chassidism a thimble in time A Story by the Hasidic Master Rabbi Nahman of Breslov (In the words of Arthur Herzberg) "In a village in a far corner of a sparsely inhabited province, the new wheat in the fields nearby could not be eaten. It was infected by a red bacillus that made madmen and madwomen out of those who ate from this harvest. The wise men of the village met to find a way of dealing with this disaster. They decided to set aside, from the remains of the previous year's harvest, enough wheat with which to feed one person for the whole of the coming year. Let all the rest eat the infected new wheat. They would go mad but they would survive, and at the end of the year this one man would be left as the standard of sanity. All the rest would be able to abandon their madness by emulating him when the next, and healthy, crop came up from the earth. The Lesson: The saving grace of times gone mad is the lonely person who keeps his sanity. 040214 ... a thimble in time "If you believe that you can damage, believe that you can fix." Rabbi Nahman of Breslov 040215 ... a thimble in time “Everyone says there is a World to Come. But could it be that This World also exists – somewhere. But where? From the suffering everyone goes through all the time, it would appear that this world is Gehenom (hell).” (Likutey Moharon II:119) 040216 ... a thimble in time “Everyone says there is a World to Come. But could it be that This World also exists – somewhere. But where? From the suffering everyone goes through all the time, it would appear that this world is Gehenom (hell).” (Likutey Moharon II:119) 040216 ... a thimble in time 'The essential Life-Force of Being is likened to oil. On the one hand, it does not mix with any other liquid, but conversely, oil penetrates into all matter...(including you).' Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem M Schneerson 040217 ... a thimble in time Stories by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (Breslov) The Turkey Prince (The Man who Became a Turkey) Once there was a prince who went mad and imagined that he was a turkey. He undressed, sat naked under the table, and abjured all food, allowing nothing to pass his lips but a few oats and scraps of bones. His father, the king, brought all the physicians to cure him, but they were of no use. Finally, a wise man came to the king and said: I pledge to cure him. The wise man promptly proceeded to undress and sat under the table next to the prince, pecking oats and heaving at scraps of bones, which he gobbled up. The prince asked him: 'Who are you and what are you doing here?' Said the wise man: 'Who are YOU and what are YOU doing here?' The prince replied: 'I am a turkey.' To which the wise man responded: 'I am a turkey too.' So the two turkeys sat together until they became accustomed to one another. Seeing this, the wise man signaled to the king to fetch him a shirt. Putting on the shirt, he said to the prince: 'Do you really think that a turkey may not wear a shirt? Indeed he may, and that does not make him any less a turkey.' The prince was much taken by these words and also agreed to wear a shirt. At length, the wise man signaled to be brought a pair of trousers. Putting them on, he said to the prince: 'Do you really think that a turkey is forbidden trousers? Even with trousers on, he is perfectly capable of being a proper turkey.' The prince acknowledged this as well, and he too put on a pair of trousers, and it was not long before he had put on the rest of his clothes at the wise man's directions. Following this, the wise man asked to be served human food from the table. He took and ate, and said to the prince: 'Do you really think that a turkey is forbidden to eat good food? One may eat all manner of good things and still be a proper turkey "comme il faut".' The prince listened to him on this too, and began eating like a human being. Seeing this, the wise man addressed the prince: 'Do you really think that a turkey is condemned to sit under the table? That isn't necessarily so -- a turkey also walks around any place it wants and no one objects.' And the prince thought this through and accepted the wise man's opinion. Once he got up and walked about like a human being, he also began behaving like a complete human being. 040218 ... a thimble in time Stories by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav "The Treasure Under The Bridge" Translation: Lewis Glinert Once a Jewish inhabitant of Austria saw in his dream that under a bridge in the city of Vienna a valuable treasure lay buried. He journeyed there, stood on the bridge and wondered what to do, as it was impossible to search by day in case people saw him searching and realized that there was something going on. By and by, a soldier crossed the bridge, saw the Jew standing and wondering, and asked him: 'What are you doing here and what are you looking for?' The Jew thought about it, and told his secret to the soldier, asking him to help him search for the treasure so that they might share it 50/50 when they found it. But the soldier replied: 'I feel sorry for you, you crazy dreamer! I also dreamed that a valuable treasure lay buried in the cellar of such and such a Jew in such and such a town, but am I going to set off on a journey there?!' The name of the Jew was this man's name, and the town he had named was his home town! Whereupon the Jew took a wagon hitched to two sturdy horses and hastened to journey to his town, went down to his cellar, and there discovered the treasure. At the sight of it, the Jew declared: 'Now this mystery has been revealed to me. The treasure had always lain buried in my house, but I had to leave my town and wander far far away to Vienna in order there to discover it in my house.' The meaning of the parable is this: The fear of God is a buried treasure concealed in the heart of every one of us, but one has to journey to the Tzaddik (Master) to discover it. 040219 ... Piso Mojado hmm, sure sounds like the_alchemist to me :) 040219 ... a thimble in time I would have to agree. Rebbe Nachman told this story over two hundred years ago, but you know there are only so many good plots... By the way, next week I plan to move on to another Rebbe, in the the meantime, here is another tale told by Rebbe Nachman. The faith captured in this tale is profound in its simplicity, humourous on the surface, but at its core exquisitely dark. Enjoy. In his story, “The Sophisticate and the Simpleton”, Rebbe Nachman tells how the Sophisticate proves to his own Satisfaction that there is no King over the world. Afire with the zeal of the self-righteous, the Sophisticate sets off with a companion on a world-wide mission to try persuade everyone else of this “truth”. They lose everything they have, but still the Sophisticate refuses to admit that there is anything wrong. Finally, the Devil sends for them. The Sophisticate ridicules the idea of the Devil – He no more believes in evil than in good. But to back down from the Devil’s dare would mean an unacceptable loss of face. So the Sophisticate has to go off with his companion together with the Devil’s messenger. Rebbe Nahman relates: “The Devil captured the Sophisticate and his companion, and brought them before to a quicksand bog. The Devil sat on a throne in the middle of this bog, and he threw the Sophisticate and his companion into the mud. The bog was thick and sticky like glue, and they could not move at all in it. “When the Devil and his cohorts began to torture these two sophisticates, they screamed out, ‘Fiends! Why are you torturing us? Does such a thing as the Devil really exist? You are fiends, and you are torturing us for nothing.’ These sophisticates did not believe in the Devil. They thought these were wicked people, who were torturing them for no reason…” (Rabbi Nahman’s Stories p. 193) 040219 ... oldephebe I enjoyed the timeless rabbinical wisdom of those stories thimble in time. 040220 ... oldephebe A Cheder in Siberia A conversation with Reb Mendel Futerfas What was it like in the [Soviet] labor camps? They were days of light. Are you speaking euphemistically? No, I mean it simply. Those were the most inspiring days of my life. How so? Throughout my life, I always felt a battle between the material and the spiritual. In the labor camps, there was no battle. My life was all spiritual. All I had to do was learn Torah and daven (pray). I don't understand. You didn't have to work? Of course we had to work! In one camp, my job was to care for a herd of pigs. I had to begin at 4:00 am and did not finish until 6:00 pm. In the winter, it was so cold that once the straps of my tefillin froze. When I began to unwind them, they cracked. It was hard and crushing work, but only physically. My soul was free. There was nothing holding me back. All my energy could be focused on prayer and study. [I assumed Reb Mendel knew the prayers by heart, but what about Torah Study? Reb Mendel was not known as the kind of sage who had committed volumes of Talmud to memory; so I asked:] Did you have books with you? Books?! The Russians would allow me Jewish texts to study from? Then how could you study? How did I study? I would picture the cheder I attended when I was a child. I would sit in the third row. I remembered the table at which I would sit, the books that were placed on it. To my right sat my friend Berl, and to my left my friend Zalman. Yossel sat in front of me. I remembered their faces, the games we would play, the secrets we would tell each other. And I remembered the melamed (teacher): tall, with stern eyes, but with a warm and loving smile. I would picture him and the classroom in my mind. The scene was so vivid that I could actually hear the melamed speaking: "Shnayim ochazin betallit... If two people are holding on to a garment, and one of them says it is entirely mine and the other says it is entirely mine..." I would listen, and concentrate to record his words in my mind. Soon he had taught me a page of Talmud. I then shut off the picture of the cheder and began to review the page that I had just learned. After a time, it was committed to memory. Then I returned to the cheder to learn another page of Talmud. In this way, I learned many chapters of Talmud and a good portion of Tanya. ....... 040220 ... oldephebe i should have put that entire blathe in quotes...full text from a site called the living torah there's something so simple and unadorned about some of the old masters teachings...the soul is able to soak them up without tortuous and tedious epistomological unraveling. The treasure is there and speaks directly into our souls... ... 040220 ... a thimble in time :-) 040221 ... a thimble in time Chassidim are known to be exceedingly lenient when it comes to footnoting, espcecially when it comes to their beautiful wisdom, which really ought to be spread to the four corners of the world. On a historical not, Chassidism began as a grass-roots movement amongst the poor and oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe and White Russia in the late 18th century and early 19th century. The many stories and pearls of wisdom were most often passed orally from person to person, and from town to town. There are many alternate versions of some of chassidism's most cherished tales. But it is just as well, for chassidism asks, 'what good are the letters if we cannot recognize the spirit which flows through them?' 040222 ... a thimble in time "If I only read what I'd agreed with I'd have very little to read." Rabbi Menahem M. Schneerson 040223 ... oE true 040223 ... a thimble in time "This might be the best story I have, the story of a just man who came to a wicked city. Let's call it Sodom. He came determined to save its wicked inhabitants from sin and punishment. Night and day he walked the streets and markets, protesting against greed and theft, falsehood and indifference. In the beginning, people listened and smiled ironically. Then they stopped listening. He no longer even amused them. The killers went on killing, the wise kept silent as if there were no just man in their midst. One day a child, moved by compassion for the unfortunate teacher, approached him with these words: "Poor stranger, you shout, you scream--don't you see that it is hopeless?" "Yes, I see," answered the just man. "Then why do you go on?" "I'll tell you why. In the beginning my child, I thought I could change man. Today I know I cannot. But if I still shout today, if I still scream, louder and louder, it is to prevent them from changing me." From- 'Conversations with Elie Wiesel' 040317 ... unhinged . 181220 ... dafremen Yep. How_introverts_become_extroverts.. 181222 what's it to you? who go blather from