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10/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

In times of trouble and suffering, it is good to weep and cry before God. Through this we can gain Da'at, understanding, and draw God's providence upon ourselves. The pain and suffering will then be less because the main reason they are hard to bear is that one lacks adequate understanding. It is necessary to understand that everything is under the eye of God and is sent only for our own good (Likutey Moharan I:250).

The reason why people have to endure opposition and even persecution is to bring them closer to God through this very experience. The more persecution and hardship they suffer the more they must turn to God for relief, because there is no other solution. This is how persecution and suffering bring us closer to God (Likutey Moharan II, 13).

09/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

Shame and embarrassment are the basic qualities which help us to return to God. The merest sin one may have committed should give one a deep sense of shame, because in reality every Jew ought to be far removed from sin. The soul of the Jew is rooted in a source so exalted that in essence he is completely detached from sin. For a Jew to sin in any way at all is totally unbecoming. Even when he wants to perform a mitzvah, a positive action, he should also feel a sense of shame and embarrassment. What right does he have to perform this mitzvah? How does he dare to enter the court of the King and perform the mitzvah when he considers the greatness of the One before whom he does it? The true significance and preciousness of each mitzvah is totally beyond our comprehension. A person has only to look at himself to see how far he is from God and how unworthy he is of performing the mitzvah. How can he stretch out his hand to take the tefilin, the very crown of the King... and simply put them on his head all of a sudden? A person who felt genuine shame would be embarrassed even to take food and put it in his mouth before God. What right does he have to this food? To acquire a sense of shame one should examine oneself in comparison with the Tzaddik. This will move him to repent and attain true humility, the humility of Moses. This humility is the root of life -- the eternal life of the World to Come (Likutey Moharan II, 72).

06/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

People who make fun of the words of the Sages are punished with boiling excrements (Gittin 56a). Stinking vapors rise up to their brains, leaving them twisted and confused. No matter how much they may study Torah, they will never be able to derive true guidance from it about the way to lead their lives. Their hearts are as filthy as a privy. They never have a clear idea how to live at all. This kind of cynicism leads in the end to severe decrees being passed against the Jewish people. They are expelled from the countries they were living in, and the end result of the upheavals is that whole areas of Torah wisdom become lost to us, notably the mystery of Ibbur, which underlies the structure of the Jewish calendar with its intercalated leap-years. The loss of this wisdom causes strife and factionalism (Likutey Moharan I:61:1-3).

05/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

It is impossible to come to the Land of Israel without difficulties and suffering. The root of all the difficulties and suffering lies in the slanderous image of the Land which is put about by the wicked. They are the source of all the obstacles. But the power of the Torah which we draw into ourselves enables us to overcome all the obstacles, the difficulties and suffering. The more profound a person's grasp of the Torah and the greater the repair he brings about through his attainment, the greater his victory over the obstacles, and he will succeed in reaching the Land of Israel (Likutey Moharan I:20).

04/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

Dignity:
If the food a person eats is pure in accordance with the dietary laws and he eats it in a dignified manner without swallowing it hurriedly, his mental powers will be enhanced and grow while his innate folly will be subdued. However, one who eats like a glutton will be overcome with folly and lose his intelligence. The light of the Tzaddik will be concealed from him and he will be unable to learn from him how to love and fear God.

Likutey Moharan I, 17

03/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

You must sanctify your mouth, your nose, your eyes and your ears. You must guard your mouth against words of falsehood and anything else which falls short of holiness. You must develop your fear of Heaven in order to sanctify your nostrils. Your ears will be holy when you believe in the Sages and listen to their words. And you must close your eyes and shut out anything which is not good for you to see. The sanctity you attain will bring you perfect understanding, and you will have wisdom, which is God's blessing, and ruach hakodesh, the holy spirit. Another way of sanctifying your nostrils, is if you are humble and patient and do not burst out in anger if someone insults you (The Hebrew expression for anger is a `burning in the nostrils'). The way to sanctify your ears is to be one who is `faithful in spirit and concealeth a matter' (Proverbs 11:13) he is careful not to reveal a secret which there is no need to reveal (Likutey Moharan I:21).

02/11/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

It is true that weeping and crying are good when you plead and entreat before God. But don't fall into the trap of saying psalms and prayers with the constant thought and expectation that you are going to burst into tears and cry. It will only confuse you and prevent you from concentrating. The most important thing is to say what you are saying honestly and with all your heart. Let your ears hear and your heart attend to the words which your lips are uttering. If you are moved to cry, good. If not, don't be distracted because of this (Likutey Moharan II:95).

29/10/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

The Hebrew letters are consonants: without vowels, they cannot be pronounced but remain like a body without a soul. Without the soul, the body is unable to move or do anything.
The vowels - the soul that animate s the letters - are formed through yearning and desire, whether for good or bad. The yearning for evil creates bad vowels, which make the letters join together and interact to produce bad effects. But if a person yearns to repent, good vowels - good souls - are created and the letters join and interact to produce good results.
It is not sufficient for a person to feel longing and yearning in his heart alone. He must express his longing and yearning on his lips. This is the basis of our prayer service. The yearning in the person's heart creates soul and letters in potential , but it is when the person expresses his desire with his mouth that the soul is produced in actuality . For the soul comes forth from the mouth, as it says, "My soul came forth through his speaking " (Song of Songs 5:6) .
In order to bring forth your soul from potential to actual existence, you must express your yearning and longing in words. This is how you turn your desire into a reality and accomplish what you want, and this is why it is so important to speak to God every day and articulate your desires and good intentions with your lips.

Likutey Moharan I, 31

28/10/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

It takes determination and boldness to press forward in your quest for holiness in the face of all the obstacles created by arrogant people. The main source of strength is in joy: `For the joy of the Lord is your strength' (Nehemiah 8:10).

The way to come to joy is through Torah and prayer. The main thing is prayer. You should always pray to attain the level that is hidden from you. And when it is revealed, you should pray to achieve the level that is still hidden. This is how to rise from level to level. It is the way to find joy, which is the source of spiritual strength. You need to be strong in order to draw closer to the true Tzaddikim. They are the epitome of holiness, and with their help you can develop perfect faith.

Likutey Moharan I:22

27/10/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

MIRROR IMAGE
A certain king built himself a palace and summoned two men to decorate it for him. The king divided the palace into two parts, putting one man in charge of one half and the second in charge of the other. The king set a time limit within which they had to complete their work.
The two men went off. One of them struggled hard to teach himself the art of painting and plastering as best as he possibly could, and he did so well that he was able to paint his part of the palace with very beautiful and highly unusual murals of animals and birds and the like. Everything was executed with wondrous beauty.
However, the second man paid no attention to the king's command and did nothing whatever about it. As the date for the completion of the work approached, the first man had already finished his side in all its beauty and wonder. The second man then began to look at himself and ask what he had done! He had wasted his time on futility and nothingness without giving a thought to the king's instructions.
He tried to think what to do. He realized that in the few days left before the time expired, it would be impossible even to teach himself to paint let alone actually paint his part of the palace. The closing date was almost upon them. But he had an idea. He plastered his entire portion with a kind of shiny pitch. He plastered this dark pitch over his entire section, and the pitch was like a mirror: it reflected everything, just like a mirror. He then hung a curtain in front of his section to act as a partition between it and that of the other man.
When the appointed time came, the king went to inspect the work the men had done in the allotted time. He examined the first side with its amazingly beautiful paintings executed with exceptional skill. However, the other side was covered with a curtain, behind which everything was dark: nothing whatsoever was visible.
Then the second man stood up and drew aside the curtain. The sun was shining, and because of the pitch, which reflected everything like a mirror, all those remarkable paintings were visible on his side too. All the painted birds and other wondrous forms painted in the first man's side could be seen in the second man's side as well.
Everything the king had seen in the first man's section he also saw in this man's section. Not only that, but even all the precious objects and furnishings which the king had brought into the palace were all visible in the second man's side as well. This found favor in the eyes of the king.
Chayey Moharan #98

26/10/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

It is a very good thing to open the doors of your home to genuine Torah scholars who possess integrity as well as learning. Offering them hospitality will help you to deepen your own faith. This in itself helps to counter the prevalent lack of belief. Offering hospitality to genuine Torah scholars helps to make a tikkun for the `fallen Torah' which has passed into the hands of those who are learned but unscrupulous. The Holy Zohar refers to these scholars as `Jewish demons' (Zohar 3, 253a). They are the source of all the hostility to those who are truly God-fearing. The way to overcome this hostility is by offering hospitality to genuine Torah scholars. (Likutey Moharan 28)

Everyone offers up bad prayers from time to time, and these prayers come back and confuse him when he stands up and tries to pray with devotion. Offering hospitality to Torah scholars is the tikkun for this. (Likutey Moharan I:209)

24/10/2025

Rabbi Nachman Thought for Today

Each person should say to himself: `The whole world was created only for my sake,' One should therefore constantly be looking for ways of improving the world in order to make up for any deficiencies, and one should constantly pray for the world.

10) You must pray with all your strength. The sound of your voice will then pe*****te your mind and you will be able to concentrate on your prayers. Your heart will hear the words your lips are saying, and you will be able to straighten the crookedness of the heart and attain true joy. Your joy will be so great that you will be able to carry out a ll the mitzvoth with a great joy derived from the mitzvah itself and you will be able to clothe your prayers even in story form. You will have the power to annul all harsh decrees even after the decree has already been made.

Likutey Moharan I:5

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