Only Rebbe Nachman's advice can rectify this generation

THIS GENERATION CAN ONLY BE RECTIFIED BY REBBE NACHMAN'S LIGHT

Translated excerpt of a shiur that Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, gave at an outreach conference in Netanya, in the year 2000 (taken from ‘Hithadshut Magazine, Issue 12, Shvat 5777’).

The Gli Razia[1] said that until the year 5760 (2000) is the rectification of the world, and the rectification of the 974 generations[2] (that preceded creation).

For, there are souls that are born completely righteous (Tzaddikim). There are souls like Rebbe Nachman, who are completely without sin, who never once sinned. Holy and pure Tzaddikim, who served Hashem day and night, who guarded their eyes, and never once paid attention to the material world.

After that, there are the ‘regular’ souls, the souls who are average, or in-between [not completely righteous or completely wicked]. After these in-between souls, the wicked souls begin, and each one needs a spiritual rectification.

The Gli Razia says that the rectification of these souls will continue until 5760 (which may also be understood to include 5761 too), which is the time the wicked souls will need to be rectified.

After 5760, all those who didn’t wake up and do teshuva, who didn’t see the Divine light, who didn’t see the light of Hashem, who didn’t feel the pleasantness of Hashem, who didn’t taste the nectar of Hashem…

The Gli Razia wrote his book more than 460 years’ ago [now, in 2017, more than 480 years’ ago]. He foresaw some very serious things, he was one of the prophetic figures of that generation, and he saw what would be happening in another 460 years.

AFTER 5760 A TERRIBLE SPIRIT OF TUMAH WILL DESCEND TO THE WORLD

He said that all these evildoers, that we see today running wild, prattling away, all these preening ‘black roosters’, their rectification will only last until 5760. And after 5760, such an enormous spirit of tumah (spiritual impurity) will descend to the world, such a terrible tumah will come down to the world.

Only until 5760 will there be a rectification for these reincarnations, after this there will be ‘many years’ (רב שנים) - which has the same gematria as ‘Amalek’, = 240. Amalekite souls, mamash, will come to the world, because from 5760 until the end of that decade, there is ‘many years’, which is the gematria of Amalek.

And so, these Amalekite-type souls will come, people who are impossible to talk to. They will say: ‘We need to kill the datiim (religious people)...’ - they are submerged in their lusts and desires from the tips of their toes all the way up to their heads.

All these souls that come after 5760, their only hope of being rectified is via the Divine light that Rebbe Nachman revealed more than 200 years ago. He taught that these generations would come, that no other advice would be able to help. He said more than 200 years ago that a flood would come to the world, that would ‘cover the tops of even the highest mountains’.

CHILDREN WILL RUN AFTER THE CULTURE OF THE STREETS

It will sweep over all of the mountains - this is referring to all the Tzaddikim, even the children of the Tzaddikim will be destroyed by it. It will be impossible to stop the children. The children will run after the culture of the streets, after all the madness. There won’t be any way to stop them from doing this.

Rebbe Nachman said: generations are coming that no advice will be able to help, if we don’t start to reveal this light already from today, to reveal this hidden light already, today. We need to take this light from the realm of potential to the realm of actual.

There really will come generations where you won’t be able to say a single word to them, to help them. You will talk to your children, you will talk to people, and they won’t have any idea what you’re even trying to say. And it is here, where such a light will come, where we will need to reveal such a new light.

And this is what Rebbe Nachman is explaining to us, in Lesson 37 (of Likutey Moharan), that now we need to start to reveal a completely new light to the world: ‘A new light will be shone on Zion, and all of us will soon merit to His light.’

THERE IS ONLY ONE LIGHT LEFT

For there is only one light, there will be only one escape hatch left, one remaining ray of light, and if we manage to open this one porthole, and if we merit to uncover this escape hatch, and to show [people] the way to it…It’s only via this one porthole that people will be able to accept anyone else’s words, and to be persuaded of anything, and to accept the Godly light.

This is what Rebbe Nachman is explaining to us, that right now the lusts are only gaining in strength and overpowering us from one moment to the next. These lusts are so dreadful - all the gadgets, the computers, the internet, all the different programs - if you press on a button, a person can find themselves in the lowest depths of hell, or even lower, that his father or grandfather couldn’t even conceive of there being such a thing. And no-one else ever dreamed that such things could ever exist before today.

Just by pressing one small button when his father isn’t home, a child can just press some button - and it’s all over! He falls into oblivion! To the deepest depths! To such a low place, that who knows if he can ever come out of it again? And who can even pull him out of that place?

His father has no idea why his son’s spiritual yearnings suddenly got so destroyed. He doesn’t understand that he bought a computer with access to the internet, and he didn’t keep it protected. There are many programs you can use to protect your computer.

Suddenly, in one fell swoop in 5760 (2000), we’re seeing all these different types of spiritual impurity blowing across the world, that no-one is able to stop. That’s why Lesson 37 (of Likutey Moharan) was written. Lesson 37 was written to subdue this dreadful force of spiritual impurity, which is the secret of the kruvim (cherubim)… reviving the whole situation that was found at the time of yetziat Mitzrayim (leaving Egypt). We are starting it all again.

THE 49 GATES OF IMPURITY

In Egypt, Am Yisrael was sunk in the 49 gates of impurity, and worshiped all the different types of idols, and there was no spiritual impurity that Am Yisrael wasn’t somehow in the middle of. They went right up to the 50th gate…

And now, only Rebbe Nachman can get them out of there. No other advice can do it. And they were already on the verge of falling into the 50th gate, and they were about to start sinning with the non-Jews[3], G-d forbid, so Hashem immediately took them out.

And now, we’re talking about a completely new stage, a completely new light, a new light will be shone on Zion.

A person has a yetzer hara (evil inclination) raging inside him. He could be a ‘true’ Chassid, with payot down to the floor, and his yetzer hara is still running wild. He has no idea how to subdue it and he has no idea what to do.

It didn’t used to be like this. Today, even children are seeing the most awful things. Hashem should have mercy. Hashem should have mercy. And who can stop them, if we don’t give them the real light, the light of Hashem?

It’s like Avraham Avinu, who was born into the most immoral generation. He was born into the most spiritually-impure generation, with Nimrod the rasha (evildoer) - the height of spiritual impurity. And Avraham Avinu was just one person, and he smashed all the idols, he wasn’t scared of anything. Even though he was just one person, and by himself, he still broke all of the idols…

His father said to him: ‘Avrama’leh, are you trying to tell me that you are smarter than everyone else? That you’re the smartest person in the world?! That there aren’t any other wise people in the world? That you’re wiser than Nimrod. We’ve been serving idols and worshipping idols here for 1700 years, already, but you’re smarter than everyone else, and you’re going over to a new system?!’

EVERYTHING'S COLLAPSING!

But Avrama’leh said: ‘Abba’leh, where’s your brains?’ Terach responded: ‘Could it really be that the whole world [has been wrong about] serving idols for 1700 years?! Ok, yes once there was a big flood, there was a big cloudburst, I don’t know what. It’s true that not everything went so smoothly all the time. It’s also true that once the Tower of Babel fell down - there was some sort of engineering error, I don’t know what, and the Tower fell down…’

Avraham said to him: ‘Can’t you see what’s going on?! Open your eyes! Everything’s collapsing! The world’s collapsing!’ There’s not going to be any world left.

We see that every second, the earth is crumbling under our feet. Open your eyes! A person can see that the earth is crumbling. Here, someone’s son dies, there someone’s wife passes away, here it’s the husband. And yet people continue to contaminate their eyes! They don’t understand that it’s their own sins that are killing their wives, and their husbands, and their children.

This is what Rabbenu revealed to us, in Lesson 37. And this is the key for how to help these generations, the generations from 5760 onwards, these awful generations that are starting to come to the world, generations that their fathers never imagined or envisioned, and that their ancestors never saw before in their lives, except maybe only at the time of the mabbul (flood).

[1] A Torah commentator who lived around 500 years ago.

[2] In the 2000 years before the creation of our world, the Gemara explains that Hashem created another 974 different worlds that were all destroyed before our present world was created, because they refused to keep the Torah. The souls from these 974 generations are referred to as the ‘brazen ones’ in each generation, and are often connected with the Erev Rav. See Gemara Shabbat 88b, Midrash Tanchuma, VaYeshev 4, and Lech Lecha 11, amongst others.

[3] Apparently referring to intermarriage and assimilation.