The Secret of the Soul's Elevation: The Wondrous Meeting in Tiberias and the Power of the Tzaddik

Lesson No. 293 | Motzaei Shabbos Kodesh (Saturday night) Parshas Bo, the eve of 11 Shevat 5761 - Melaveh Malkah (post-Shabbos meal) for the Shaarei Torah Yeshiva Gedolah at the home of the Rav (Rabbi Berland shlit"a) (Continued from No. 292)

A description of the historic meeting between R' Yisrael Ber Odesser and R' Yisrael Karduner on a stormy night in Tiberias. Through this event, the Rav explains the immense power of the tzaddik to elevate a person's soul to the upper worlds, as well as the natural fear that awakens within a person when faced with absolute spiritual surrender.

When a person draws close to the true tzaddik, a deep fear sometimes awakens within him. He is afraid to escort him even beyond the doorway of the house. The thought gnawing at him is: "Perhaps he will kidnap me? Maybe he is a 'soul snatcher'? How can I go out with such a person, who has already extracted my heart, and who knows—maybe he will extract my soul as well?"

This fear, lest the tzaddik take him to the upper worlds and make him disappear, brings to mind the wondrous meeting between R' Yisrael Ber Odesser and R' Yisrael Karduner.

The Search for the Hidden Light

R' Yisrael Ber prayed for two whole months: "Master of the Universe, send me a Breslov Chassid!" He had no idea what Breslov was. He had simply found a coverless book in a garbage can, and with this book he would go, practice Hisbodedus (secluded prayer), and cry. From the moment he received the book, his heart felt good. He had always experienced difficulties in his Torah study and prayer, but when this book was revealed to him, everything went smoothly.

He was a student at the Slonim Yeshiva, walking in the fields and crying with an outpouring of the soul. One day, when he was seventeen years old, he was looking into the book during the afternoon. An older boy approached him and asked, "What book are you looking at?" When he realized it was a Breslov book, the boy was shocked, slapped him hard, and snatched the book from his hand, claiming that the Torah leaders of the generation had excommunicated it.

Only three pages remained in R' Yisrael Ber's hand. With these pages, he would go to the field every night and cry for hours: "Send me a Breslov Chassid! I want to see the people who authored such wondrous books."

The Prayer of R' Yisrael Karduner

At that time, R' Yisrael Karduner was staying in Safed and Meron. He would practice Hisbodedus (secluded prayer) for twenty-four hours, crying out in prayer, and reciting The Tikkun HaKlali (the General Rectification) for six consecutive hours! Once, while reciting The Tikkun HaKlali at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the entire room filled with steam from the sheer intensity of his prayer, to the point that he could not be seen at all.

R' Yisrael Karduner began to pray that they send him a Breslov Chassid. From so much exertion, he developed terrible pains in his hand, severe rheumatism, until he lay sick in bed unable to move. He spent three days in Hisbodedus (secluded prayer) to open a book and see where he should travel. The book "Yoreh De'ah" opened for him, indicating that he should travel to Tiberias, a warmer place.

The Meeting on the Stormy Night

In the month of Teves, at the height of the First World War, R' Yisrael Karduner arrived in Tiberias. It was a stormy winter night, pitch black with a torrential downpour. R' Yisrael Ber, whose family was suffering from severe starvation, had managed to obtain a little flour for baking bread that exact same day.

R' Yisrael Karduner, soaked to the bone, knocked on the door and asked for some tea and bread. R' Yisrael Ber brought him in, giving him a cup of tea and a slice of bread. He observed the strange guest and was astounded: "Such a Netilas Yadayim (ritual hand washing) I have never heard and will never hear! Such a 'HaMotzi' (blessing over bread) I have never heard! And what a Bircas HaMazon (Grace After Meals), what sweetness, what dveikus (cleaving to Hashem)!"

R' Yisrael Karduner's face shone in the darkness like a spotlight. R' Yisrael Ber thought in his heart: "I asked that they send me a Breslov Chassid, and behold, they have sent me Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet) in all his glory!"

Learning Upon the Water

As R' Yisrael Karduner was about to leave, R' Yisrael Ber leaped after him. He stood under the doorframe and begged: "I prayed for a Breslov Chassid, and I am afraid that you will fly up into the air and disappear on me. I want you to take me wherever you are going!" R' Yisrael Karduner immediately grasped what a treasure he had before him and agreed.

They went to look for a synagogue, but everything was completely locked up. Finally, they went to the synagogue of R' Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The place was flooded with water almost up to their necks. They groped in the darkness, found a bench and a table poking out above the water, climbed onto them, and sat down. R' Yisrael Karduner took out matches and a candle—a rare commodity in those days of war—and they sat and learned together the verse "For He who has mercy on them will guide them" until the morning light.

The Power of the Tzaddik to Elevate the Soul

In the morning, R' Yisrael Ber's mother, who had not slept all night, went out into the streets with heart-rending screams, certain that someone had kidnapped her son. When she realized it was "the man with the shining face," she was convinced that he had bewitched him. She even went to R' Yisrael Karduner and begged him to undo the "spell," until she fainted from sheer anxiety and her soul departed (she passed away), and only through the power of his prayer did she return to life.

This event illustrates the natural fear of spiritual elevation. People ask me, "What will happen beyond the doorway? I am afraid to go out with you, lest you take my soul to the upper worlds." But the truth is, the tzaddik does not need to go outside to accomplish this.

"If you are afraid that I will draw out your soul and take you to the upper worlds, know that even here, in this place and at this very moment, I can do so. No one can stop me from drawing out people's souls, if they only desire it a little bit."

When a person agrees and yields his soul with mesirus nefesh (self-sacrifice), the tzaddik takes him, clothes him in spiritual garments from the Garden of Eden, and elevates his soul to immense spiritual heights, beyond all boundaries of time and space.

Part 3 of 4 — Lesson No. 293

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