Don’t be frustrated!

written by Yehudis Golshevsky
March 6, 2012

BRI’s NarrowBridge.Org sends out twice weekly inspiration providing a regular dose of hope, meaning and courage. These emails include small doses of Rebbe Nachman’s wisdom, enabling us to get through the week in a more spiritual way. 

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Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught…

“Don’t be frustrated by the obstacles you encounter on your spiritual journey. They are there by design, to increase your desire for the goal you seek. Because the greater your goal, the greater the yearning you’ll need to achieve it.”
(The Empty Chair, p. 47*)

 

What does this mean to me?

On my spiritual journey, it feels natural to consider turning back when I find myself facing a block in the road. Yet Rebbe Nachman taught that such obstacles were placed there for a reason—to arouse my longing for the good goal. When it comes to obstacles to holiness, we’re all like little children: tell us ‘no’ and we want to attain the object of our desire all the more. There are certain goals that are of such great importance that they cannot come easily; the distance to them can only be crossed by activating the highest part of the self, which is the will. It’s not enough to just want; I have to yearn. It’s not enough to yearn a little; I have to long for it really powerfully. But how can I get to such powerful yearning? By finding the way to my goal blocked temporarily.

 

A prayer:

Please, G-d,
help me so that I will always
feel longing and yearning for holiness—
may it be powerful enough to bring
all of the holiness that I can attain
from the potential
to the actual.
May the extent of the obstacles that I face
only arouse my yearning to an even greater degree,
until my longing breaks through all of the barriers to holiness that exist
so that I can bring all that You desire into action.
(Likutei Tefillot I:66)

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*“The Empty Chair: Finding Hope and Joy – Timeless Wisdom from a Hasidic Master, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov” by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Adapted by Moshe Mykoff and The Breslov Research Institute, 1994. Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT, www.jewishlights.com.

**“The Gentle Weapon: Prayers for Everyday and Not-So-Everyday Moments – Timeless Wisdom from the Teachings of the Hasidic Master, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov” by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Adapted by Moshe Mykoff & S.C. Mizrahi with the Breslov Research Institute, 1999.  Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT, www.jewishlights.com.

Feedback:

This one speaks DIRECTLY to my life right now….With gratitude and all wishes for a sweet Shabbos.
DE