Chazal established the fifteenth of Shvat as the Rosh Hashana for the trees. Especially now, when the tree trunks are so bare and ashamed, we celebrate, for we have hope that spring will arrive and with it, the trees will bloom and blossom.
On the fifteenth of Shvat – the day of hope – in the year 5540, the soul of the great Talmid, R’ Nosson Sternhartz, descended in glory. He merited to bask in the Rebbe’s glow for a mere eight years, until the Rebbe passed on from this world. It seemed to everyone that without a successor, the Rebbe’s whole light would cease to shine. In the immediate period of mourning after the Rebbe’s death, R’ Nosson also thought so. However, with Hashem’s great mercy and His kindness towards us, with the passage of time, R’ Nosson understood differently. He realized that the Rebbe’s light must continue, that his fire will burn until Mashiach’s coming, and that the Rebbe’s desire was to ‘water trees,’ especially after his passing. In other words; he wanted his Torahs, Sichos and Eitzos taught to the next generations.
From then on, R’ Nosson’s entire being, all his thoughts, deeds, words, ideas, and books centered on this hope – that the Rebbe’s Torahs should remain reachable for all future generations. The whole world was against him. He suffered persecution, imprisonment, exile, loneliness, poverty and widowhood. In addition, all the troubles that came over his Talmidim struck him personally. Yet he stoically bore it all.
Where did he take such steel strength from? Such iron determination?
From the hope that the Rebbe’s wisdom should reach every single Yid. R’ Nosson became so full of joy and vitality from his hope for this mission to be attained, that his oppressors slandered him that he was a drunk. Any other reason for the radiant smile on the persecuted R’ Nosson’s face was inconceivable to them.
In every situation, R’ Nosson’s only concern was the Rebbe, and how to spread his wisdom further and wider. He mentions his troubles in his writings only by the way, fleetingly. He doesn’t deem them any significance; their only redeeming factor is that it gives him reason to draw from the Rebbe’s Torah and to try spread it further.
* * *
We all hope. Every single person nurses hopes and silent dreams. (Whoever doesn’t carry any hopes in his heart, either goes crazy or dies, in a speedy or slow process.) It would seem that the more ambitious the dream a person hopes to accomplish is, the harder it should be.
“Enough! My workload is piled up until the sky! If I take on one more project – I’ll collapse!”
Mathematically, the equation is correct. However, life demonstrates differently. We are all familiar with those busy people who are somehow always able to take on more, and manage their lives without giving any impression of weakness or of falling apart. On the other hand, we have those spineless people who long for comfort and rest, yet are swept away by waves of reality to worry, anger and fights. If we study the matter, we see that a person’s drive infuses them with much more strength than it takes.
Caution from Imitations:
Each morning, we awaken to the sound of hope ringing in our hearts. Not just us, but the goyim too. However, their hopes are limited to this world: to be healthy, wealthy, and socially successful, to raise successful children, to manage, to rule, to ‘make their mark’ on history, to donate to some charity fund for the disabled, or for some rare zebra species in Africa…
The Yetzer Hora knows the great power that hope has: It gets us to choose right, to do good, and it prevents us from falling into his net, since as long as a person is occupied with his hopes, the doubts that creep in from the side don’t have such power to persuade him to go after them. Therefore, it wisely hides itself in mitzvos, and comes up with all kinds of false goals, disguised with mitzvos: To be healthy - in order to be a healthy mother, to be wealthy – in order to give Tzedaka, to be prestigious – to be able to increase Hashem’s honor, and so on… Like this, he throws us back into the rat race of trying to succeed in this world, and he can Chas Veshalom cause us to be goyim covered with a shtreimel, since what’s the difference between us if our hopes and aims are the same? That the goy has more opportunities and abilities, and less limitations???
Different hopes and aims are expected from us: קווה אל ה'! - Hope to Hashem! After 120, every one of us will be asked, ‘Have you hoped for the salvation?’ We won’t be asked if we hoped to be a millionaire, nor if we hoped to be strong enough physically, and not even if we hoped this year to eat our favorite fruits on Tu Bishvat, but if we hoped for the yeshuas Hashem.
R’ Nachman promises us, ‘This you have received from me, that this world won’t fool you anymore.’ Whoever merits to come close to the Rebbe receives the strength and the eyes with which to understand this false world, this confusion between true good hopes to false hopes. This understanding is what we thank Hashem for in the first bracha of Birchos Hashachar: ‘Who gives the heart of man understanding to distinguish between day and night’. Which understanding is necessary for such a simple thing? Even the animals differentiate between light and dark, hot and cold?! However, understanding the difference between the two hopes, one kind which is day – light, and the other which is night – dark, that requires understanding. And immediately afterwards, we thank Hashem – ‘Who didn’t make me a goy,’ since this is the difference between us: The focus of our hopes. Only someone who is connected to the Tzaddik can merit a life of such clarity, hoping only to Hashem.
A Yid’s hopes are his specific mission, which nobody else can accomplish in his place. Many times, nobody else (besides for the Tzaddikim) will even completely understand the other’s hopes. It is only sometimes, after the deed is attained, that others will be able to acknowledge it. There is a well-known tale from the Baal Shem Tov about a simple Yid who ate massive amounts, so that if he would be burnt Al Kiddush Hashem like his father was, lots and lots of smoke should rise, to increase the Kiddush Hashem. Only with an understanding of the essence of hope, is it possible to understand this tale of this Yid who spent all his days gorging himself. “Who is he serving?” But to Hashem, every bit of his feasting was Kodesh Kadoshim!
One needs to carefully clarify their hopes constantly, that they should be focused only on Hashem, since Baruch Hashem, life has a way of inviting problems – both true and invented ones, every day and hour. Therefore, even if we’ve already started off with hoping to Hashem, there is a great danger that very quickly, we’ll find ourselves chasing after money – in order to enable us to continue hoping to Hashem – and rightly so. Or pursuing health, or different solutions to varied problems. And the truth is, there are problems that get us so confused and weak, that there seems to be no way for us to continue going forward and functioning properly. We need to beg Hashem to help us, but we should be wary of getting stuck over the solution for the passing problem. Instead, we should force ourselves again and again to return to the main point – to hoping to Hashem.
To help us with this clarification, the Rebbe left us all his Torahs, his Eitzos, and Sichos. Whoever delves into them steadily with sincere emunah, gets filled with good desires and yearnings, and throws away the idols of silver and gold. Like R’ Yitzchak Breiter sings in the Shir Yedidos about the Rebbe: ‘'חידש בכל עת רצוננו, לבלו להתבלבל ממה שעובר עלינו – ‘He renews our strength at all times, so that we shouldn’t get confused from what we’re going through.’
R’ Nosson, the man of great hopes, and the one who continued the Rebbe’s Torahs on the world, left us a massive catalogue of good hopes: He took those Torahs and made from them tefillos – the Likutei Tefillos. Anyone who takes this sefer will have her eyes opened up and her heart widened to understand what is truly worth hoping for (and how to daven also for our physical needs without losing the hope). There is no doubt that everyone who davens from this sefer will discover there her personal tikvah, which is closest to her heart.
The Rebbe instructed his chassidim to turn their wives into Breslovers. He obviously didn’t intend for us to delve into the Likutei Moharan… But the Likutei Tefillos, is surely applicable for us too. Baruch Hashem, today’s women are a little more knowledgeable in reading and understanding, and there is some time to be snatched here and there (instead of chatting on the telephone) to be utilized for saying the Likutei Tefillos. If we persist at it, we might even manage a siyum on the entire Likutei Tefillos every year… If there are issues with the language (there is already a Likutei Tefillos translated into English) I have an idea for hope to whoever wants: they can translate the entire Likutei Tefillos – without taking off or adding anything – into Yiddish. וכל הקודם זוכה...
May we be zoiche to renew our desires to hope to Hashem and to hope to do His will completely, everyone according to her own personal shlichus she came down on this world for, in the zchus of the Rebbe, R’ Nachman of Breslov, and his Talmid R’ Nosson.
