Rav Nahman Dreams

HAYYEH MOHARAN [THE LIFE OF NAHMAN OF BRATSLAV], # 91.

The month of Kislev 570 (December 1809). Here, in Bratslav. A dream.

I was sitting in my home [that is, in the little house in which he dwelt] and no one entered to my room. I found this strange, so I went out to the next room and there was nobody there either. I went out, to the large house and to the beit ha-midrash, and there was nobody there. I then decided to go outside, and I went and saw people standing in circles and whispering to each other; one was joking about me and another was laughing at me and another was criticizing me. Even my own people were against me, some of them were criticizing me and others where whispering about me as did the others.

I then called one of my people to me and asked him: "What is this?"

He answered: "How could you commit such a great sin?"

I did not have any idea about what they were gossiping about me. I then asked that person to go and assemble some of our people, and he went and I never saw him again.

I considered what to do, and decided to remove myself to another country. I arrived there but it was the same: there also people were standing and talking about that, because they also knew what happened.

I thought and decided to settle in a forest, and five of my people joined me there, we went together to the forest and we sat there.

When we needed anything, food and such, we used to send one of those people who bought for us what we needed. I used to ask him whether the turmoil has subsided, and he answered: no, the excitement is still very strong.

While we were sitting there, an old man came and called me and said that he has something about which he wanted to talk to me.

I walked away with him, and he started to talk to me and said: "How could someone like you do such a thing? Are you not ashamed, remembering your fathers? Considering your grandfather Rabbi Nahman? And your grandfather the Besht of blessed memory? And how is it that you are not ashamed considering the Torah, given by Moses, and the sacred patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, etc.? What do you think, do you believe that you can sit here forever? Your money will be spent, and you are a weak person, what can you do? Do you really think that you can sail to another country?

Just think: If they, in that country, will not know who you are, you will not be able to survive there because they will not support you with money; and if they knew who you were, you also will not be able to survive there, because they will know about this affair."

I responded to him: "Because this is so, that I am driven away like this, I shall earn the next world."

He answered me: "The next world? You think that you will achieve that? Even in hell there will not be a place for you, a corner in which you can bury yourself, because you have committed something like that, such a great defamation of the name of God."

I answered: "Go away, I thought that you came to console me and to talk [nicely] to me, but instead you cause me even more suffering, go away."

The old man then left me.

While I was sitting there I considered that since I was staying there such a long time it was possible to forget all knowledge completely. So I ordered that person, whom we used to send to the town to acquire our necessities, that he should look for some book and bring it to us. He went to the town but did not bring a book, explaining that, obviously, it was forbidden to reveal who needed that book, and secretly it was not possible to acquire a book. This caused me great suffering, because I was wandering from place to place and I did not have any book with me; this way one can forget completely all that he ever studied. Later, the old man who was revealed to me earlier returned and came to me, carrying a book under his arms.

I asked him: "What are you carrying?"

He answered: "A book."

I said: "Give me the book."

He gave it to me. I took it, and I did not know even how to put it, and I opened the book and did not know anything about it at all, and it seemed to me as if it were written in another language and another script, because I did not understand anything in it at all. This caused me great pain, and I was also afraid of those people who were with me, that they also may depart from me if they know this.

The old man then called me again and wanted to talk to me, and I walked with him. He again started to admonish me as he did the previous time: How could you do this, are you not ashamed, even in hell there will be a place for you to hide, as he said before.

I said to him: "If a person from the celestial world would say this to me, I would believe him."

He responded, "I am from there", and showed me something from there.

This brought to my mind the well-known story about the Besht, when the Besht also thought then that he does not have a place in the next world, and he said: "I love God blessed be He without the next world".

I then threw my head backwards in great bitterness.

When I threw my head that way, the people that the old man said that I should be ashamed before them all came and assembled around me, that is, my grandfathers and the patriarchs, etc., and they recited to me the verse: the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely.

And they said to me: "To the contrary, we would like to be proud of you."

They then brought to me all my men, and also my sons [for my sons left me before, when the affair began].

They talk to me in this way, so different from before.

The way I threw my head back was such that even a person who transgressed all the commandments of the Torah eight hundred times, if he did throw his head back this way with such bitterness there is no doubt that he would have been forgiven. The rest of the good things I do not want to tell you, but it was certainly very good.