The Bratslav Hasidic tradition reflects a religious devotion at once wholehearted and playful. From Rebbe Nahman’s childhood escapades to his fables and his dancing followers, it’s all about constantly delighting in life anew 

I once heard from someone who heard from our rebbe, of blessed memory, about his intense holiness as a child: Wishing to become God-fearing and welcome the Sabbath with the great sanctity it deserved, he went to the baths right after midnight and diligently immersed. He then donned his Sabbath best and entered the study hall, wandering about in the hope of drawing down the holiness of the Sabbath and the additional soul [granted every Jew on this day]. Hoping to glimpse something special, he saw nothing at all, [though] his yearning to see was so intense.

Meanwhile, people started entering the study hall, and one distinguished person came and stood by his prayer stand and began reciting the Song of Songs. [Nahman], of blessed memory, went and lowered his head through the [legs of the] prayer stand!

As he was still a young child, no one noticed, but he remained there and began to cry [for he saw nothing]. For hours, he wept a sea of tears, until nightfall, until his eyes were swollen shut. When he tried opening them, he thought light had been revealed to him, for the candles had been lit, […] and his mind was calmed. All this was in his youth; apparently, he said he was then six years old. (Rabbi Natan Sternhartz, Hayyei Moharan [The Life of Our Teacher, Rebbe Nahman], sec. 231)

To Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav, childhood was precious. He warned his followers, “To be old is forbidden, whether [one becomes] old and pious or old and righteous” (Rabbi Natan Sternhartz, Likkutei Halakhot [Selected Laws], Yoreh De’a, “Laws of Meat and Milk” 4:1). The rebbe particularly prized the simple qualities of a child – joy, wholeheartedness, novelty, and the ability to forget, to live in the intensity of the moment and unashamedly cry out to one’s parents. Long before the world began worshipping youthful idiosyncrasy, Rebbe Nahman danced in his own fantastical way. Even today, any visitor to a Bratslav synagogue can see the impression left by the rebbe’s instructions to let children be and not bother or supervise them, let alone strike them for any reason.

Young children play a vital role in Rebbe Nahman’s tales, sometimes stealing the limelight altogether. Hence the story of his own childhood attempt to “see the light,” complete with a pinch of self-deprecating irony at his “success.” Young Nahman indeed wanted to be pious and God-fearing, but he set about it with the freshness and vitality of youth. The simplicity of the infant’s emotions became his model for the Hasid’s raw connection to God:

When a child is preoccupied with his own nonsense, however deeply he’s absorbed in it, at the sight of his mother he tosses all his previous desires over his shoulder and pulls himself close to her. (Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav, Likkutei Moharan [Selections from Rebbe Nahman] 4:8)

Far from restricting his Hasidic court to adults, Rebbe Nahman made a point of meeting his followers’ children before their seventh birthdays. Perhaps he wanted to show that youngsters could also be role models. In fact, in Rebbe Nahman’s messianic vision (described in his Megillat Setarim [Scroll of Secrets]), the Messiah will actually be a twelve-year-old prodigy! To this day, Bratslav Hasidim bring their little boys to the rebbe’s grave to benefit from his spiritual influence.

Hasidic literature portrays rabbis as unusually devout and learned even in infancy. Some are said to have pronounced a blessing before partaking of their mother’s milk. Others, at a remarkably young age, complete the entire Talmud and/or perform miracles. In contrast, every account of Rebbe Nahman’s childhood emphasizes his high spirits. Some of this lightheartedness endured into adulthood. Humor and a love of surprise abound not only in accounts of his conversations, but in his philosophical works, in the naïve, innovative style of his sermons, and of course in the dramatic, imaginative imagery of his folk tales.

 

Hasidic Royalty

Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav was born on 1 Nisan, 1772 (5532), in Mezhbizh. His family was one of the most distinguished in the Hasidic world. His great-grandfather was Israel Baal Shem Tov (also known as the Besht), founder of Hasidism, and his grandmother Adele (Hodel) was the Besht’s only daughter. Nahman’s mother, Feige, was her daughter and the sister of second-generation Hasidic leaders Rabbi Barukh of Mezhbizh and Rabbi Efrayim of Sudilkov. Feige’s brothers held her in high esteem, dubbing her “Feige the Prophetess.”

A constantly concerned mother, Feige never stopped begging her son to take care of himself, even as an adult. She’s even said to have intervened (posthumously) to save his life when Rebbe Nahman so annoyed his uncle Barukh with claims to spiritual greatness that the latter almost pushed him off his balcony! Rebbe Nahman set such store by his mother that he asked those requesting God’s aid in his name to refer to him as Nahman son of Feige, even though the dead are customarily associated with their fathers.

Rebbe Nahman had two elder brothers, Yisrael and Yehiel, as well as a sister, Perl. His father, Rabbi Simha, was the son of Rabbi Nahman of Horodenka, one of the Besht’s most eminent students. The master supposedly even acted as matchmaker for his disciple. According to legend, at the engagement Rabbi Nahman asked his teacher how he wanted to be paid for bringing the couple together. The Baal Shem Tov reportedly replied, “When you have a son and I have a daughter, let them be married.” And so it was: Simha wed Feige, granddaughter of the Besht.

As a result, not only was Rebbe Nahman “Hasidic royalty,” but he grew up in the home of the Baal Shem Tov himself, in Mezhbizh. Nahman’s charismatic uncle Barukh, regarded as the Besht’s successor, had no sons to inherit the mantle. The expectations of young Nahman were thus exceedingly high.

Even after the Besht’s death, his house remained the center of Hasidism, and there little Nahman drank in words of Torah along with stories of the movement’s early days and the wonders worked by his greatgrandfather. Rebbe Nahman later recalled that these tales, more than anything else, inspired his path to God.

Rabbi Hayim Krassner, another of the Besht’s disciples, often looked after young Nahman. When Rabbi Hayim and his colleagues set out to visit Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, author of one of the first Hasidic works and the greatest of the Baal Shem Tov’s students, five-year-old Nahman insisted on joining them. When they refused, he parked himself by the wheels of their cart and refused to budge. Rabbi Hayim came to his aid and lifted him up into the wagon – a favor Rebbe Nahman never forgot.

Not content with imbibing the spirit of his great-grandfather from his surroundings, Nahman would slip out to the Besht’s tomb at night to ask for help in serving God. Nothing was too much or too hard for the young Hasid; before dawn in the freezing Ukraine, he immersed in the mikveh (ritual bath) prior to morning prayers. Surprised to see his wet head in the study hall or synagogue, people simply assumed he’d been up to another one of his escapades.

After his marriage and move to Husiatyn (later to become another Hasidic center), Nahman frequented the grave of Rabbi Yeshaya of Yanov, appointing him to convey his requests to his saintly ancestor.