The Know-Nothings
Rebbe Nachman talks a lot about the highest level of ‘knowledge’, namely, knowing that we really ‘know nothing’.
When I first read this a couple of decades ago now, I didn’t like the idea, and I couldn’t understand it. What does Rabbenu mean, that ‘knowing nothing’ is the highest level of understanding?!
How does that make sense?
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Fast-forward a few years, and the answer is coming into much clearer focus.
We are limited, even the very best of us, by what God chooses to reveal to us, and to enlighten us with. As God is infinite and we are finite, the knowledge we possess has to also be ‘limited’, by definition.
As life progresses, and I start to see a little more of the amazing tapestry of life that Hashem has been weaving for each one of, and I start to see a little more of the ‘patterns’ even just in my own life, it’s leaving me awe-struck, that absolutely nothing is random or ‘by accident’.
It’s all planned. It’s all designed. Right down to the very tiniest detail – by the Creator.
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Yesterday, after the debacle around the authorship of the Tale of The Seventh Beggar, I had another despondent half an hour, where I felt like just giving up again.
Who would believe it, that stuff being put out by the Rav’s ‘official’ WhatsApp Group would include a tale of the Seventh Beggar that someone deceivingly entitled as being authored by the Rav himself?!
Honestly?
That bit kind of boggles the mind, still, that someone would write that on something the Rav himself didn’t write. And then publicise it on the Rav’s official WhatsApp channel.
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So, for half an hour, I was feeling kind of down-in-the-dumps about the whole thing.
I mean, this is my ‘cred’, this is my self-image as someone who meticulously checks their sources and tries very hard to only put out stuff that is truthful….
And here we are, that all got shot to pieces by something coming off the Rav’s ‘official’ WhatsApp group, with the Rav’s name stuck on stuff he never wrote.
Until I remembered something very important:
Really? I know absolutely nothing.
And each time I forget that, God makes sure to remind me.
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Bottom line, ‘knowing stuff’ is a big ego trip, a big ‘excuse’ the yetzer uses to lord it over lesser beings who don’t ‘know stuff’.
This was the key pull of ‘enlightenment’ – including all the secret-society-satanic bits of it, where people queued up to be taught ‘occult knowledge’ that would unlock the mysteries of the world – and make them feel as though they were ‘like God’.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the oldest trick in the book, as we saw by Eve and the snake in the Garden of Eden.
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So along comes Rabbenu and Breslov, and in our times, Rav Berland, and everything that is going on around them is just to rectify the world in a fundamental way.
That’s at least part of why so much around the Rav (and before him, Rabbenu) is just so difficult to grasp intellectually.
And it’s also part of why there is such a strong ‘antidote’ to arrogance, and people who think ‘they know stuff’, when you draw closer to the Rav.
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Honestly?
If you do your best to read Shivivei Or every week, and to learn some Gemara, and to try to follow what the Rav says to do, in terms of prayers, Torah learning and teshuva, you often come away with some fantastic insights into what’s going on in this world of lies.
All that stuff can easily go to a person’s head.
So it has to be balanced out by lots of bizayon, public humiliation, ‘being taken down a peg or two’, and essentially, knowing nothing.
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A lot of people can’t take the constant humiliation you get when you are part of Shuvu, in myriad ways.
Sometimes, I also have a wobble, like yesterday, when I lose focus and my ego starts yelling that it’s enough already.
But my ego is wrong.
Dafka, all the humiliation of ‘knowing nothing’, and of having people sneer in your face when you tell them your Rav is Rav Berland (if you even dare to mention it…) – this is all the most priceless spiritual treasure a person could have.
Sure, it grates on the ego.
But even more for sure, it’s doing a fantastic job of scrubbing all the stubborn bits of arrogance out of the soul.
And after all, isn’t that what we’re really down here to do?
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So, Baruch Hashem, God showed me again I really know nothing.
In the meantime, I am trying to get hold of what the Rav himself really did say about the tale of the Seventh Beggar, and its connection to the Prakim Nivarchim.
And when God helps me to do that, I will post it up here, and share it with you, bli neder.
TBC
As far as I understand from the discussion here, it may very well be that the Rav told this story, like ‘Yosef from the Galil’ said, that he got it second hand from someone who got it from the person who “heard” it straight from the Rav. What ‘Jude Abraham’ said, is that it wasn’t “written” by the Rav, but by a talmid. I would speculate that this talmid wrote down what he heard from the Rav, & didn’t come up with the story himself. Would love if this can be clarified.
Thanks Rivka for all that you post.
I’m not sure that’s what happened. I am trying to clarify what the Rav himself actually said, BH. Maybe, Yosef from the Galil can tell us more details about the chain of transmission in his version of events.
Maybe we can see it practically we can read them both and see if we also sing and dance afterwards 😃 I think it will be much easier to do so.
I heard from the Rav, I think, that after reading the TH we must pray right away because we are “clean and pure” for a better accepted prayer to Hashem bh!
Behatzlacha rabah veBessorot Tovot Tamid ממ”ש
My point in sharing this is just to give an outline as I understand it as to how all of this was revealed. Maybe it will help a bit.
About 25 years ago, someone at Shuvu, let’s call him A, had a dream that the Rav revealed the 10 perachim nivarchim. A asked the Rav about it in person and was told that they are real but to keep it quiet. At this in person meeting (or was it in the dream?) the Rav revealed an outline to the seventh beggar story because the story and the ten chapters are related.
A kept it mostly quiet, telling a few people. Someone, I don’t know who, wrote down what he had heard from A – the ten chapters and the story outline.
When I first heard about the Rav, he was still in exile. I was given the ten chapters and told that the story existed but I didn’t get the story at that time, only the chapters. I promised that I wouldn’t share them because at the time, there was confusion around Shuvu as to the purpose of the ten. Knowing the story existed however was one of the major catalysts in my coming close to the Rav.
“A” had another similar dream a few years ago, and again approached the Rav in person about it. This was right before the Rav went to prison the second time. The Rav again confirmed the ten chapters and fleshed out a bit more of the story. The Rav gave permission to publicize the chapters (but not the story). The story got out anyway.
I saw a handwritten copy of the chapters and story outline about 5 years ago and took photos of the papers. I don’t know if this is from the 25 years ago version, or the more recent enhanced version. AFAIK, they do not contradict at all.
I have a name of “A”, but I don’t know if it is correct and don’t want to send any trouble his way regardless. He is a long time direct student of the Rav. I never met him. I received the copy from someone who says he got it from A.
As you said above, I don’t know anything. I never do. Any question I ever have I reach out to the Rav’s students. So, since this is a very interesting topic, right now I have shailot in to four of the Rav’s closest and oldest students about the story. Two replied right away with the same answer: There have been several versions of the “complete” story going around for many years. People take the outline and expand it out on their own, and distribute it. Both advised me to ignore the story, but the new ten chapters are authentic and powerful.
These stories are apparently based on the outline I have but the Rav never gave over the entire story personally, at least not publicly. I suspect that the copy someone posted to the WhatsApp group is another one of these. However, I no longer admin that group and was not witness to what happened there.
Is any of this truly what happened? I didn’t witness any of it personally. However the people I’ve talked with seem to be confident in this version of events.
Very interesting.
Maybe someone can contact r’ Eliyahu Tubal, which is the author according to Jude Abraham- & ask him to explain & clarify the exact origin of the story.
Also, Yosef from the Galil, why don’t you contact the name you have for “A” to verify these events & the story.
Additionally, maybe you can share the “outline” version that you have, since according to what you say, that is coming from the rav.
Thanks
everything that moreinu haravv szlit”a says here is true. ein kol chadasz tachat _aszemesz(sorry i do not read enough in hebrew to spell correctly). ravberland.com, and in particular, the telephone kavv(ot/im) are so useful to help the world of non-fiber-having-people with getting direct audio signal from the rav berland szlit”a.
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ein od milvado,
תודה
אני יוסף
Here is a Hebrew only, printable, version of the Prakim Nivarim
https://tehillim-online.com/read-segula/Prakim-Nivharim