"I Do Teshuva For You" — The Rebbe Takes Away the Mezid Uman 5787

Everybody knows the Rebbe's promise. Come to my kever, give a pruta l'tzedaka, say ten Kapitlach Tehillim — and be mekabel shelo yashuv od l'ivlato. And then, in his own Yiddish: ich vel zich leigen in der leng un in der breit, I will lay myself out, the length and the breadth of it, and I will pull him out by his peyos from She'ol Tachtis u'mitachtav. But there's a question in it that nobody asks out loud. If one of the three conditions is that I have to do teshuva — then what do I need the Rebbe for? If teshuva works, why am I here at all? The answer is a sicha from Lipovets, and it is one of the boldest things the Rebbe ever said. Mah atem yecholim la'asos teshuva? Do you think you can do teshuva? Do you think all of you together, with all your days and all your strength, could repair a single pegam of what you damaged? Rak ani oseh teshuva bishvilchem — I do the teshuva for you. And Hashem gave me the power to fix all of it, everything you damaged until now. And then the line that goes further still: va'afilu mei'hayom v'halah, eini makpid al hashegagos — even from today onward, I am not particular about the shegagos. Just guard yourselves from mezid. Which is where the chiddush of this shiur comes in, and it is said as a personal pshat and not as a psak. Monday morning is coming. You know what's waiting for you. You said never again and you meant it, and you also know you'll be challenged and you may well fail. So what was that moment at the tziyun worth? Perhaps this: that because you were mekabel, when you fail it isn't mezid anymore. It's shogeg. He takes the mezid away from you — and shegagos he already said he isn't makpid about. What else we go through: • She'ol Tachtis — if She'ol is a bottomless pit, what does tachtis mean? And what the Rebbe is mechadesh with u'mitachtav, a place underneath the bottom • The three shortcuts: re'iyas pnei hatzaddik · nesinas tzedaka la'tzaddik · viduy devarim lifnei talmid chacham • Rak ha'ikar, mei'atah lo sa'asu od — the one thing he asks for • Hedge your spirituality: even if you can't believe it, surrender anyway — and what the yetzer hara whispers to stop you • The biggest yetzer hara in Uman is not going to the tziyun. I'll do it tomorrow — and the twenty things that shter you • The oved Hashem who gets up chatzos fifty years, and the man who doesn't know alef beis, crying the same bitter tears side by side — because both of them feel equidistant from the Ribono shel Olam • Coming with your tzimtzum and your kedusha — bringing him the masechta you finished and the place where you feel rejected • What you tell your wife when you come home, and what you don't. How something unexplainable gets packaged into a two-minute transaction — and what it would mean to tell her you were vulnerable, that you broke down at the tziyun, that you felt unconditional love • He isn't only pulling you out of She'ol Tachtis after you die. He's pulling you out now • Uman Sheli — fifteen minutes of your time, two thousand garbage cans, and hineni muchan u'mezuman bishvilcha Erev Rosh Hashana, Uman. #Uman #UmanRoshHashana #Breslov #RebNachman #RebbeNachman #RabbiNachmanOfBreslov #Teshuva #TikkunHaKlali #Tziyun #ViduiDevarim #ChayeiMoharan #LikuteiMoharan #Chassidus #Chassidut #RoshHashana #RoshHashanah #Yiddishkeit #Torah #TorahShiur #Shiur #Emuna #Emunah #Tzaddik #Hisbodedus #Hitbodedut #Mezid #Shogeg #SheolTachtis #UmanSheli #Kivrei #JewishSpirituality #BaalTeshuva #JewishGrowth #Ukraine #Breslev #NachNachma #DerechHashem