סא

This past week — on the day there arrived to me a letter from my son-in-law Yisroel, may his candle shine, from Uman — enclosed within the letter was also a small letter to you. And I am sending it to you to give life to your soul. And I heard from one person who told me that you are in very great melancholy. I said I should write to you: for the sake of Hashem — do not grieve at all — for Hashem will be your help and He will not forsake you. For you know from before — for I wrote to you several times — that here expenses are great and income is very little — and even so Hashem Yisbarach helped and provides for all His creatures. And worries accomplish nothing at all. Here nothing accomplishes anything at all — except prayers and Psalms and supplications and very, very great joy — and not to worry at all about tomorrow's worries — blessed be G-d, day by day. For melancholy accomplishes nothing at all here — for the holiness of Eretz Yisroel cannot be received through sadness and melancholy. And every day one must in any case dance at least one dance — and trust in Hashem Yisbarach Who has shepherded us from our beginnings — and we are the people of His pasture and the flock of His hand — Who will surely watch over us with His particular divine providence — and give us life with every good.

גאט האט אייך גיהאלפין און ער וועט אייך ווייטער העלפין [Yiddish: "G-d has helped you and He will continue to help you further"] — און בפרט איר זענט זיך ניט גיפארין בלי ישוב הדעת [Yiddish: "and particularly — you did not travel without settled composure of mind"] — סע האט זיך גיאווערט ארבעה שנים [Yiddish: "it took four years"] — from when it was your will to travel. And we wrote you many letters that here one must travel with the complete surrender of one's very soul [במסירות נפש — b'mesirus nefesh — "with the handing-over of the soul" — the specific term for the willingness to give over one's very life for a holy purpose; the same term used for martyrdom; to come to Eretz Yisroel with mesirus nefesh means to come prepared to surrender everything — one's entire self — to the sacred mission of living in the Holy Land; beyond ordinary self-giving] — and be in joy — and the bishlik that needs to go, let it go — in joy, without sadness and without anger — for it accomplishes nothing at all. And the sadness is the counsel of the evil inclination — in order to distract you from Torah and from prayer and from the joy of the holiness of Eretz Yisroel. And you must overpower it — only through joy. For "in joy you shall go out and in peace you shall be led" — and Hashem Yisbarach is with you and He will not forsake you all the days of your lives — for length of days and good years.

Words of one who truly loves you, Nussun from Breslov Encamped here in Teverya, may it be established and built for good.

Written Tuesday, Parshas Beshalach, 5639 (January or February 1879), from Teverya. Reb Shmuel and his wife are in great melancholy. Joy, dance at least one dance every day. Mesirus nefesh — the surrender of one's very soul — is what was required to come to the Land.

נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן Letter 59 | נט (Nun-Tes) 📜 Translator's Summary — Letter 59