I am sick of writing about this. But I feel like a new understanding came about, especially because of a short note that Heshy sent to me in response to the post about the necrophilia. Let me say first that I disagree with Schenur, if I was writing a Ramash biography it would be only one paragraph, like this:
Mendel Schneerson by David Levine
Many of Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s practical and spiritual innovations are controversial, fittingly irrational initiatives with debatable results. But there is only one thing we can say with the absolute certainty about the forty years in his role as a Rebbe – Menachem Mendel Schneerson never ventured outside of his house and his synagogue (count on one hand the rare exception in the entire forty-year period!). He even refused to go to a hospital when he had a heart attack. But he traveled to the grave of this father-in-law multiple times a week for forty years and spent hours there (just tell this to someone and watch the reaction…). Yudel Krinsky whose only job and qualification was to drive the Rebbe to the Montefiore cemetery subsequently assumed the leadership of the movement. The Rebbe was inhumed on the very plot that he visited for forty years and now the primary form of worship for his disciples is to visit the same sacred burial ground – (that’s it, the complete biography).
Now to Uman. Just like Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Reb Nachman saw himself as a Messiah. But little I heard about Reb Nachman, I can’t imagine that he would hang around the graves for a recreation. He was a man who walked the woods to breathe the mystery of nature. So who exactly invented the ugly custom of going to Uman? I mentioned in the post there that “since Reb Nachman himself never wrote anything, the lurid, pathological ritual might be a pornography left by his heartbroken spiritual lovers”. And Heshy texts to confirm my intuition:
“Great stuff, you are right about Reb Nachmen not saying to come to his grave for atonement, although he did promise redemption “I will pull him out by his peyes from she’ole tachtis“. Reb Nachmen did write a plenty and if you know how to filter out Reb Nossons additions (which are always frum and morbid while lacking depth). To fully appreciate Reb Nachmens tikkun haklali we must focus on the times he lived in and the people he communicated to. They were all feeling guilty and Reb Nachman eased their quilt by telling them “say these ten chapters and let it go”. Sadly enough Reb Nusson brought guilt back to Breslov. Lechaim!”
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Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me
Come closer don’t be shy
Stand beneath a rainy sky
The moon is over the rise
Think of me as a train goes by
Clear the thistles and brambles
Whistle ‘Didn’t He Ramble’
Now there’s a bubble of me
And it’s floating in thee
Stand in the shade of me
Things are now made of me
The weather vane will say…
It smells like rain today
God took the stars and he tossed ‘em
Can’t tell the birds from the blossoms
You’ll never be free of me
He’ll make a tree from me
Don’t say good bye to me
Describe the sky to me
And if the sky falls, mark my words
We’ll catch mocking birds
Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I always wondered where Heshi got that. What’s the source? It’s too easy to say Reb Nachman gives only the joy and Reb Nosson the pain. When reading Likutei Moharan I hear one voice.
Ask Heshy to explain, this is very important point.
Ben, Steckel would have a field day analyzing your slew of necrophilia posts. I believe it was Steckel with the back to the womb-earth-death as the ultimate pleasure to which the child-adult always wishes to return. (It may have been Otto Rank.)
Hmmmm. It was Otto Rank (Otto Rosenfeld). By the way, Shmuel is the one who introduced me to Rank and Steckel in 93.
Otto Rank was a Freud groupie and the argument between Rank and Stekel was the reason why Stekel split with Freud.
I vividly recall the pashkviln flooding all across 16th & 14th avenues in Boro Park in 1983-4, attacking the “kat” (i.e. Lubavitch) for being a necrophiliac cult, with the Rebbe spending so much time at the ohel. Such pashkviln reemerged when the seforim case began in 1995-6, & the other haters of Lubavitch jumped on the bandwagon & even had a mailing drive of pashkviln attacking the Rebbe & Lubavitch in English. It was the first time this Oholei Torah’nik came across the term “necrophilia.”
BB, you meant to say seforim case was 85-87, and 83-84 was the Vechter attack and the Satmar meat ban. Both are fine occasions to speak about necrophilia…
I have to say I am starting to skip entire decades too, a blurr…
While the differences between the revolutionary Reb Nachman and pious Rebbi Nosson are quite obvious- in my humble opinion- and easy to spot— it would still require a massive work to clearify. Perhaps one day I shall step up to the task.
Derveileh, a couple of points:
1) Reb Nachman- writes (in a letter dated 1808- during the first printing of “Likutei Moharan” vol. I): “and regarding what you wrote that you have pain from the Rav, and also {regarding} what he wants print inside the book some stuff of his own: did I not leave everything in your hands and your care?! And so, if you feel like you have no need for the Rav, get away from him. But if you do need him, I warn you not to allow him to put even one letter of his own- so that nothing foreign gets in the book”
No, it is not addressed to Reb Nossen (but to a reb Yakov about I do not know much about)- and yes, the Rav mentioned is Reb Nosson (in my humble opinion) who is mentioned in the beginning of that letter as MHR’ Nosson and who was there during the printing and later took credit for it.
2) Reb Nachman begged not to print anything of his pre-Israel toyreh deeming them unenlightened traditional stuff not worthy of being printed or having his name attached to it. Saying “that he is embarrassed of the torah that he has said before {his journey to} Israel” (Chayeh Moharan, Maalas Toyrosoy U’Seforov Ha’Kedoyshim, 43)
Reb Nossen printed them anyway- stuff that reb nachman was embarrassed of having said all over his own Likutei Moharan!
3) About Reb Nosson’s accuracy Reb Nachman had the following to say (Chaye Moharan ibid.39) :
a. “it is CLOSE to what was intended”
b. “it is far better than the others” {who as reb nosson records didn’t understand it and didn’t know how to write down even concepts they did understand}
4) About pilgrimage to Uman, Reb nosson writes that it was on Reb Nachman’s last Erev Rosh Ha’Shoneh (i.e. less than a month Reb Nachman’s death) he learned “from his {Reb Nachman’s} excessive talk about his R”H {while he is alive} and from his {bodily} MOTIONS” that “his will was strong that we should be in Uman for R”H always {even} after his departure and that there is nothing greater than this”
Just to get this last point in here in honor of the upcoming pilgrimage.
sorry, i forgot, the quote in #4 is located in Chayay Moharan, Goydel Yikras Rosh HaShoneh Shloy 4
So let me imagine the theatrics of the scene. A student is with his beloved and dying Rebbe in the ecstasy of the RH. He later (after the death) says that it was the words or perhaps even motions of the beloved Rebbe that he will be with us right here, in this very place, on this day, forever….
And this is the very student that according to Heshy did his own shtick with the Rebbe’s explicit words, let alone the motions of a departing man, his life long love.
Nu, nu…