremes is being careful about mashehu chametz on Pesach. There are some people who scrub down and scrape the walls. They cover the walls even though they scraped them an inch deep and then painted. They dig up the floorboards, and do other things that are very far out. Their intentions, of course, are pure. They are worried about a tiny, little mashehu chametz; but again, a person is not a malakh. A person can do all this and there might still be one little pinpoint of chametz, chas veshalom, even after all the scraping. He can spend an hour on twenty square feet of flooring and overlook one tiny onethousandth of an inch. He can, of course, perform bitul chametz, so the chametz that remains is not his anymore, but a person cannot really be yotzei the mitzvah of bi’ur chametz by just bitul alone. This is not a light matter. The Arizal says that one who is very strict not to have a mashehu chametz on Pesach is zokheh to be without sins the entire year (Orach Chaim, Ba’er Heitev 447:1; Chida in Dvash LeFi 8:18). We could ask, then, how is it that there are people who did rid themselves completely of chametz, and yet they were not perfect tzaddikim afterwards? The answer is that they were zokheh that year to commit fewer sins. Rabbeinu zal says that a whole world is gained by subtracting just one single sin (See Sichos HaRan 236. See also Ramban’s Introduction to Iyov). Furthermore, it is possible that even though they thought that they had rid themselves of the last mashehu chametz, they did not fully succeed. They could have still done better. Rabbeinu zal relates his own experience when he was young. He began to meditate about the issur of chametz and realized that one of the biggest problems is with the water. In those days they drew water from wells. Anyone who was zokheh to travel to Uman may have noticed the small houses along the road that still have wells outside. That was how it was back then, close to 200 years ago. Rabbeinu zal thought that it was impossible to avoid a kernel of chicken feed or other grain from falling into a well and rendering all the water chametz. The kernel might not be seen at all, but there is mashehu chametz in that water. How could he use such water for cooking, drinking or washing? Rabbeinu zal thought about this extensively and decided that there was really no way to use water from a well and be assured of avoiding mashehu chametz. The only way to avoid chametz entirely would be to use water from a flowing brook. Even if people did pass by and drop chametz into it, it would be washed away. However, there was no brook near his home. Therefore, he thought to leave his home and make Pesach next to a place with a flowing brook. That was how far Rabbeinu zal went in his thoughts regarding chumros — to leave his home for Pesach and move to a faraway place because of the possibility that there might be a microscopic bit of chametz in the well water even after filtering it. In the end he realized that these were chumros yeseiros and not necessary. It is not fitting to act in this manner. A person is supposed to do as much as he physically can and no more. He is required to fulfill the mitzvah to the extent possible. If it is impossible for him to fulfill the mitzvah exactly, if it is beyond his power, the Torah exempts him. In the case of well water, if you pour the water through a fine sieve and you do not see any chametz, that is sufficient. A person should not seek out extreme chumros that make life difficult. Rather, he should serve HaShem with simchah to the best of his ability. Everything must be done in moderation, slightly beyond the middle point. It is interesting to note that the tzaddik, the yesod, is in the center between chesed and din. We see here that Rabbeinu zal tends more towards chesed than to din, in that he spoke about not going into chumros, but rather to be more lenient. This shows the chesed of the tzaddik emes.