I hope that this is the right subforum for this question
Oh my how do i start this...
Shalom fellow jews. This topic is part of the reason why i actually registered on the forum.
What should i really think about Na Nachs? I've obviously never met one as there are probably none in germany.
What i do know is that they seem to be... on the "positive" side of things.
But then again i dont know much about them. So i hope someone can share his or her wisdom with me.
I turn to the internet for help as our congregation doesnt have a rabbi and our chassan wasnt that much of a help.
Flankerl
From what I know, the deal is that a Breslover rav, one of the early olim (immigrants) to Israel at the beginning of the 20th century, claimed to have miraculously found a
petek (which is a note left for someone, as opposed to a letter written to send to someone) which he claimed to be from Rebbe Nachman, who had died around a hundred years earlier. Now, it is not entirely unknown for Hasidim to occasionally find some lost letter or teaching of their founding Rebbe that turns up after a few years (usually not quite so long after, but still...), which may or may not result in some new glimmer of wisdom or nugget of insight their Rebbe had to teach.
Whether this rav's
petek really was written by Rebbe Nachman has never been conclusively proven, and while there are reasons to believe it could have been, there are certainly also reasons to doubt. But this rav definitely believed it, and, having read Rebbe Nachman's works thoroughly, which are laced with mysterious mystical allusions, he promptly read mysterious mystical allusions into the very brief (and, admittedly, odd) text of the
petek. The petek was signed
Na Nach Nachm Nachman me'uman. The mystical reasons for spelling out Nachman in agglomerative steps could be many; the word
me'uman is a very clever pun. The port city of Uman was where Rebbe Nachman died (en route to Israel, some say, although others say he intended to die there):
me-Uman can mean "from Uman," and indeed he might have written deathbed notes for his Hasidim to leave for others to find-- the great Rebbes sometimes did things like that. But
me'uman also means "honestly," or "to be believed:" in other words, it might not be translated "Nachman, from Uman," but "[from] Nachman, to be believed," or perhaps "Really [from] Nachman."
The rav decided that Na Nach Nachm Nachman was now his mantra for meditation, and he popularized it greatly as such.
One must understand that Breslovers have always had a curious flirtation with messianism. Most Breslovers would probably deny it, but it actually seems clear that Rebbe Nachman himself flirted with the idea that he could be the moshiach (messiah), and most of his Hasidim were ready to believe him and support him, had he declared that he was. But he never did...directly. He hinted. He made oblique allusions. He made veiled references. But he never came out and said it. And, especially since in his time, memories were still strong of the false messiahs Shabtai Tzvi and Yakov Frank, none of his Hasidim dared to suggest it before he said anything directly; which he never did-- perhaps, if for no other reason, than the fact that many had also thought that his grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, could have been the moshiach, and the Baal Shem always distanced himself from such speculations.
I think part of the reason that Breslovers never chose another rebbe after Rebbe Nachman is that they had more than half believed Rebbe Nachman was the moshiach, and his death, without his ever saying so, and without bringing redemption to the world, crushed them.
The rav of the
petek, and the Na Nach-niks who sing and chant after his teachings, probably believe Rebbe Nachman could have been the moshiach. And they do believe that the use of Na Nach Nachm Nachman me-uman as a mantra and chant aids in bringing moshiach.
There has been, over the past few decades, an emergent movement in the Breslover world focusing on
kiruv (bringing non-Orthodox Jews "back" to Orthodoxy), and this movement is often densely populated by
baalei teshuvah (formerly non-Orthodox Jews now Orthodox) who became
baalei teshuvah after studying with Breslovers (as well as with other Hasidim). Most of the Na Nach-niks that you see, dancing in the streets, singing, chanting, sometimes intoxicated, with giant yarn kippot, or occasionally tie-dyed tzitzit, are
baalei teshuvah. But there are actual Breslover Hasidim who are Na Nach-niks, just somewhat more restrained and Hasidic in style. They are tolerated amongst normative Breslovers, I understand, although most of the Breslovers I know consider the
me'uman petek to be interesting, perhaps even miraculous, but subject to debate in terms of meaning and perhaps even authenticity.
