נח

My son the rabbi, our Teacher the Rabbi Yitzchok — may he live. Your letter I received here — and it was a comfort to me. And since I do not know when the messenger of this letter will arrive at his home — for his road is roundabout — I did not send through him a specific letter for you in reply to yours. And perhaps I will write to you from Tshehin — but that too is unnecessary, for I will soon come home, G-d willing. The words of your father — who awaits and waits to rejoice in you — when you merit to think of your eternal purpose — to persevere at the doors of Torah and prayer each day. For outside of this everything is vanity as is known to you — but one needs to repeat this to oneself each day and each time. For time goes and roars [כִּי הַזְּמַן הוֹלֵךְ וְהוֹמֶה — drawing on Koheles 1:4 — "a generation goes and a generation comes" — with the added sense of rushing or roaring: time does not merely pass but surges with force] and so forth. And know that in every place one travels and arrives — one hears the sounds of great and bitter cries and sighs from the afflictions of the world that pass over each and every person — and in particular the cry of a mouthful [צַעֲקַת לְגִימָא — the cry for a mouthful of food: the anguished cry for basic subsistence, the most primal form of livelihood distress] from the lack of livelihood. And one sees with direct sensory experience what our Master, our Teacher and Rebbe, of blessed memory, said [Likutay Moharan 23]: were it not for the salt, the world could not bear the bitterness [אִלְמָלֵא מִלְחָא לֹא הֲוֵי עָלְמָא יָכוֹל לְמִיסְבַּל מְרִירוּתָא — Aramaic, as Rebbe Nachman quotes it in Likutay Moharan 23, based on Brochos 5a. The salt here is the Tzadik — specifically the covenant of salt (bris melach) — whose vitality sweetens the bitterness of the world and makes life bearable for all creation]. Happy is the one who prays each day to merit to be rescued from the bitterness of this world — about which it was said: and I find bitterness more than death [Koheles 7:26 — applied here to livelihood-anxiety and the lust for money, which is more bitter than death itself in its relentlessness] — namely the bitterness of anxiety about livelihood and the desire for money and wealth. Happy is the one who merits to true wealth — which is one who rejoices in his portion [the Mishnaic formula from Avos 4:1] — about whom it was said: one who is pleasing before G-d will escape from her [טוֹב לִפְנֵי אֱלֹקִים יִמָּלֵט מִמֶּנָּה — Koheles 7:26 continued: the one who is G-d-pleasing escapes the trap of livelihood-bitterness entirely] and so forth. And this hint suffices. [וְדַי בְּהֶעָרָה זֹאת — "and this hint suffices": the word ha'ara — a hint, an illumination — acknowledges that the teaching is deliberately compressed, a pointer to a larger truth rather than a full exposition. Significantly, the entire teaching about salt, bitterness and true wealth is embedded within the closing formula itself — it is not a separate paragraph but the content of the closing. This is one of the most unusual closings in the collection: the lesson is the closing] Nussun of Breslov. And peace to all our anshei sh'lomaynu — with great love. To all of them these words were spoken [לְכֻלָּם נֶאֶמְרוּ דְּבָרִים אֵלֶּה — a formal declaration that the letter is addressed not only to Yitzchok but to the entire community — and specifically that the teaching about the salt and bitterness applies universally. This functions as a public proclamation of the letter's scope, as if Reb Nussun is designating the teaching for wider reading].