T19 (Tinyana) PNC - Ikar HaTachlis Hu LaAvod HaShem B'Temimut Gemurah (The Main Purpose is to Serve HaShem in Complete Innocence)

[This Torah was not heard from his holy mouth himself; see in the omissions.] The main purpose and completeness is only to serve HaShem in complete innocence (temimus gemurah), without any chochmah or sophistication. The verse at the end of Kohelet declares: 'For this is all of man — fear G-d and keep His commandments' (Kohelet 12:13). The end of all wisdom is unsophisticated yir'ah.

And this is what Kohelet concluded: 'For this is all of man' — meaning, for this purpose every person can fulfill and attain. Since the main is yir'as Shamayim, every person can attain the tachlis. There is no privileged caste of philosophers; the simple Jew with simple yir'ah is equal in the deepest sense to the greatest sage. In truth, it is a prohibition to philosophize — entering into investigations of the basics is itself a corruption of temimus.

And this is the main tachlis truly. The investigators and deniers interpret all the Torah according to their philosophies and heresies — that all the Torah, even the practical mitzvos, is to be interpreted according to form and intellect, not to mention the stories of the Torah which they read as allegory. Their entire enterprise is a denial of peshat. The temimus of the simple Jew preserves the Torah as it is; the chochmah of the chakran dissolves it.

(As above — this Torah was not heard from his holy mouth itself; see in the omissions from this.) The repeated note about provenance is itself instructive: even Rebbe Nachman's words, when not transmitted directly from his mouth, must be read with caution. Chassidic teachings have a chain of transmission; breaks in the chain are honestly noted. This itself is an example of temimus — the honest stewardship of teachings without inflating them.