Malach and Galuch – Breslov Basics 40 – Speaker: Rabbi Nasan Maimon.
Progress in serving HaShem means turmoil – a sense of humor helps! Rebbe Nachman attended a wedding where an entertainer dressed up first as a malach (angel) and then as a galuch (priest). Rebbe Nachman told his students, “That’s us!”
NOTE: “Bitul” – spiritual surrender.
Text: Likutey Halakhos, Orach Chaim 1, Netilas Yadayim Shacharis 4, Para. 8.
The entire shiur is HERE.
TRANSCRIPT:
Rav Nosson zal [Shternhartz] says, regarding this issue of “bitul” [spiritual surrender] that we mentioned, and people trying to reach up to HaShem: there are thousands and tens of thousands of levels and differences between each and every single person. Every person has their own ups and downs and their own thousands of levels of feeling close to HaShem, feeling far from HaShem, etc.
And even within one individual Jew there are vast differences at different times. One day a person feels super religious, the next day he thinks the worst.
There was an unbelievable episode in Rebbe Nachman’s life where he was once at a wedding with his students, and in those days they didn’t have the disco stuff we have today, or the other stuff. They kept it simple, so they had different acts that they performed at weddings to liven things up.
So one of the things they would do is they would have a performer. They’d have the room totally dark and a person would come up dressed in a certain way and then the room would darken again and the person would come back dressed totally different.
And they’d do this in a very humorous way. So Rebbe Nachman was at a wedding like this with his students and he sees the guy come in first time dressed in white and floating around, obviously portraying an angel — a “malach“. So everybody saw this, they knew, “Oh he’s a malach.” The guy went out, came back three seconds later dressed in black robes dressed like a “galuch” — like a priest. “Malach — galuch” — and everybody’s laughing.
Rebbe Nachman looked at this and he turned to his students and he said, “That’s us!”
That’s a Jew in this world. A Jew at 9:00 in the morning can be an angel and at 10:00 in the morning can be a priest. That’s how a pendulum can swing in our lives.
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