The Dalet Amot
On Sunday, I found myself up a huge mountainous cliff in the Judean desert, that I had to get down.
There was a goat track, kinda, that widened out to something more comfortable half way down the mountain, but at the top, there was still a lot of jumping down cliffy rocks required.
We were with a group of other hikers, my husband was behind me talking to someone else, instead of his usual place right in front of me, giving me that sense of security that yes, bezrat Hashem, I can do this!
Long story short, I had an inner freak, and my legs went all shaky. Just what you need, when trying to get down some huge cliffy mountain thing in the middle of nowhere.
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BH, my husband caught up with me, and together, slowly, and with lots of butt-sliding on my part, we managed to get down.
It really, really helped that I didn’t have my glasses on (although they were with me, in my bag, just in case), so all I could really see clearly was the dalet amot right in front of me.
Three metres out, already stuff was kinda blurry.
Which was great, because otherwise I would probably still be up that mountainous cliff in the middle of nowhere.
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When we got home, quite achy and mentally exhausted from being forcibly dragged out of the comfort zone, I spent an hour or two in hitbodedut pondering the lessons God wanted me to learn from the experience.
The first lesson, was how much help I need from other people to move forward in life.
I’m not as ‘independent’ and self-sufficient as I thought, and that’s actually quite humbling. It’s making me think more about the kindnesses so many people do for me, particularly within my own family, and that I sometimes just take so for granted.
The second lesson, was that focussing on the dalet amot – and not looking down or up – is actually what got me down that mountain.
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When I was 10, I went with my family to Snowdon, in Wales, one of the highest peaks in the British Isles.
I started climbing up a few rocks and before I knew it, I was stuck at the top of a high cliff, literally frozen in fear, because I’d suddenly looked down and realised just how high up I actually was.
My mother talked me down, somehow, and since then, I’ve had a deep fear of ‘rock climbing’.
(Not totally unfounded, btw. That stuff can be dangerous…)
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I’ve never really challenged that fear, acquired at age 10.
But Sunday, God decided that it was time to ‘feel the fear’ again – and rectify it.
I was literally praying with every step I took down, sliding down on my butt when I had to, even though that made me look like a wimp to others – and appreciating that God is mamash in total control of every thing, every second, every movement.
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Back in the ‘real world’, I’ve been pondering all this stuff, and realising that the way to get through our challenging times is to just concentrate on the dalet amot right in front of our faces, and to not look at anything else.
Sometimes, even the dalet amot is challenging enough, without throwing more stuff in there about WAR WITH IRAN, aliens, therians, or I don’t know what else.
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Another thing to add, is that I’m feeling so grateful for the real, workable, practical advice of Rebbe Nachman and Breslov teachings, to guide me on these treacherous paths.
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I went to visit an old friend yesterday, who a decade ago started getting more and more ‘Chabad’.
They moved to a chareidi city, had a bunch of kids, embraced Chabad in all its aspects – and each time I go to her house, there are more pictures of the Rebbe on the walls and in the cabinets.
I usually just try to ignore it as much as I can, because we have enough other stuff we have in common that we can still have a good natter.
But yesterday, she decided to start telling me about this Tanya class for women she’s been going to, for a year and a half.
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We haven’t read a single word of the Tanya itself, she told me, as I tried to do ‘grey rock’.
The woman running it just tells us what perek we are up to, and then tells us how to apply it practically to our lives.
OK, I was curious – give me an example, how it’s helping you resolve your problems?
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My friend started explaining that she’d been taught in her Tanya class that a person is basically here just ‘dreaming’ their own life, so nothing is actually real.
Ergo, a person can change everything they don’t like about their life, if they just dream it differently.
Where is God in that equation? I asked her.
She started to get flustered, and gave me a different analogy, to help me ‘understand better’ the immense wisdom of the Tanya.
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On Shabbos, I put a blanket across two chairs and my kids go inside and pretend it’s a house, she told me.
They are sitting there playing Abba and Ima, drinking their tea, cutting the challah – but it’s all totally make-believe. As soon as I take the blanket away, that ‘world’ disappears, and there’s nothing left of it. It’s the same with us. This world isn’t really ‘real’, there is nothing left behind when the blanket is taken away.
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OK, but then I asked her: if a person really believed that, then what would motivate them to keep Torah and mitzvot? What about the idea of reward and punishment? If nothing we do is ‘real’ in this world, and everything is just a ‘dream’ that the person themselves can fix without taking it all back to God – how does God actually fit into that picture?
And – what happens if one of your kids punches another one of your kids inside the tent? The ‘trace’ of that remains, even when the blanket is removed…
She got very flustered again, and told me it was hard to explain.
I agreed with her, and we were saved from the conversation veering off into really awkward territory by a knock at her door.
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The problem is: all this stuff from secular gurus, and other ‘tzaddikim’, even, sounds so good in theory.
But in practise?
It doesn’t work.
If you walk around unanchored in a world you are ‘dreaming’ for yourself, that has no real connection to God, where everything is ‘unreal’, but where you’re also taking 100% responsibility for somehow ‘creating’ your own life, regardless of past life tikkunim and heavenly decrees that can’t just be ‘dreamt away’, no matter how hard you try…
You just end up getting more and more confused, and depressed, and beating yourself up for ‘not doing it right-enough’ – and lost in the olam hadimayon.
That’s what’s happened to me, on so many occasions, until I finally hit Rav Berland.
Because not everyone who ‘teaches Breslov’ is actually walking the real path themselves, either…
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My friend was telling me that she is full of confusions, and can’t seem to get clarity about anything.
I mentioned that I do hitbodedut every day, and that it’s the one thing that’s really, really helped me through life, in so many different ways.
I talk to God all the time, she replied.
And for sure, she does.
But hitbodedut is really more about listening to God.
And for sure, without hitbodedut, it’s something most people will never do by themselves.
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Anyway.
I love my friend dearly.
And I know that sometimes, often, even, following the Breslov path can also lead you into some very dark and confusing places.
Until God has mercy, and shines the light again.
It’s not us ‘doing it right’, it’s just us doing our best to follow Rabbenu’s excellent advice, and then God having mercy on us.
But if you do that, sof sof – the doubts and confusions slowly start to recede. And sof sof, Hashem starts to show you that all that work and fumbling you did in the dark really did and IS leading you somewhere very good.
If you only don’t give up, when the going gets tough.
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Let that be the last and final lesson I learnt from the mountain:
DON’T GIVE UP, UNTIL YOU ARE IN A SAFE, WARM SPACE AGAIN.
Yes, it’s scary, everything aches, you just want to cry, give up, roll over, lie down.
Maybe, you even do all that stuff for a few minutes.
But then get back up on your feet, and with God’s help, continue to make you way down the treacherous path.
Don’t stay stuck, a prisoner of the yetzer hara and all the fallen fears, for a second more than is required to regain your composure, and to take charge again of your own bad middot.
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I give us all a blessing that we should traverse our own ‘path’ safely.
With the light of the True Tzaddikim like Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, to help guide us down.
Thank you Rivka, beautiful messages…that you can relate to through the path God and the Zsadik are showing us….there is absolutely nothing like hitbodadute….it’s like it’s the real real thing….like this is why I am here….to talk to HaShem one on one…..
And one time not too long ago I was humiliated in front of others…and I remained silent….like the Rav says…and I couldn’t use my voice the whole day…as if lost….went to the canion to buy a few things and 3 times I was asked for zdeka…the 3rd one I gave,,,all the coins fell and he talked to me in a way as if the chords in my heart were touched….I never saw his face, but I realized what it is when they say that shaming one is like killing them, and also paying zdeka saves from death,,,all was well after that…..the Ravs’ Breslov messages are the real thing….he tosses to us diamonds all the time….never found this in other places till I met the Rav….
Your story is so wonderful!
Thanks Leah… I also have never found anything like Breslov and the Rav’s Torah teachings (together… I have been learning the last few years that you really need both together.)
It’s saved me so many times, in so many ways.
It’s the ‘Hungarian Wine’…
In terms of the Tanya idea that we are living in a dream world, that’s a prevelant kabalistic theme anyway, not just Tanya. We ARE living in a simulated universe I was taught (not by Chabad but by someone close to the Rav) and it IS a lot like the Matrix movie (based on kabbalah). The difference from the movie is that we are not controlled by the evil ones but Hashem is running the show. We are shown in daily life exactly what Hashem wants us to see, no more and no less. Hashem keeps everything minimal as it needs to keep our universe appearing as it does. Meaning, one opens hs fridge, the food is there as he left it. When closed, the food doesn’t exist at all. Every nano second Hashem is renewing the world and adjusting our simulated universe so that only what is visible exists at every nanosecond moment.
So, this idea isn’t against the question of where is Hashem in all of this and what does it matter if nothing is real. It is real for us in the way that Hashem wants so that we can make the choices we need to in life to grow and connect with him. Knowing that we are in a kind of virtual reality game doesn’t erase responsibility in life, it just helps us understand that if we pass on the street or meet up with someone, see a sight, dream something, hear something, whatever, it is a created moment directly from Hashem, constantly changing depending on the choices we make. We are always actively involved (and therefore 100% accountable) but sometimes have our choices limited to make sure the end result that Hashem desires is reached.
This idea really opened my world. I learned a bit of quantum physics to help me understand. Reality is different than we think. It all depends on who’s observing the reality. I can share a video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
I never learned all of Tanya but I did like the few classes I joined many years back. I know there may be a few mistakes in it but it doesn’t mean the ideas are all against Breslov’s ways. It has strengthened me to this day and I haven’t found anything negative or off in these ideas. I assume it didn’t stem only from the Tanya, I have to find the original source to check.
So pleased you love the Tanya. Me personally, I was VERY disturbed by what I was hearing second hand, and the devil is in the detail, which is why it’s so very easy from a distance to assume all this is the ‘same’ the ‘same basic idea’. Close up, very small errors in the kabbalah can lead to enormous, horrible errors and sins.
Bottom line: Rebbe Nachman explicitly said that Shneur Zalman’s teachings as contained in the Tanya ‘are not correct’. So, you take that anyway you want, but for me, that’s enough of a red flag that a person shouldn’t just swallow down all the ‘sounds good’ stuff, especially about kabbalah, unless they are 100% sure it’s coming from a kosher source, and won’t lead them into massive spiritual errors, further down the road.
I said I liked learning it at the time I did. I don’t learn it any more due to what Rebbe Nachman said. But, I’m not sure the simulated universe stuff is solely Tanya. I did think it was Zohar based when I originally was introduced to it but I do want to check up on that. I wouldn’t rule out true ideas that have more than one source, even if one of the sources may be the Tanya. Most of it wasn’t incorrect so if there’s another good source that says the same thing it should have credence.
With a quick search it says this concept is from the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah, two perfect sources. I think the Tanya must have used these two sources and just expounded on it but I never read it in the Tanya anyway.
READ THIS VERY CAREFULLY
THEN CONTINUE WITH THE NEXT ARTICLE IN THE SITE MAP
https://sapphiremagendavid.blogspot.com/p/string-theory-and-the.html?m=1
I went back to our contact at the Rav, for clarification of what was actually discussed.
This is what he said:
The source of the story that R Morgenstern mentions is written in Chabad sources and in Breslov sources. בית רבי עמ’ מב and שיח שרפי קודש תקצה-ב and פעולת הצדיק תתצב-תתצג
When someone sent this quote from R Morgensterns paper and asked me if I ever heard the Rav say anything about the tanya it just happened to be a few days before I heard the Rav say that a person can’t understand Likutei Moharan if he didn’t first learn Tanya. So I said that over.
About the connection between Rebbe Nachman and the Alter Rebbe there’s a whole chapter about it in Siach Sarfei Kodesh. In addition to the above quote that Rebbe Nachman called him “sar ha’elef” and a “true tzaddik” it also quotes Rebbe Nachman saying “I hold highly of the Rav but I don’t hold highly of his path”. And it says there that Rebbe Nachman hinted to the Rav that thier families will join in marriage and indeed Rebbe Nachmans daughter married the Ravs grandson.
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In a seperate email he also told me:
The idea of being “one” seems to be R Morgensterns chiddush. The chapter titled “Rebbe Shneur Zalman of Liadi” is in SSK 592-595.
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Bottom line: What the Rav said and what R Morgenstern said are NOT identical. We can agree that Shneur Zalman was a ‘tzaddik’, but then we also have to agree that his path, i.e. the teachings set out in the Tanya, is wrong.
That was the main point of my including this discussion with my friend, where I could see how what she is being taught is leading to total confusion and more unhappiness.
BTW – that was the main issue with the printing of the Tanya in the first place, that deep kabbalah is so easily twisted and misunderstood, that’s it’s very dangerous to teach it to regular people who aren’t hanging out with kabbalists who can do the hair-splitting to point out where the ideas are being distorted.