From Torahs to Stories – Part 1

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I would like to begin teaching Rav Nachman’s stories of mayses (סיפורי המעשיות). At a certain point in his life, Rav Nachman shifted from Torah-teaching to story-telling. Personally, where I’m coming from, I can understand what moved Rav Nachman to start telling mayses. A similar thing happens to many people who come to a point in their lives when words seem inadequate for expressing themselves fully.

Sometimes, words get worn out. Words that once kindled passion feel devoid of value; sentences that could once enliven a soul suddenly lose their meaning. One hears a beloved song that no longer moves him – indeed, it may even elicit some resistance. It is from this place, I think, that Rav Nachman experiences a desire to free himself from his own words. I meet Rav Nachman at that juncture, and so I’d like to say a few more words about the impossibility of speaking in words. Of course, even this can’t be described in words. Nevertheless, I will try to do the impossible here: I will attempt to describe the change in language as an internal change.

Why did Rav Nachman need stories? There are certain high-level insights that cannot be conveyed through torahs, through direct, structured speech. A story, however, is similar to a niggun – a niggun, too, expresses something that cannot be communicated without sound. At a certain stage, one can no longer speak – and it is then that he moves from speech to niggun. And there is another stage still, when the niggun is not enough, and it turns into a single sound, even into a “still small voice.” It is here that one turns into an inaudible sound, into a no-thing (לא-כלום). This is, however, a kind of expression that is deeper still: the person is expressing the nothingness inside, something about which no thing can be said.

We can mention something about Rav Nachman here. We learn his torahs, say this and that about him.  But behind it all is a kind of hollow feeling: what can we really say about Rav Nachman? At the end of the day, with regards to Rav Nachman – and to any other person in the world – everything that is said about him ultimately does not express a thing. I feel this way most strongly at funerals, when oftentimes there is much said about the departed. In such situations, it is difficult to avoid the glaring, infinite distance between what can be said in words – however good and specific they may be – and the no-thing of the person himself, his singular sound. With Rav Nachman, it is possible to attempt to attach oneself to him, to what you’ve assimilated from him, until you forget yourself and know that this is it- the point at which nothing can be said, your own real encounter with Rav Nachman. It is this point that enables the inspiration and encounter that occurs at a tzaddik’s grave; a happening that is beyond his torah (though it is built upon it).

To develop an attachment (dveykus, דבקות) to a tzaddik, one must achieve a level that is beyond words. Dveykus to a tzaddik does not mean thinking about him, imitating his ways or repeating his ideas; rather, it is becoming an embodiment for him, a medium, one who makes his presence felt in the world. The tzaddik is not the sum of the torah he has taught. The tzaddik is his own personal light, his chiddush (חידוש) for the world, everything that could only come into being through him alone. It can be said that the soul of a tzaddik is his song, not his philosophy. It should be thought of not as words and ideas, but as new sequences of letters joined together, the creation of a new language and a singular form of expression whose reality is inherent to itself. Thus, the hassid’s role is not to repeat words already said, but to absorb the tzaddik’s light, his song, and to conjure them up in connections that he finds through his own self.

This point is also relevant in a discussion of relationships. When does a couple have a true encounter? In the moment when they stop speaking, when a gesture or a glance is sufficient for one to understand the other. In those moments there is no need for long, detailed pronouncements or finding the ‘right’ words; the encounter is unfolding, the message has been passed. So too in other social contexts: the test of a group is whether it can make space for a silence together. When people open up to one another, they can overcome the mediation of words. This is the result of a real encounter, and the test for a genuine connection. If we can’t understand one another in a look, a movement – we have not yet built a society.

I think that this is essentially the journey of a spiritual person. One starts with words – for a human being always begins as a ‘speaking spirit’ (רוח ממללא). But then the journey brings one to ‘peel’ back the layer of words from the thing at hand – beyond a person or idea – to find it in the place that cannot be expressed. This is what I search for when I study Rav Nachman’s stories: the space in which the stories allow me to approach something that could not be expressed through the type of speech in his torahs. It is necessary to take care not to turn a story into a torah. Sometimes you learn, you dissect, decipher the signs and find the parallels – and by the end, the torah again stands in between. When reading Rav Nachman’s stories, one must not interpret but rather experience them; one must not learn about the niggun but hear it, or perhaps perform it anew, on one’s own. The story, like the niggun, must touch upon a deep point, expressing something irreplicable.