“He Will Certainly Never Fail” 

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna. 

A GPS For Life 

We all want to advance in life, achieve more and more in all sorts of realms, both materially and spiritually. Many times we rush forward without knowing for sure if we are indeed advancing or only getting ourselves into trouble by making some bad mistakes. How can we know if we are going in the right direction and whether our next step will constitute an advance towards our goals, or chalila, a veering away from them? 

In order to know if we are going in the right direction, and whether we are taking the right steps towards success, we must define the goal in precise terms. Only when we really know what the goal is, the nature of the success we want to achieve, and understand what is considered an appropriate aspiration – only then can we examine our steps and know whether they are moving us closer to our goal or further away from it.  

When do we tend to get confused? When we don’t understand what goal is a worthwhile one and what we should really be aspiring to – leaving us no way of looking into and examining our steps.  

So, what is the goal? What should we aspire to? Before you continue reading, stop a moment and try to think… What would your answer to this question be? 

People have ambitions: they want to reach all kinds of places, achieve goals or aims that seem to them to be the right thing or glamorous or smart or convincing – and they don’t understand that that is precisely the path to ruin. That is how they only get further and further away from success, and whatever they do is the next step towards failure. 

Life Insurance 

Rabbi Nachman, with his broad grasp of things, saw the end and the purpose of all the familiar aspirations, including their dangers, and he warned: “When a person follows his intellect and wisdom, he can make many mistakes, encounter many obstacles, and come to great harm, chas veshalom. And there are those who caused much damage, like the great and famous evil people, who deceived the world, and it was all due to their wisdom and intellect.”¹ 

All those people who made mistakes – their mistakes were not in their route, rather, they failed to define the goal properly. They followed the goal they had set for themselves by their own wisdom; in other words, their goal was determined according to their wisdom and intellect, and that is exactly what brought them to the bad places they reached.  

Rabbeinu saw this and knew it, and therefore in Likutei Moharan he defines for us the only purpose and aim one should have in the most wonderful, clear and sweet way: “And the main point of Judaism is to walk simply, without any sophisticated thoughts, and to make sure that everything one does, that Hashem yitbarach should be there, without paying any attention to one’s own honor. If it honors Hashem yitbarach – one does it, and if not – not. And then he certainly will never fail.”² 

“Certainly will never fail” – that is more than a promise; it’s complete certainty! 

Personal Example 

The following was Rabbi Nachman’s way, as described in the book Shivchei Haran: “He would perform all kinds of simple tasks of avodat Hashem (service of Hashem) without any sophisticated thinking… and his intention was to do many mitzvahs, because his service was perfectly simple, without any sophistication… 

“And so he would do and serve Hashem yitbarach with all kinds of completely simple deeds with no sophistication at all, in spite of the fact that he was really a great sage, extremely full of wisdom in his childhood and as a young man as well, when he was famous among all his acquaintances, even so he did not use any sophisticated thinking at all in his service of Hashem, rather his custom was to do all the simple tasks of the world”³ – in other words, much Torah learning, practical mitzvahs, and many prayers and requests and much hitbodedut, to speak and express himself to Him, yitbarach, as mentioned above. 

“And this was the main thrust of his great wisdom, because due to his great wisdom he understood immediately that there is no need for any sophistication in serving Hashem, because the main thrust of wisdom that is greater than anything is not to be any sort of ‘wise man’ in serving Hashem; rather, serve Him with temimut (wholly and simply), without any sophistication.”³ 

His Success Went to His Head 

Korach was a great Torah sage as well. If he managed to convince two hundred and fifty chiefs of the Sanhedrin, then he was no ignoramus. It was this great wisdom that misled him with all kinds of halachic “questions” that were seemingly clever questions, but were just heretical and defying, even silly. 

Besides that, he was holy, one of those who carried the Ark of the Covenant and possessed ruach hakodesh (holy spirit). His holiness misled him to think that Moshe Rabbeinu had no advantage over others; and his own holy spirit misled him when he saw that Shmuel Hanavi would be one of his descendants.  

He was also immensely wealthy – “As wealthy as Korach”, as the saying goes. This success, too, distanced him from the truth. His success went to his head, and he concluded that if he is so successful, then apparently Hashem is with him and so is the truth… 

And not only Korach: that is the danger posed to each and every one of us! The danger is that our successes, our aspirations, our seemingly straight “common sense”, and even our Torah and our kedushah (holiness) will bring us to heresy and to contradict tzaddikim! 

The Root of Personal Tragedy 

Our goal in life is to search for the tzaddikim, those who are true temimim (whole), true kedoshim, who can lead us safely and bring us closer to our purpose in life. They can be reached only by way of temimut: “The main thing and the foundation upon which everything rests is to connect oneself to the tzaddik of the generation, and to accept his words, whatever he says… and to cast away from oneself all the sophistication, and to put his own opinion aside, as if he has no mind of his own, leaving just what he receives from the tzaddik and rabbi of the generation. As long as some bit of personal intellect remains in him, he is not perfect and is not connected to the tzaddik.”⁴ 

The biggest disaster that can happen to a person in this world is to contradict the tzaddik. This is not just a mistake, but truly a personal tragedy; it is the way to lose everything you have in life. Korach and all his Torah and his entire family (except for his sons, who disengaged themselves from him) and all his possessions and all his success – were all swallowed up by the earth in a single moment. 

A Jew has only one desire: to be tamim – “wholly loyal to Hashem, your G-d”! Never stray from the way of temimut. No pride, no heresy, no questions, no sophisticated thoughts.  

Don’t Be “Right” 

Rabbeinu says that all kabbalat haTorah (the receiving of the Torah) depends on this point – temimut. The Jews had many sophisticated ideas – so many that they couldn’t receive the Torah, couldn’t open themselves to its wondrous truth.  

In one moment of chessed (loving kindness), they had the merit to simply abandon all intellect, thus being called “foolish, unwise people”⁵– but it was only due to that that they received the Torah. This is called “acquiring one’s world in one moment.” It says “The tzaddik will flourish like a palm tree”⁶ – “צדיק כתמר יפרח” – the last letters of each word here make up the word קרח – Korach. But Korach, who was a big tzaddik, lost his world in one moment of sophistication that derailed him completely and sent him down to She’ol. 

The entire Torah is holy wisdom, but that, too, is based on temimut, and without temimut it is very dangerous. “He whose wisdom precedes his fear of sin – his wisdom doesn’t last.”⁷ And that is why wisdom poses the greatest danger.  

During the many years that I have merited to work with Jews, a great many students have come my way, and I have followed them for years. I have seen this very clearly – those who truly succeeded long-term were those who possess temimut. 

Many times, I saw very successful students who suddenly had the “merit” to acquire “understanding” and “insights” and all kinds of new intellectual ideas that looked very convincing on paper – but in the end, those understandings and ideas took them to very problematic faraway places, and ruined their lives both materially and spiritually.  

Korach, the successful person, the genius, the holy person and the rich man, who conquered every challenge and convinced all the great sages – is standing in front of us in the parashah and calling out to us from underground: “Moshe is true and his Torah is true.”⁸ Be really wise, and to be really wise is to be a tamim – wholly loyal, to search only for Hashem and His righteous servants. Do not be “right” – be a tzaddik and a tamim, and then you will be sure never to stumble; rather you will be truly successful and will “joyfully face the last day.”⁹ 

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Likutei Moharan II, 12 

² Continuation of Likutei Moharan II,12 

³ Shevchei Ha-Ran, 13 

⁴ Likutei Moharan I, 124 

⁵ Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:6 

⁶ Tehillim (Psalms) 132:13 

⁷ Perkei Avot, Chapter 3, Mishnah 9 

⁸ Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Batra 33b and 44a 

⁹ Mishlei (Proverbs) 31:25