Rebbe Nachman on Joy

Compiled and edited by Ziv Ritchie
 
 
Our holy master Rebbe Nachman says, “You cannot live without joy. You can exist – but live? You cannot serve G-d without joy. You cannot do anything without joy.”
 
Rebbe Nachman says that if I am really, really filled with joy, then the smallest good and holy thing, which I see in another human being, blows my mind.
 
You have to know that all the evil in the world is focused on dragging out the joy from your heart. Because the moment evil drags out the joy from your heart, it is the winner.
 
You can be the holiest creature in the world, but the moment you are sad you don’t have the strength for the slightest test in life.
 
Rebbe Nachman asks, “What is so bad about being sad?” He answers, “When you are sad, then you have no control over your mind. If you have no control over your mind, then you can’t get your mind to settle down and think straight.”
 
A free person is one who is master over his mind, who can take hold of his mind, pin it down and think, “What is happening to me? What is the purpose of my life?”
 
Rebbe Nachman says that it can’t be that during your whole life you never did anyone a favor. So you did one person a favor! Isn’t that enough reason to dance through the streets of the world all your life?!
 
It is impossible that during your whole life you never prayed once. So you prayed once! You spoke to G-d once! What more do you need to prove that you have one good point in you?
 
Please open your hearts, friends. How can I, a little human being, take the great light of G-d into my heart? When I am filled with joy, I have no boundaries, I am infinite. When I am infinite, I am a vessel for the infinite G-d.
 
There is a light, which is beyond vessels. As long as joy has vessels, it is possible that I have it and you don’t have it, but if your joy is beyond vessels, then everybody who meets you wants to dance.
 
Why are we sad? We are sad because we think that things are wrong. Why do we think that things are wrong? Because we have the feeling that we are running the world. Since things are not the way I think they should be, that means they are wrong. But let’s face it; I am not the master of the world. If it is clear to me that there is one G-d Who takes care of everything, if it is clear to me that one G-d is taking care of the most lonely leaf driven by the wind, then what am I complaining about?
 
If I think that the world is terrible, then I think that G-d is not doing such a good job. I think, “G-d doesn’t do anything for the world, I’m not doing anything for the world, nobody is doing anything for the world.”
 
It has to be clear to me not only that there is one G-d, but that G-d is doing so much for the world! I’m doing so much for the world. Every human being is making the world more beautiful.
 
The first level is that I believe in G-d so much that I know that everything is good. Then there is a higher level: that I really don’t care. I do care, yet I don’t, because if there is one G-d, what else do I need?
 
Our holy rabbis teach us that a person who is sad is dead. If you commit suicide, you do it only once, but if you are sad, you commit suicide every second.
 
Every falling down is only because you didn’t trust in G-d enough, because you didn’t believe in G-d enough. Since you didn’t trust and you didn’t believe, you were sad. And so you didn’t have the strength to do anything.
 
A happy person can also be sad sometimes.  That’s O.K.  But the most important thing is that while you are sad, don’t stop being happy.
 
What does it mean to be happy with what you are doing? To know that if you would have to be born and you would have to hang around in this world for 80 years just to do this one thing that you are doing, it would be worth it. That is called being happy with this one thing you are doing.
 
And if you can be on that level with every mitzvah [good deed] you do, to feel that if you had only been born to put on Tefillin [phylacteries] this one morning, if you had only been born for just this one Shabbat, it would have been enough…. That’s called joy.
 
If I say I’m filled with joy, but I can’t stand people, this means it is not G-dly joy.
 
The only anti–hate is joy.
 
 
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From the book “Ecstasy for the Soul, Uplifting Sayings, Stories &Teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach zt”l’. To buy the book, click here.