Bringing Torah into the World

Translated by Aaron Yoseph

The U.N. says that soon there will be a famine in the world. There’s isn’t enough food. What about spiritually? The world is hungry for bread, and the Jewish world is starving for the bread and water of Torah – emunah and daat. Baruch Hashem there are yeshivas and Talmud Torah’s. But the famine is still there. Because the Yetzer Hora knows that with p’gam habrit and depression he can put a bullet in every Yeshiva bochur’s head, and he’ll starve. 

How can we start to think Torah. “How can this save me.” Think thoughts of fear of Hashem. Most people’s learning doesn’t bring them to think about life and emuna. This is where the Rebbe Nachman’s teachings comes in. The Rebbe’s words and those of R’ Nosson – we can connect to them. They help us start to think straight, “Where am I? Where have I fallen to? What do I really need? I need to think about Hashem and return to Him. I need to make a new start, and I can.” Then he picks up a Tehillim and davens with kavanah (full intention) –he comes back to Hashem. Once a person knows how to do this, he can go and save others. People are so hungry for this.

People who come to Uman – they taste the sweetness, but when they go home, they have nothing. They need help. We need to think how to help them, but we’re still in the middle of this battle for ourselves. If someone was crying to you for bread and water, you’d run to help them. With someone desperate for daat, it should be the same thing. Unfortunately there’s a lot of false Torah out there as well, but people relate to it, and then waste years of their lives on it. This is the galut.

The Beis HaMikdash had the power that whoever went there came out a different person. It changed you. When people saw the Simchat Beit Hashoevah – their heart and minds were opened. They started to understand things. People saw the Kohanim running around serving Hashem. They heard the songs of the Leviim. They did teshuvah and their hearts were opened up. It was the beauty of the entire world. Whoever went there found a way to think of Torah.

After the Churban, there’s no way to think of the Torah. The bitterness of the galut is that we can’t find a way to think about Torah. How can a person find the sweet ways of the Rebbe that build a person up step by step, to be conscious of Hashem at all times, to come to real joy and truly come to Torah and perfection? This is the true bitterness of the exile – that when there is no Tzion, no Torah comes out from there.

A person has to think how he can save himself, how he can think Torah.

The Rebbe brings about the holy Tanna Rebbe Yitzchok – he just had to open his mouth, and Torah came out. He was so connected to Hashem, his words were with Divine Inspiration – ruach hakodesh. Why did the Rebbe specifically pick out R’ Yitzchok? Because he was from the side of dinim, judgments. He needed to sweeten some judgments. There are different ways to say Torah. Sometimes Tsaddikim say Torah because they sense that there are harsh judgements that need to be sweetened, and they achieve through their saying Torah. The intention isn’t really to pass over anything to the people listening. This is the type of Torah that doesn’t require preparation. There were Tsaddikim who knew how to do this. This is a very good thing, and very needed.

But the Rebbe here referred to a problem – that there are people who don’t have bread and water, they don’t have a head and don’t know how to think. This is the principal light of the Baal Shem Tov – to teach people who they are – Shema Yisroel – know who you are, know how much Hashem loves you. This should be what you think about. Start to live.

There are Tsaddikim who give over Torah akin to how Hashem does it – with the four levels mentioned above. They know how to bring Torah to Olam HaBinah – the world of thoughts. This is the world of holy colors – we can’t imagine what this is. Then they need to know how to bring this down to Olam HaYetsirah. The world of middot, attributes. Hashem created a light that enables us to fix and correct the middot.

These three weeks are the time when we fix the three lower worlds. We mourn in these weeks that the Torah hasn’t penetrated us, that we still don’t know how to bring Torah into the world. We can learn, and people say Torah. But where are the Tsaddikim who bring the Torah into the world properly? How do we bring Torah into our lives, to make it real? How do we help a person who’s brain has been burned up – how do we shine into him that Hashem loves him and he can fix everything? We’re in the double concealment, when he doesn’t even believe you that he’s missing anything.

This is the novelty of Rebbe Nachman, for he gives us the power to do all this.