Rebbe Nachman taught that the lead up to Rosh Hashana is an ideal time to do a pidyon nefesh.

There is a great, lengthy description of what a pidyon nefesh actually is, what it does, the spiritual underpinnings of how it works, HERE.

It’s an old article, in web years, written back when people still had an attention span longer than a goldfish.

So, if you’re not up to digesting that much information, here’s the top notes:

====

Rebbe Nachman writes (Likutei Moharan 74), “There is no one who doesn’t experience any kind of troubles or suffering. When a person is suffering, it may seem to him as if Hashem is pushing him away and rejecting him.”

Rebbe Nachman explains that the truth is exactly the opposite: it is when Hashem wants to draw a person closer that He sends him dinim (harsh judgments) and suffering. As is written in Mishlei 3, “Hashem rebukes those that he loves.”

The choice a person is faced with is either to reject the din, and thereby rejecting Hashem as well, or to search within the din itself, and specifically there, to find Hashem. One has to ask, “Why is this happening to me? Where is Hashem within the suffering that I am going through?”

Even if one does not come to a definite conclusion or find any clear answers, the fact that he is searching for Hashem amidst the suffering will bring him closer to Hashem, closer to truly believing in Him, and thereby closer to salvation.  By searching for Hashem within the suffering, a person shows that he believes that his suffering is from Hashem, and since everything that Hashem does is good, it then follows that the suffering that He is sending to me is only for my own good.

And the more one believes in Hashem and in the Tzaddikim (the great rabbis of the generation), the better his life will be….

==

The Rebbe explains (Likutei Moharan 2:82), that a person’s life can go either c’seder, which means in an organized and structured way, or lo c’seder, haphazard and disorganized.

The more a person is disconnected from Hashem, the more his life will go lo c’seder. Conversely, the more he attaches himself to Hashem the more things will go according to his desires.

A lack of structure, a disorganized life, when things don’t go well, it can make a person literally sick to the heart, as it says in Mishlei 13, “Going on and on, just living in hope, brings only sickness to the heart.”

==

Reb Nosson expounds on the Rebbe’s teaching regarding this aspect of c’seder and lo c’seder (Likutei Halachos, Yoreh De’ah 2, Pidyon Bachor 3, Paragraph 6, Page 416):

“And this is why one gives money for a pidyon whenever one is going through any kind of torment or distress. All the suffering that a person goes through originates from this aspect of lo c’seder.”

So when one gives money, which is also this aspect of lo c’seder, to the Tzaddik who is the aspect of c’seder (due to his unceasing connection to Hashem), then his personal situation can be reversed and returned to the aspect of c’seder, and the dinim, the harsh judgments which are on him which are the aspect of lo c’seder, are sweetened.

(Money has been the aspect of lo c’seder ever since the sin of Adam, which actually changed the whole world to the aspect of lo c’seder, which is a whole new kabalistic concept on its own that we will not go into here).

====

Bottom line:

 [E]veryone undergoes a certain amount of suffering.

There is no such thing as a person going through life with everything going exactly according to his desire. What comes out of these teachings are that there are three ways to deal with the situation:

1. through prayer
2. through acceptance, and
3. by giving money to the Tzaddik.

   All of which bring about one of two results, either an easing of the suffering or its cancellation altogether.

====

This same article has an excellent, nuanced and referenced discussion on how ‘money’ is connected to, but can also cancel out dinim, or harsh judgements, when it’s paid as a pidyon nefesh to a real Tzaddik.

Here’s a taster:

 In Likutei Moharan 68, Rebbe Nachman reveals one of the causes of the dinim:

“In truth, it would be fitting for every Jew to be rich; however, there is one character trait that causes a person to forfeit the money that is due to him. This trait is both worthless and despicable, but it is incredibly difficult to eradicate.

Even if a person does his best to break free of this character trait, even if the only reason is in order that he will receive more money, in order not to be deprived of the money that was coming to him, even so, this trait overpowers him even from childhood and causes him to be deprived of the money due to him.

This character trait is the attribute of anger, which causes him to forfeit his money.

The reason this happens is that the anger and the money both emanate from the same source in heaven.” 

====

The article continues:

[W]e could really ask a question at this point, why does the Rav have to take money at all? Can’t he just pray for us and bring us our salvation that way?

The answer is, as Reb Nasan writes (Alim L’Trufah 385),

“It is incredibly difficult to help a person who is not prepared to make some effort on his own.

“This is the very reason that people bring pidyonot to the Tzaddikim and request that they pray for them, even though it is known that the Tzaddikim are constantly praying for us, regarding the suffering that we are going through. They literally deliver up their souls on our behalf.

“Even so, it is still so difficult to help someone that doesn’t make the slightest ‘itarusa diletata’ (an awakening from below), on his own behalf.” 

==

If you don’t like this idea of having to make some real effort to have things change around, understand that your belief system has probably been seriously infected by yoshki-itis, where some redeemer comes and just does all the work for everyone, while we sit back, polish buttons and drink a l’chaim.

That’s not how Judaism works.

But it is exactly how xtianity is claimed to work.

==

Bottom line:

 So that basically is where the money comes in:

1. It is connected to the din, the harsh judgment at its very source, and that is why it is possible to cancel a harsh decree through money.

2. It serves to connect us to the Tzaddik who is able to bestow upon us both knowledge and salvation.

3. And finally and most importantly, it is us doing our part making whatever effort we are able to alleviate our own situation.

Since we are not on a level to bring about our own salvation, by giving money to someone who is on such a level, and thereby reducing our own possessions, we can make ourselves worthy of receiving a reciprocal amount of help from heaven.

==

OK, so now, who do you give it to?

Here is what Rebbe Nachman himself says:

 Rebbe Nachman explains (Likutei Moharan 215):

“You should know that there are twenty four different pidyonot.

“This is because there are twenty four Courts of Justice (in heaven), and for each court there is a corresponding pidyon appropriate specifically to that court, which is able to mitigate the judgments being handed down there. Furthermore, there is one pidyon which encompasses all the twenty four courts, which is able to mitigate the judgment in all of them…

However, even amongst the Tzaddikim, not every one of them is familiar with this particular pidyon.

“In fact, there is only one Tzaddik in each generation who knows it.”  

==

And as Rebbe Nachman says (Sichos HaRan 175), “I do not understand how the Tzaddikim do pidyonot.

A pidyon cannot be done other than by someone who knows all the twenty four Courts.

Because the one bringing the pidyon has to know in which court the person is being judged. Otherwise he can come to bring the correct pidyon for one particular court, and the person is being judged in another court entirely.”

And as he goes on to say there, “I not only am familiar with all the twenty four courts, and which pidyon is needed for each court, but I also know how to appeal a case to a higher court, which will most certainly help, as it buys the person more time, during which he can do more mitzvos, give more tzedaka etc. which will surely benefit him in his final judgment.” 

====

Read the rest of this excellent article HERE.

====

If you want to dismiss all this as another ‘pay to pray’ scam, God gave you free choice to do exactly that.

He also gave you free choice to decide that some guy on youtube is the ‘one in a generation’ who can actually work open miracles for people, and to donate to him instead.

Me personally?

THIS is where I do my pidyonot.

====

And now, let me tell you a story.

Last year, a week before Rosh Hashana, I had a very strong feeling that if the Rav didn’t get to Uman, there was going to be something horrible occurring.

(The Rav himself was saying this openly, it wasn’t nevua, or at least, not my nevua).

Long story short, me and my husband decided to pay a significant pidyon amount for every member of our nuclear family ahead of Rosh Hashana, we’re talking tens of thousands of shekels.

5784 has been such a terrible year, in so many ways.

Yet for us, we married off two daughters, BH, to very good men, and have seen many other blessings happening too – even though the world around us is falling apart.

So, you think for yourself and do what you want.

If I hadn’t just shelled out for two weddings, I would pay the same again this year in a heartbeat, happily.

Because dinim are sweetened either by blood, or by money.

And for anyone who is already in the habit of giving the mandatory 10% of their income to charity – it’s a no-brainer which one is preferable.

(Rabbenu teaches that there are people whose money is dearer to them than their own bodies. This used to sound fantastic to me, but not any more.)

And may we just hear good news.

====

Go HERE, to do a pid on the Shuvu Banim website – with absolutely no guarantees of anything in return, except the mitzva itself.