A person can hear a beautiful Torah and leave it in the sefer. He understands the explanation, enjoys the mashal, and remembers a good line. The harder question comes later, when he is tired, disappointed or ashamed. Can he use what he learned then?
The rav explains the purpose of Rebbe Nachman's teachings as giving eitzos, practical ways of serving Hashem. He connects it with Reb Noson's Likutey Eitzos, which extracts practical counsel from the longer teachings. He reports that Rebbe Nachman instructed such a compilation; the exact primary passage for that instruction remains unresolved. His argument is that the depth and intricate connections are meant to bring a person to action, beyond admiration for an impressive Torah. Reb Noson's diary gives us a chance to see that movement. We have learned about bringing the reluctant parts of ourselves into a circle of joy. What would it look like to try that on an ordinary evening, after we had already decided that the day was over?
Reb Noson's Tu B'Shvat
Yemei Moharnat, PartII 35–37, describes a Tu B'Shvat that was also Reb Noson's birthday. Elsewhere in the diary, he records his birth on the fifteenth of Shevat 5540. The birthday in this account belongs to Reb Noson.
The diary supplies a fuller setting than the retelling alone. There had been a disagreement between two friends, Reb Dov and Reb Yaakov Yosef, over their business partnership. Reb Tzvi helped make peace between them, with some help from Reb Noson. On Tuesday night, leading into Wednesday, the fifteenth of Shevat, Reb Dov made a meal for Reb Noson's birthday. He invited the prominent members of their group, including Reb Yaakov Yosef and his son. Reb Yudil had also arrived that afternoon.
The rav pauses over the birthday meal itself. He mentions a discussion about birthday celebrations, contrasting Pharaoh's birthday in the Torah with Chabad's emphasis on celebrating birthdays. He supplies no ruling or exact responsum, so the diary account cannot settle every question about how to celebrate. He also says that he does not know what food was served or precisely what the party looked like.
They spoke about Rebbe Nachman and about the extraordinary sefer he had instructed them to burn. Later, younger members of the group who had not attended the meal arrived. They sang niggunim, and the gathering continued until after midnight. The rav emphasizes how unusual such a long gathering was for Reb Noson, whom he describes as extraordinarily careful with time, early rising and Tikkun Chatzos. He recounts an anecdote that Reb Noson could enter and leave the mikveh before someone beside him had finished undressing; its exact biographical source remains unverified. The point of his recollection is zerizus and the unusual occasion, not haste as a procedure to imitate.
The following day, Reb Yaakov Yosef made a meal in his own home. Before it began, the peace agreement between the partners was concluded. They again spoke about Rebbe Nachman, and the meal lasted until evening. After Minchah and Maariv, Reb Noson was exhausted. He had not slept as much as he needed the previous night, and he had not slept during the day at all.
He lay down. He was willing to sleep through the evening meal. He did get up before it, but wanted to eat only a very small amount. As far as he was concerned, he had already done enough for one day.
Then he remembered that Tu B'Shvat had passed without the simcha he felt it deserved. He began to make himself happy. Reb Yeshaya of Tcherkass was there, and Reb Noson drew him into the dancing. At first, Reb Yeshaya did not want to join. The diary says explicitly that Reb Noson danced with him against his will and strongly pressed him to join. In the rav's expanded telling, Reb Yeshaya tried to sit or pull Reb Noson back toward the couch, but Reb Noson kept dancing and prevailed. That couch detail is not stated in the printed diary passage. Eventually, the diary says, the joy reached Reb Yeshaya in truth.
Reb Noson explicitly connects this experience with Likutey Moharan II:23: at first, a person may have to make an effort to enter the simcha; afterward, genuine joy can follow. He also recalls the instruction in Torah 24 to make oneself happy, even through lightheartedness.
Those few moments of dancing were more precious to him than gold and precious stones. He had already given up on being happy that evening. He was asleep, finished with the day, and yet Hashem helped him begin again.
The effect did not end that night. He describes how that simcha helped them rejoice on Shabbos as well. He also understood every small and large joy on his journey as assistance toward reaching Eretz Yisrael. Something that might have looked like a few unnecessary minutes of dancing belonged, in his eyes, to the help that made the journey possible.
This is a personal account of an interaction between these two men. Its inward application is the effort Reb Noson made with himself. His tiredness was real. So was his sense that he had already finished. Those feelings did not have to decide whether he could still turn toward simcha. The story is not a general instruction to deprive ourselves of needed sleep or to press another person beyond his wishes.
One pleasure, or the source of the whole simcha?
Likutey Moharan II:23 distinguishes between putting sorrow aside for a while and bringing it into the joy itself. Noticing the good is necessary. Like noticing the white around a black dot on a sheet of paper, it gives our attention somewhere else to rest. But the parts that hurt are still standing outside the circle.
A related teaching, Likutey Moharan II:34, begins with Yisro:
וַיִּחַדְּ יִתְרוֹ עַל כׇּל־הַטּוֹבָה אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה ה׳ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הִצִּילוֹ מִיַּד מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Yisro rejoiced over all the good that Hashem had done for Israel, having rescued them from the hand of Egypt. (Shemos 18:9)
Think about the different people at a chasunah. One guest is delighted by the meal. He was expecting ordinary chicken and discovers a generous piece of meat. Another has been asking for weeks who the singer and band will be. The food matters very little to him; he is waiting for the niggunim.
Someone else enjoys the flowers, the beautiful hall, the photographer or seeing friends. The chassan, kallah and mechutanim may scarcely notice the meal. Their happiness is in the marriage itself.
Usually, our attention moves from one pleasure to another. I enjoy the food, and then the music. Even if I appreciate many things during the evening, I experience them separately. My attention is occupied with one detail at a time.
Rebbe Nachman describes a fuller simcha: rejoicing in all the good together. To reach it, a person looks toward the shoresh, the source from which the separate good things come. At that source, they are one. Each joy can then add light to the others, rather than displacing them from his attention.
That is how he reads Yisro's happiness al kol hatovah, over all the good. The word al also points upward, toward the source above the separate gifts. Yisro sees beyond one rescue or one wonder to the One from Whom all the good has come.
The rav tentatively suggests that this can help explain the earlier picture of the circle as well. If I focus only on a good supper, my happiness is attached to that one detail. Even other good parts of my day, learning well, davening well, having a good conversation with a friend, may fall outside my attention. Certainly the painful parts seem to have no place there.
When I look toward my relationship with Hashem, I am looking toward the source of my life as a whole. The separate gifts belong to that relationship. The difficulties, too, can be brought before Him. This proposed connection between the two teachings gives us a way to think about a joy that reaches more of the person. It is still work to do, rather than a claim that pain has already stopped hurting.
The two words we can overlook
Likutey Moharan II:24 begins with words that have become familiar through niggunim and signs: mitzvah gedolah lihyos besimcha tamid, it is a great mitzvah to be happy always.
Two words deserve attention. Gedolah: Rebbe Nachman is describing a great mitzvah, something with considerable weight in a person's avodah. Tamid: he is asking for an ongoing avodah, rather than happiness only when an occasion naturally supplies it.
We understand being happy at a chasunah or over good news. How can a person work toward simcha through an ordinary day, including the times when his feelings pull the other way?
The teaching continues with the effort to push away atzvus and marah shechorah, the sadness and dark heaviness that draw a person down. Later in this same Torah, Rebbe Nachman explains why effort is necessary: the disappointments and troubles of life can pull a person toward that heaviness. He does not assume that an untroubled mood will arrive by itself.
The calendar makes room for different measures of joy. Taanis 29a teaches that when Adar enters we increase simcha, and when Av enters we reduce it. In the application here, an increase or decrease has meaning against an underlying avodah of simcha. Adar, and especially Purim, gives that work a particular emphasis. The need for it extends beyond those days.