Yesterday, I had a phone call from a reader.

They asked me a really good question:

How can we be asked to just ‘believe’ that Rav Berland is MBD, when he hasn’t done the things MBD is meant to do, yet? That feels kinda xtian to me….

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I hear that. And at least on some levels, I totally agree with the sentiment.

In a previous post HERE, this is what I wrote about this:

For the people who really do want to serve Hashem, with simple emuna, and with humility and simplicity, and who really do just yearn for the ‘world of truth’ – even if they’ve been raised following after a false, or failed messiah, in the end, God will show them what’s really going on.

And the point is also, that until the Rav fulfills the criteria for MBD, he is still in the category of the potential MBD of our generation.

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Until it really happens, it hasn’t happened.

And the test today isn’t to believe that Rav Berland is DEFINITELY going to be MBD, not at this stage, when it’s still so hidden, and there is so much of the job left to complete still.

The test today is just to admit that Rav Berland COULD BE MBD.

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But, I think I should also add in here that xtianity literally stole the ‘crown jewels’ of authentic Judaism, 2,000 years ago, and the Koh-i-noor is the belief in Moshiach, a flesh-and-blood man born of a woman, who plays a crucial role in redeeming the Jewish people, and ushering in the geula.

And conflated it with the literal ‘man as a god’ idea, that fuelled and still fuels paganism (and satanism, btw. It’s the original words of the Primoridal Snake, that eating from the Tree of Knowledge will make Adam and Chava ‘like God’.)

The difference between the most sublime teachings of authentic Judaism and literal idol worship is razor-fine in this area.

That’s why so many people, including the biggest sages of the Jewish people, have tripped-up and stumbled over this subject, time and time again.

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Belief in Moshiach and belief in the ‘True Tzaddik’ are not exactly the same, although there is a lot of overlap.

And the ‘True Tzaddik’ is also not the same concept as the ‘Tzaddik HaDor’, although again, there is a lot of overlap.

Before we continue, I just want to make it totally clear, that I am literally a nothing and a no-one, when it comes to really ‘knowing’ what’s going on with all this.

What I’m sharing here is my personal thoughts and musings, based on my own puny attempts to clarify stuff in my hitbodedut, over the last 15 years or so.

What can I tell you, yerida hadorot, that it’s falling to someone like me to even make a stab at clarifying this stuff for others, when my own knowledge on the matter is so basic.

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So, let’s explain first where I’m coming from with all this – as context is everything, when it comes to evaluating another person’s opinion, especially about such important matters as this.

(And BTW, that’s also why it exasperates me no end when people just suck up information from anonymous ‘commentators’ and 1-D ‘influencers’, without taking the time to figure out where that information is coming from. Everything is biased, whether we want to believe that or not. A huge part of the birur process is clarifying what type of personal bias you are dealing with, when evaluating information. Because nothing is truly ‘objective’.)

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So, I went to a xtian school until I was 11, where I had quite a large dose of anti-semitism and getting told that ‘you killed our kryst’, and stuff like that.

On the one hand, it gave me a great grounding in xtian teachings and beliefs (and two-faced xtian hypocrisy and horrible middot); and on the other hand, it made me very ‘anti’ the whole Yoshki idea and teachings, from a young age.

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So, when I first got to Breslov, there were some teachings about the ‘True Tzaddik’ idea that set my teeth on edge.

When people get uncomfortable around this whole idea of having another human being in the picture, apparently acting as some sort of ‘go-between’ man and God, I totally understand where that is coming from.

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Before we continue this discussion, I want to bring a lengthy snippet discussing the essence of the ‘disagreement’ that occurred between the Seer of Lublin, and his main student, the Yid HaKadosh.

I’ve been reading up a lot of new stuff, trying to figure out what was really going on with the whole story of ‘mitnagdim’ and ‘chassidim’. It’s not at all what we were taught in our Disney version of ‘Jewish history’.

If you’ve been following the stuff going up here on the blog, you’ll know that the Vilna Gaon and his followers seem to have been ‘building on’ Sabbatean ideas, at the very least (see the Kotzk blog HERE, HERE and HERE, for more information).

And that also, ‘chassidut’ was not a homogenous group, or belief system, in any way, shape or form.

There were some massive differences of opinion within ‘chassidut’ itself, as to the role of the ‘True Tzaddik’, and pertaining to the whole idea of following a Tzaddik.

It’s too large a subject to cover even superficially in one post, but the following snippet (from HERE) will gave a flavor:

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Jakub Izaak (Yaakov Yitzchak) Rabinowicz was born in 1766 in Przedbórz, Poland….

[H]e became a disciple of David of Lelov who convinced the Yehudi to travel to the Hasidic court of Yaakov Yitzchak Horowitz (the Seer) in Lublin.

During his time in Lublin, the Yehudi soon becoming the leading disciple of the Seer, who affectionally called him the “Yehudi” so that he would not be called by his rebbe’s name.

As the Seer became preoccupied with the responsibilities of mass movement he began directing newly-arrived young scholars visiting Lublin into the care of the Yehudi. However, over time, the Yehudi began to greatly resent the atmosphere in Lublin.

In the court of the Seer, the rebbe served as the impetus of God and worked within a mystical and kabbalistic framework.

The Yehudi began to detest the all-encompassing role in which the Seer played within his follower’s lives, and so he founded his own religious movement based in Przysucha (Peshischa). Several of the Seer’s most distinguished disciples followed the Yehudi to Przysucha, such as Simcha Bunim of Peshischa and Menahem Mendel of Kotsk, the respective 1st and *2nd Grand Rabbis of Peshischa.

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[Ed. note: there is a cover-up around this story, that I’ve only just started chipping away. It’s known that Menachem Mendel of Kotsk lost his faith, and his pupils kept him locked up in ‘home prison’ until he died. And Simcha Bunim of Peshischa keeps popping up in my family trees full of Vilna Gaon /Chabad people. The snippet about the Yid HaKadosh continues:]

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Rabbinic position

The Yehudi believed that an individual should always examine his intentions, and if they are corrupt he should cleanse them through a process of understanding.

Once famously saying “God’s seal is ‘truth,’ it can not be forged, since if it is forged it is true no more”.

It was this fundamental belief in individuality and autonomy of self which resulted in a continuous dispute between the Seer and the Yehudi.

The Seer beloved that it was his duty to bring an end to the Napoleonic wars, by using Kabbalah, and asked the Yehudi to join this spiritual endeavour, the latter refused, believing that one finds redemption through a highly personal process of self-cleansing.

The Yehudi believed that humility is the core virtue of a person who truly knows himself, recognizing his own imperfection. He also believed that one should not be influenced by the status quo as it can lead to un-pure motives. …

The Yehudi believed that the main role of the rebbe was to guide his disciples in their struggle for spiritual depth, and not to serve as a miracle-worker.

This teaching appealed to the followers of Peshischa, who were an elite and highly educated group of young Hasidim who were willing to sacrifice their material well-being as well as their inner peace in the name of self-cleansing.

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The Yehudi believed that one of the main paths to self-cleansing was the parring of traditional Talmudic learning with the deeply spiritual Kavanah of Hasidism. Unlike his Hasidic contemporaries, the Yehudi believed that Learning Talmud became central to the worship of God stating that “learning Talmud and Tosafot purifies the mind and makes one ready for praying.”

Ultimately the Yehudi believed that critical search for truth was crucial to enlightenment, and that process of enlightenment could only be done by an individual rather than through a rebbe.

After his death in 1813, the Yehudi was succeeded by his main disciple Simcha Bunim of Peshischa who brought the movement its highest point and kickstarted a counter-revolutionary movement that challenged the Hasidic norm.

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When I read this, I saw that many of the ideas of the ‘Yid HaKadosh’ overlap quite a bit with Rebbe Nachman and Breslov teachings.

Unlike the other chassiduts, Rebbe Nachman puts a huge emphasis on a person doing an hour a day of hitbodeduti, i.e. talking to God directly, in your own language and words.

There is no ‘intermediary’ between man and God in Breslov – in fact, Rabbenu makes it a firm rule, that his chassidim should be talking directly to God, for at least an hour every day.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of following this piece of advice.

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And also, it blows the argument totally out of the water that Breslov is putting anything or anyone between a person, and their Creator.

Breslov is literally telling people to talk to God, directly, for an hour a day.

And that’s on top of all the other prayers, Shmoneh Esrehs, etc, that each Jew is obligated in.

And this advice on hitbodedut is a huge component of why no-one can make the argument ‘stick’ that Breslov is about worshipping a man, instead of worshipping God.

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But when it comes to the other chassiduts…..who don’t encourage people to talk to God directly, and strongly encourage ‘Rebbe worship’…..

Perhaps, it’s another story.

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Where Rebbe Nachman and the ‘Yid HaKadosh’ differ, tho, is that Rebbe Nachman makes it clear that while he can’t operate to do what’s required spiritually in the world, ‘without us’, his followers, we also can’t get to where we need to get to, spiritually, ‘without him’ – i.e. without following the Rebbe’s teachings and advice.

It’s a whole, big discussion about what the real role of the Rebbe actually is / was, but this is just giving the flavor.

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OK, so then moving back to this idea of the ‘Tzaddik HaDor’, the potential Moshiach ben David that every generation possesses.

Belief in Moshiach is codified in the Rambam’s 13 Principles of Faith.

Here’s a few of those Principles, that took my eye, for this post:

I believe with perfect faith that…

1. The Creator, may His name be blessed, creates and guides all that were created, and that He alone did, is doing and will do everything that is done.

(BTW – how many of the critics of Breslov actually believe in this first principle of faith, tachlis? If you really believe in God, you engage with Him, you talk to Him, you take Him into account in your own life, and your own actions. I don’t see a lot of YU types doing that…. Do you?)

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I believe with perfect faith that…

5) That the Creator, may His name be blessed, it’s proper to pray to Him alone, and to no other is it proper to pray.

6) That all the words of the prophets are true.

7) That the prophecy of Moses our teacher, alav hashalom, was true, and that he was the father of the prophets, those who came before him and those who came after him.

8) That this the entire Torah that is found now in our hands is the [same] one that was given to Moses our teacher, alav hashalom.

12) In the coming of Moshiach, and even though he may delay, with all that, I wait for him every single day, that he is going to come.

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What we see from the above is:

A person only prays to Hashem alone, and no-one else.

BUT:

Hashem still arranged things that the Torah came through a flesh-and-blood person, Moshe Rabbenu – and that whatever Moshe told the people, as the ‘intermediary’ between Hashem and the people, was ‘true’, (i.e. it couldn’t be challenged, because it was God’s word.)

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Not simple stuff.

Not simple at all.

And the arguments over Moshe, and the ‘authorship’ of the Torah, and especially the teachings of the Oral Torah, and the leadership of the ‘Tzaddik HaDor’ have been raging for 3,334 years, already.

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Moshe Rabbenu was one of the five ‘Tzaddikei Yesod Ha’Olam’, so-called because they literally brought down new ‘Torah’ to the world.

The others were:

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai – author of the Zohar

The ARI’ZAL – who revealed many new concepts in kabbalistic thought

The Baal Shem Tov – founder of chassidut

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

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None of these people ended up being ‘Moshiach’.

But they still changed the world with their teachings, in a profound, fundamental way, and as acted as a conduit for Hashem to funnel a totally different level of Torah into the world.

And the Torah is literally the blueprint for the world, don’t forget that.

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Tov, I’m going to stop there as it’s a long post already with a lot of information and ideas to digest.

This probably deserves a ‘Part 2’ – let me know if there some aspect or area you’d like me to explore more with you, here on the blog.

The takeaway point is, that belief in the ‘True Tzaddik’, and belief in ‘Moshiach’ are the crown jewels of authentic yiddishkeit, but open to terrible abuse and misunderstandings.

But the differences are often so razor-thin, that even the most learned people can trip and err in this matter.

Especially, if they are full of arrogance, and not working really hard to clear out their bad middot, and doing their very best to give God what He really wants from them.

TBC

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PS: In the middle of putting this up, I had another phone conversation with a different reader from NYC, asking similar but different questions.

BH, I will do a post on ‘Rivka HaTzaddika’ next.