Grab and Go!

Translated by Aaron Yoseph

We need to get rid of the feeling that we’re nothing. We’re all confused. How many people think about the purpose of life? Think. Think about Hashem. See that there’s nothing that can hold us back in life. Rebbe Nachman said that even if he would be sold into slavery in Africa, he would serve Hashem there too. He would find a way. There’s always advice to take.
 
What we have to do is find a way to stop saying “no” to all the good advice that Rebbe Nachman gives us. “What? To just read Mishnayot is called learning?!” Stop being a snob – it’s not Gemara or nothing. So at least recite Mishnayot. Learn something. Open a Tehillim and say the words. You don’t know Hebrew? So say them in English, Spanish, Chinese – whatever!
 
We were created to serve Hashem, not to eat and drink. Even if you don’t feel it – revive yourself with some Torah learning; anything is wonderful! But when you think that learning Chumash or Mishnayos are babyish, you end up not learning anything!
 
So many of us look at ourselves and feel that we can’t do anything. This is the time to be a man, says Rebbe Nachman, and not a shlemazel. You have hands and legs? Then you can do a lot, you can grab plenty of Torah and mitzvot. But a person says, “Look at my situation. I can’t.” This is why the Rebbe comes and tells us that we can cleave to Hashem, without any confusion, in every situation. Grab mitzvot – simply. Tehillim, learning. Mishnayot. “I spoke a few words with the King of the Universe!” What a victory! So what if the Yetzer Hora punches you? Get back up on your feet. “This is what I was created for. To take the knocks, and get back up.” This is Tikkun HaOlam. But a person isn’t convinced. “No, this isn’t called learning, and this isn’t called praying.” There’s always something to do, but a person isn’t convinced that what he is doing has value in Hashem’s eyes. So he has no way to go. He has no brains. He can’t accept the truth.
 
There was an American bochur who told his Rav that he needed to go to Eretz Yisroel to get some inspiration. He came back disappointed. He said that he didn’t find any spirituality, any ruchniut, there. There was derision, heat, problems. The Rav said to him, “Did you see the Kachaba Building?” He didn’t know what he wasn’t the Rav was talking about.
 
“Sorry, Rav, no. I don’t even know what the Kachaba Building is. I may have passed by it without knowing.”
 
“Ah – so you don’t know the Kachaba? But spirituality you do know about? If you knew really knew about ruchniut, you would have seen it everywhere.”
 
That message is for us. Grab mitzvot. This is ruchniyut, this is spirituality. Tzitzit, peyot, Tefillin. But this is our problem – we don’t see it. This is our decree. In one year, we can learn the whole Shas, we can learn the whole Torah, and do an hour or two of hitbodedut every day, and earn a fortune too. But a person doesn’t believe it.
 
Rebbe Nachman said quality of life depends on how joyous a person is. Not the happiness of this world, from making a profit, or even the anticipation of happiness in Olam Haba. Rather, the joy that the Baal Shem Tov revealed – a unique joy. That’s the joy of doing a mitzva – it’s clinging to Hashem Himself. When a person sees this clearly, he jumps for joy, and this joy sweetens all the dinim.
 
The main thing isn’t to worry about our material welfare – Hashem will do that for us. The main thing is to want to really live – that each day should full of good things – Torah, Tefillah, Emunah, chessed. That Chatzot should be Chatzot, Shabbat should be Shabbat, and that every day should be full of chiyut – holy enthusiasm and joy. Don’t say that this isn’t possible. It’s possible and it’s possible – exactly where you are. On Rosh Hashanah, Hashem is revealed as King – to each of us, exactly where we are, no matter how high or how low that is. Hashem is here with us. You don’t have to be a Rosh Yeshiva learning Ktzot Hachoshen to cling to Hashem. That’s great, but it’s also great to be a truck driver who says a few Tehillim when he stops to gas up. The important thing is to grab what we can and to keep our mind in Torah and mitzvot, and Hashem will be with us always. That’s Rebbe Nachman’s promise.