Thursday, September 08, 2011

Going to Rebbe Nachman for Rosh Hashana

You are aware of the Braslav/Breslov trek to Umman?

Here:-

Rebbe Nachman once declared: "Gohr mein zach is Rosh Hashanah . . . My entire mission is Rosh Hashanah." He was particularly emphatic about his followers coming to him for Rosh Hashanah, and indicated on his last Rosh Hashanah in Uman that we should continue to do so even after his death (Chayei Moharan 403-406; Likkutei Moharan I, 211; ibid. II, 94; Kuntres "Ha-Rosh Hashanah Sheli," citing numerous additional sources).

and

The Rebbe once told his followers: "Whether you eat or you don't eat, whether you sleep or you don't sleep, whether you daven [with proper concentration] or you don't daven − just make sure that you are with me for Rosh Hashanah!" (Chayei Moharan 404).

You should know:

Uman, a manufacturing center in central Ukraine, about 130 miles south of Kiev, has some 95,000 people...
In 1768, during a peasant and Cossack rebellion against the ruling Poles, many Uman citizens were murdered, including 20,000 Jews. Before he died in 1810, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a renowned Hasidic master, expressed a wish to be buried here, so that his soul might serve as a spiritual support not only for the souls of the town's martyrs but also for those of its errant free-thinkers. Rabbi Nachman also pledged to intercede ''from the other side'' on behalf of anyone who celebrates Rosh Hashana at his grave. That's what Bob and I are doing here in September along with 1,400 others, according to the Breslov Research Institute, who have come to take Rabbi Nachman at his word.

(A short distance from Lenin Street, Pushkin Street, like a Hasidic version of Woodstock, is busy with thousands of black-suited men in black hats who, between meeting up with lost friends or buying bottled water from the locals or camping out in tents, make unceasing visits to pray at Rabbi Nachman's grave.)

Well, the posters are up here in Jerusalem, offering visions


and a price of $699:


Enjoy.

^

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is Umman in Erez Israel ? why didn't the Rav speak Hebrew like an Israeli ? Did he have a homeland ? Or did he just say in hotels?