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258 | A New Light
life to the pit and hurled stones at me. Water has poured over
my head…’ (Lamentations 3:52-54).” Like a drowning man, like a
person who is about to die—no less!—he cries out to be rescued
from pride and from evil thoughts. He cannot wait long for his
salvation, because he feels that his every imperfection is death.
He cannot allow himself to abandon Hashem or pray weakly that
“if Hashem gives, He gives, and if not, things are not so terrible,”
heaven forbid. Rather, he cries out, prays and pleads to receive
what he needs immediately.
When people read these prayers, they do not understand what
lies in each word. They may even think that Rabbi Natan is
somewhat exaggerating, heaven forbid, that perhaps he is blowing
things somewhat out of proportion, heaven forbid, perhaps he
is somewhat extreme, heaven forbid. It may sound humorous to
them that a person who has food in the house and who is alive and
well feels as though he is dangerously ill, as though he is hovering
between life and death. But in truth it is those people that we
must laugh at and weep for, because they do not have any sense
of eternal life, and they do not understand that everything in this
world is vanity of vanities, that this prayer is true life and that every
blemish is literally death.
But even a person who senses that his every spiritual blemish is
death can still wonder about Rabbi Natan. “Why are you crying out
so much? You are so holy and pure. You married at the age of 13.
You went through the entire Talmud and you are expert in all of
the holy texts. And you had the merit of carrying on the legacy of
the great master of the generations, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. All
of your days are holy, profoundly dedicated to spreading Torah, to
bringing people close to the Torah and to every holy matter. You
deserve universal admiration. So why do you cry out so much? Are
you truly in danger?”
But these tzaddikim did not fool themselves even regarding the
subtlest spiritual imperfection. They visualized each danger to which
they were exposed so vividly that they literally saw it before their
eyes, and they cried out from the depths of their hearts. And when
they prayed, they knew, “If I do not gain what I am asking for, my
life is not a life.”
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in a number of places). In matters of physicality, a person must
express a great deal of thanks to Hashem and accept judgments and
sufferings with love. And he must not demand anything insistently,
because a person does not truly know what is good for him.
Clearly, a person cannot ask for an apartment or a car in the same
way that he asks for life. If a person does so, he arouses judgment
against himself, as the Gemara states, and he is liable to be injured.
One of my students told me that after he heard me state that we
must be insistent in making our requests of Hashem and he went
home, he encountered a longstanding problem to which he had seen
no solution. Influenced by what I said, he addressed Hashem: “I
need a solution. Save me right now!” Miraculously, the matter was
straightened out in the most ideal way possible. But a few minutes
later, as he was preparing a salad, the knife leaped from his hand
and he sustained a deep and dangerous laceration. He asked himself
why Hashem had done this, and he concluded that this was meant
to teach him that he had been wrong to insist that Hashem give him
something physical. I told him that he was certainly correct, and I
cautioned my students that what I was teaching them only applies
to spiritual matters. In the physical realm, “contemplating one’s
prayer” is forbidden and dangerous. Therefore, when we pray for
something in the physical realm, we must say: “If this is Your will
and it is good for me, please give it to me. If not, thank You. You
know exactly what is good for me.”
But in praying for spiritual goals, it is not relevant to say “If You
want, help me overcome the trait of anger, the craving for eating,
or some other addiction,” because Hashem certainly wants this.
He certainly wants you to possess faith, to be calm, serene and
completely patient. Hashem wants you to be holy and pure, far
from all cravings and animalistic desires, and far from taking drugs,
smoking, drinking and gambling, and He wants you to know the
entire Torah. He created you for all of this. After all, did He create
you to be an animal on two legs? In fact, Hashem’s own honor is
brought about when a Jew is holy and pure (as I have explained).