Rabbi Nachman

This article deals with the Hasidic tzaddik of the 18th and 19th centuries. Century. For more people with this name, see Nachman .

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav also by Breslow (born 1772 in Medzhybizh , died on 16th October 1810 in Uman ) was a Hasidic tzaddik .

Life

On his mother's side he was the great-grandson of Baal Shem Tov , the founder of Hasidism. On his father's side, he was the grandson of Rabbi Nachman von Horodenka , a student of Baal Shem Tov. Nachman grew up in the Hasidic atmosphere of his parents' house, married early and lived in his father-in-law's house.

He later settled in Medvedivka , a village in Kiev Governorate , where he gathered a small circle of Hasidim around him.

Rabbi Nachman's grave in Uman / Ukraine

In 1798 he went on a trip to Eretz Israel, accompanied by a disciple . Over the course of a few months he visited Haifa , Jaffa , Tiberias and Safed , among others , but had to leave the country in a hurry after Napoleon's invasion .

During his stay in a village near Shpola , he had an argument with Arie Leib, an elderly Hasidic tzaddik, who accused Nachman of Sabbatian and Frankist views. In 1802 he moved to Brazlaw , also known as Breslow, where he stayed until 1810. After his house was burned down in Bratslav, he moved to Uman , where he 5571 (1810 October 16) during the 18 Tishri Sukkotfestes of tuberculosis died.

Brazław or Breslow Hasidim

After his death, his most important student Nathan von Brazlaw led the movement of the Bratslaver or Breslower Hasidim (also "di tojten hasidim"). He edited the works of R. Nachman. In 1811, for Rosh Hashanah , devotees gathered for the first time in Uman at the grave of R. Nachman, because this was spiritually beneficial. This tradition lives on with interruptions to this day. R. Nachman did not have a successor, as the Brazław Hasidim are awaiting his return.

The Brazław Hasidim were active in their region of origin, Podolia , until the early years of the Soviet Union . After that, many emigrated to the USA and Israel . There they lived first in the old city of Jerusalem , but later also in Safed, Immanuel (in the occupied West Bank ) and Bnei Berak .

Since 1988, many Hasidim have made the pilgrimage to Uman on Rosh Hashanah (2015: approx. 30,000).

His teachings

Although Nachman emphasized the importance of tradition and saw himself as the last link in a chain that extended from Shimon ben Jochai to Isaak Luria to his great-grandfather Baal Shem Tov, his teachings contain numerous innovations. According to Nachman, the world was created by En Sof (literally "no end" or "infinite"), "the unground", and is ruled according to the absolute divine will. Divinity is contained everywhere, even in evil , in the form of qlipot ("bowls"). Even a person who sinks into evil can therefore find his way back to the Creator through repentance . The Lurian doctrine of the Tzimtzum ("withdrawal", "self-entanglement", see Kabbalah ) creates a paradox . On the one hand, she postulates the retreat and the disappearance of divinity with the creation of an "empty space" or "great openness", on the other hand it assumes divine immanence (presence of God in the world). The Hasidim overcomes this apparent contradiction through the recognition of mutual dependency: the cultivation of openness and impartiality creates the conditions for experiencing God's “effectiveness”. According to Nachman, the ideal state of Tzimtzum will only be achieved in the future. The main purpose of this doctrine, however, is to cast doubt on the existence of the Creator. The formulation of the question is an important element in his teaching and depends on the first act of will of the Creator in his relationship with man. Though man can get deeply into the clutches of doubt, the ultimate purpose of his fall is his ascent (“And the sinking is for the sake of rising” Zohar ).

Nachman's Tzaddik theory is unique because in it he claims that there is only one real Tzaddik, namely Nachman himself, who may be designated as Messiah . Similar to Moses, the tzaddik bestows redeeming power on the prayers of the community. Tzaddik's thoughts on heretical questions can lead to the spiritual ascent of those who were previously mistaken. The niggun (the Hasidic melody) also has a similar redeeming influence. The tzaddik lives forever, so to speak, whether in this world or in the world to come. A person is obliged to travel to the Tzaddik, "because the most important thing is what he hears from the Tzaddik's mouth".

Nachman's attitude towards people and the world can, on the surface, appear pessimistic. He believes that there are many obstacles on the path of man in this world that can easily be called Gehinnom . Nevertheless, Nachman stands up to despair with all his might. The anchors that a person can hold on to in life are faith, encouragement, joy, song, dance, constant self-criticism, conversations with the tzaddik and longing for a direct relationship with the Creator. Therefore prayer occupies an important place in his teachings . However, this is not limited to the Jewish tradition of prayer; reciting the psalms is also worthless as long as the person praying does not pray with kawwana and identify with the content. Also important for the dialogue is the obligation to separate daily from the people in nature - hitbodedut - isolation.

According to Nachman, the importance of the niggun , the sung prayer, should not be overestimated. There is a complete system of niggunim that corresponds to the structure of the universe. Those who can adapt to the musical rhythm get great pleasure from it and achieve the extinction of the self. At this moment the Creator reveals himself to the one who longs for him through the various stages in the order of nature. A possibility for spiritual elevation is offered to man in the promised land , where he can attain faith and wisdom. The Hasid gains access to this promised land through the knowledge of the Creator through what is created and through the grace of God, it is both a spiritual and a real land. This may provide an explanation for Nachman's view that he was sustained throughout his life by the wisdom-promoting power of the Land of Israel, which made him “the greatest of the tzaddikim,” as he called himself.

source

Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume 12, pp. 782-787.

literature

• Martin Buber : The stories of Rabbi Nachman. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1906, (And frequent further editions: Gütersloher Verl.-Haus Mohn, Gütersloh 2002, ISBN 3-579-01217-7 ). Furthermore: “Your personal characteristics of Rabbi Nachman are very successful, only to a certain extent idealized, because Nachman was not free from some of the mistakes of his Hasidic 'entourage'. [...] As for the retelling of the stories, they have been masterfully reworked and freed from the anima vili [worthless soul] of the original. ”- Simon Dubnow to Martin Buber, 1906 .
• Michael Brocke (ed.): The stories of Rabbi Nachman von Bratzlaw. For the first time translated from Yiddish and Hebrew, annotated and with an afterword . Carl Hanser, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-446-14394-7 , (as paperback: Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, ( rororo 5993), ISBN 3-499-15993-7 ).
• Martin Cunz : The journey of Rabbi Nachman from Brazlaw to the land of Israel (1798-1799). History, hermeneutics, texts. Mohr, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-16-146628-4 , ( Texts and studies in medieval and early modern Judaism 11), (also: Luzern, Hochsch., Diss., 1994).
• Lea Fleischmann : Rabbi Nachman and the Torah. Judaism made understandable for non-Jews. Scherz, Bern et al. 2000, ISBN 3-502-15206-3 .
• David Assaf (ed.): Bratslav. An Annotated Bibliography. R. Nahman of Bratslav. His Life and Teachings. The Literary Legacy of His Disciples. Bratslav Hasidism in Its Context. Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, Jerusalem 2000, ISBN 965-227-145-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Almost 30,000 Hasidim appeared in Uman to celebrate the Jewish New Year , unian, September 14, 2015