Different Eyes for Eretz Yisrael

Compiled and edited by Ziv Ritchie
 
 
I want you to know something awesome which is the deepest depths. Let’s say I am madly in love with this girl, her name is Maxine (it is a good name) and we are driving around in New York, and she says, “Guess where I live.”
 
OK, let’s assume if I love her very much, and I am class, so I drive down to Scarsdale, I see mamish super class houses, I say, “Maxine, I have a feeling you live here in this neighborhood.”
 
She says, “Gevalt, you got it. this is where my parents live.”
 
But imagine if I am driving down with Maxine, and I come down to the bowery, to a broken house, it smells bad, full of cockroaches, and I say, “Maxine, are you maybe living here?”
 
So she says, “Are you crazy?!”
 
I say, “OK, forgive me.” Will she ever marry me? No. Do you know why?  I say, “Why don’t you forgive me, it says in the Torah that you have to forgive.”
 
She says, “Yes, I forgive you, but if you can think that I am living there, then you don’t know who I am. You don’t know where I belong.”
 
You know, G-d never forgave us for the meraglim (sin of the spies). So the Alexander Rebbe asks, why did G-d forgive us for all the other sins and not for this sin? G-d says, “Yeah, I forgive you, but if you think that I will give my children a bad land… that is what you think, that I am sending my children to a dirty, filthy place? Who do you think I am? What do you think Yidden [Jews] are? Where do think Yidden belong?” It is awesome, such a good Torah. I want you to know that whatever you think of Israel, that is what you think of Yidden.
 
So here Rebbe Nachman says, that in this world it is so hidden, it is so full of obstacles, that you mamish can’t get through. You see what Rebbe Nachman says. In other words, it means that Eretz Yisrael is not really part of this world. You know, imagine I am an expert on Holland, I am an expert on Italy, I am an expert on Germany. I know geology, I know agriculture… yeah, you can hang yourself, but you do not know anything about Eretz Yisrael because Eretz Yisrael, Israel is not part of the world.
 
Do you know why Calev had the strength to see Eretz Yisrael in a different light? Because he went to the graves of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov are also not part of this world. Why was Eretz Yisrael given to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov? It is not just a gift, G-d says to him, El haarets asher areka [Go to the land which I will show you]. It is mamish heavenly. Imagine if someone would show me something heavenly, you know, the level I am on, I would not even see it. I wouldn’t see anything. 
 

So Calev mamish, went back to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. What gave him the strength, why did he have different eyes? He had different eyes because he connected himself to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov.
 
 
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Excerpt from “Rebbe Nachman Says”, The Teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev as Taught by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”tl 
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s books are available online at the Breslev Israel Store.