There is No Rosh Hashanah Without Requesting Forgiveness - An Essential Pamphlet for Understanding the Spirit of the Times
There is No Rosh Hashanah Without Requesting Forgiveness
Rosh Hashanah 5781 - May It Be a Year of Redemption for the Captives
We must not forget or lose hope - we all desire and yearn to be in Uman on Rosh Hashanah with our Rebbe and teacher, Rav Berland shlit"a - but it seems at the moment that our holy Rebbe has rebuked us all severely and banished us from coming to the holy place to prostrate ourselves in tears on the stones of the holy site.
The turbulent year of 5780 will never be forgotten from the pages of Breslov Chassidut's history.
A gloomy year filled with disputes where Breslov Chassidut descended to an unprecedented moral low in its history.
Even during the intense persecutions of Reb Noson and his students in the years of wrath around 5595, the chassidut did not know of traitors from within and vile informers who emerged from its midst and publicly permitted the blood of one of the elders and important members of Anash - one of the few individuals in the history of the chassidut who revived its desolation during a difficult period towards decline and rebuilt the ruins of the paths to the holy courtyard in Uman.
Despite the fact that in our generation there is no one from within the chassidut who can even touch the edge of the transformation wrought by the enthusiastic chassid among the masses of Israel - those foolish and murky chassidim did not seek the success and flourishing of the chassidut among the masses of Israel but rather their own status and personal honor within the "nobility of the chassidut."
They did not seek to ignite the burning truth of the Rebbe in thousands of wandering Jews - they sought honor and status in their closed and zealous world, they desired money and power under their comfortable conditions which were a direct import from the world of imagination.
Where is the Gratitude?
How much gratitude does Breslov Chassidut owe to the pious and holy man who spread the mysteries of the great light of our Rebbe to thousands of lost and rejected souls who did not have the merit to grow up with Yiddish, never visited a Charedi street, never heard the phrase "serving Hashem," did not know the connection between a tzaddik and a neshamah, did not know what prayer and thanksgiving are.
The facts cannot be erased - the majority of Breslov Chassidut today has come closer directly or indirectly thanks to that chassidic meteor who struck people on the head and implanted the light of our Rebbe deep into their hearts. Almost everyone returned in teshuvah and came closer to our Rebbe with greater strength and might through a long or short acquaintance with the burning fire that walked on two feet, igniting within them a new flame of light to draw close to the tzaddik and serve Hashem with all their might. Almost everyone was influenced at the beginning of their closeness by the fiery student who made students who made students who are still making students.
How much gratitude does Breslov Chassidut owe to the pioneering engine who abandoned himself to collide with the iron wall of communism and drew after him carriages of thousands of souls to the hidden light that was concealed in a dark Soviet city under the boots of a tyrannical and oppressive regime - the human trickle that began to flow to Uman in the 1970s he turned within three decades into a sweeping torrent of tens of thousands of close ones visiting the site all year round and especially on Rosh Hashanah.
Have we already managed to forget that in 2007 the site and the kloiz were put up for auction due to a lien placed on the chassidut's management association that fell victim to a sophisticated scam and almost lost ownership of the site to foreign hands - and again it was that enthusiastic chassid who risked his life in talks and meetings and leveraging connections worldwide to secure the enormous sum and save the holy site for Breslov Chassidut from cruel predators.
How many children in Breslov Chassidut who have already become fathers with children themselves had the merit to gather on Rosh Hashanah at the holy gathering thanks to the sole influencer in the chassidut who pushed with all his might and encouraged bringing even small children to Rosh Hashanah with dedication because they too are part of the gathering.
How much double and quadruple gratitude does Breslov Chassidut owe to the man who saved it from a fate of ignorance and distance from in-depth Gemara study.
The enthusiastic chassid who joined the chassidut in the early 1960s as a young Lithuanian avrech was famous for his scholarship and genius in Shas and Poskim and introduced the Lithuanian diligence and in-depth Torah study into the chassidut.
The historical transformation he made in the chassidut created a new character of a chassidic servant of Hashem who is enthusiastic in prayer and melodies but knows how to sit for hours in concentrated effort to dissect a sugya in 'Ketzot HaChoshen'. He cultivated a new breed of Israeli avrechim - mature and serious, greatly God-fearing, engaged in Torah with depth and breadth, singing the prayer for hours, spreading the light of the tzaddik among the masses and engaging with all their heart in intensive outreach activities.
And what about the tens of thousands of baalei teshuvah who owe their first acquaintance with genuine and heartwarming Judaism to the efforts of the learned and enthusiastic chassid? How many tons of gratitude should be attributed to the persistent activity of outreach and drawing the distant for years to rescue thousands of brave people from the captivity of ignorance and secularism who crossed the lines and became Charedi, establishing generations of uprightness to glory, homes of Torah and kedushah filled with simcha and emunah, facing the most complex social challenges as baalei teshuvah in a closed Charedi society.
The strength, support, and encouragement on the difficult path they received from that enthusiastic chassid who over the years became the great spiritual grandfather and the main trunk of branches that split and flourished into a giant group within Breslov Chassidut. If we examine the graph of teshuvah in Israel over the last half-century - it can be honestly assumed that most Israelis who returned in teshuvah during this period, especially among those close to Breslov Chassidut - underwent the spiritual transformation after being exposed to those emissaries from the study hall of that enthusiastic chassid who ignited in them the spark of the tzaddik of our Rebbe.
In the early years of his closeness, he plowed every plot in the chassidut to receive from it the unique inner point of the generality of the tzaddik's colors in his people.
He received from the Seraph R' Shmuel Shapira the zeal for the holiness of the covenant and guarding the eyes, he was with the grandfather R' Yisrael for long months in joint service of Hashem and received from him the simplicity and absolute nullification to our Rebbe, he received from R' Levi Yitzchak Bender the exemplary study order that builds the intellect of our Rebbe, he received from R' Shmuel Horowitz the absolute self-sacrifice for all matters of our Rebbe. From R' Zev (and Alul) Cheshin he received the toil and desire to draw more distant ones to the knowledge of the holiness of our Rebbe.
And while most of Anash at that time were close to the theory of our Rebbe - he went in practice to implement the theory and prove it in reality.
The stories told about him during his period of closeness and afterwards were not heard in Breslov Chassidut except among a few individuals in the chassidut in general over the years. Long hitbodedut sessions of weeks in the desert or field with a slender bag of food and books in a large sack, prayers and melodies for long hours connecting Shacharit from sunrise to Mincha at sunset and deep into the night, Ma'ariv and Chatzot, in-depth Gemara study with concentration and all his might day and night, delivering long shiurim in Likutey Halachot with force and shouting from early morning hours until late evening.
Anyone who knew him closely knew that being in his presence meant a continuous grinding of the body's forces and the strengthening of the neshamah and prayer - truly the light of the tzaddik of our Rebbe.
There is no exaggeration here at all - the witnesses to these sights are still living among us, the facts are well known even to those who chose to hate him.
So a person who has done so much good for Breslov Chassidut - how much gratitude should we have towards him?
There is no end to gratitude.
Our Parade of Folly
An evil and cursed eye entered Breslov Chassidut to observe and focus on the faults of others and the sins of others instead of dying of shame when I look at myself.
A stormy spirit and jealousy snatched the baby of innocence and shame and poisoned the clear well to pursue the other to destruction, to inform the authorities, to bloodshed in public, to a consuming fire of zealotry and hatred.
Streams of dispute of foul language and thought flooded the holy chassidut in a terrible flood of lashon hara and disrespect for Torah scholars.
The stench of dispute clings to us, the stench of division emanates from us - how can our Rebbe dwell among us?
They boast in the feathers of those close to our Rebbe, the true tzaddik, but they bear his name in vain and pour mud and filth on his students.
To what moral low has the chassidut reached, alienating one of its best and unique sons who sacrificed himself on the altar of the fire of our Rebbe and ignited thousands to its light?
How did wild growths and zealotry emerge from within the chassidut to destroy, kill, and annihilate in an ugly and terrible persecution campaign with the encouragement or shameful silence of famous influencers in the chassidut?
And where are the elders of the community to say,
Our hands did not spill and our eyes did not see?
For they saw and knew and were silent,
In the face of a despicable murder - they filled their mouths.
And the murdered lies sprawled and the murderers are known,
And how will we reach our Rebbe, the holy, when our hands drip with the blood of poor tzaddikim.
Our brothers have sent away flesh of our flesh,
Ingratitude has sealed our hearts,
Imprisoned and tortured in iron,
Brothers have sold Joseph again,
To be trampled and captured, to be disgraced and cursed.
And this is the Tikkun HaKlali of the generation,
To have mercy, to forgive, to love, to help,
And to hold ourselves together as upright
In forgiveness, pardon, and teshuvah before the Judge of the oppressed.
The Clarification Returns Again
Reb Noson teaches us that the clarification between the wicked who persecute tzaddikim continues in every generation, but who thought that precisely in these years the clarification would intensify within the chassidut itself when elements within the chassidut employ methods of media terror and a systematic and efficient informing mechanism against the authorities just like the great persecutors of Judaism and its oppressors throughout the ages.
In the same methods, they incite the masses with wild incitement and slander and persecute a large group of Jews who serve Hashem, calling them "Sabbateans and heretics" just as the Christians and Muslims persecuted Judaism and as the opponents persecuted the students of the Baal Shem Tov and the Ramchal and just as they slandered the chassidim of our Rebbe and Reb Noson.
In a few decades, when the dust of the dispute settles and the urge to persecute quiets, people will hold their heads in amazement at how they allowed the sewer of bad rumors to flow into their hearts and defile their thoughts.
The chassidim of future generations in Breslov will wonder in amazement how no brave chassidim rose to stop the murderous madness raging within the chassidut?
How did they allow a handful of zealots to impose ruin and terror on a gentle and magnificent chassidut and pollute its corridors with the stench of dispute?
How did false and deceptive illusions succeed in confusing masses of innocent chassidim and blinding the great and important ones?
For Download and Public Merit
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