Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov—Master of the Good Name— founder of the Chassidic movement. Rabbi Nachman was born in 1772 in Ukraine. He grew to be an outstanding tzaddik (saint), Torah sage, teacher and Chassidic master. During his lifetime he attracted a devoted following of chassidim who looked to him as their prime source of spiritual guidance in their quest for God, as the 'Rebbe.’ Rebbe Nachman was a Kabbalist and a mystic of the highest order, and yet at the same time was artlessly practical and down-to-earth. He told tales of princes and princesses, beggars and kings, demons and saints and he taught of the need to live with faith, honesty and simplicity.
There is a mountain. On the mountain, there is a stone.
From this stone flows a Spring.
Everything has a heart.
Therefore, the world as a whole also has a heart.
The mountain with the stone and the spring
stands at one end of the world.
The Heart of the World stands at the opposite end of the world.
The Heart of the World faces the Spring and
constantly longs and yearns to come to the Spring.
It has a very, very great longing, and it cries out very much
that it should be able to come to the Spring.
The Spring also yearns for the Heart.
The Heart has two things that make it weak.
First, the sun pursues it and burns it.
The second thing that weakens the Heart
is the great longing and yearning that it constantly has
toward the Spring. It longs and yearns so much
that its soul goes out, and it cries out.
It constantly stands facing the Spring, and cries out,
“Help!” desiring it so very much.
When the heart wants to rest a bit and catch its breath,
a great bird comes out and spreads its wings over it,
protecting it from the sun.
It then can relax a bit. However, even when it is resting,
it looks toward the Spring and yearns for it.
One may wonder, since it yearns for it so much,
why does it not go to the Spring?
However, if it were to come close to the mountain,
then it would no longer see the peak.
It then could not gaze at the Spring and,
if it stopped looking at the Spring, it would die,
since its main source of life is the Spring.
When it stands facing the mountain,
it can see the peak upon which the Spring is,
but as soon as it comes close to the mountain,
the peak is hidden from its eyes.
If it could not see the Spring, then it would die.
If the Heart died, then the entire world would cease to exist.
The Heart is the life-force of all things,
and nothing can exist without a heart.
The Heart, therefore, stands facing the Spring,
yearning and crying out.
Time does not exist for the Spring.
The Spring is not inside time at all.
The Spring only has time because the Heart
gives it as a gift for one day.
However, when the time comes for the day to come to a close,
then at the end of the day, the Spring will not have any more time,
and it will therefore die.
This in turn would cause the Heart to die.
The entire world would then cease to exist.
Toward the end of the day, they begin to take leave of each other.
At that time, they begin to speak to one another
in wonderful parables and lyrics with great love
and tremendous desire.
The True Man of Kindness watches very carefully over this.
At the exact end of the day, the True Man of Kindness
gives the Heart a gift of one day.
The Heart gives the day to the Spring,
and the Spring then once again has time.
Paraphrase by Rabbi Suzanne Singer, Los Angeles, California
Original Version appears in Adin Steinsaltz’s translation of “The Seven Beggars” in his book: “The Tales of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, Northvale, NJ/Jerusalem: Jason Aronson Inc., 1993.