Pathway To Rabbeinu

I’m on my way to Uman. Not because I have any specific travel plans to go. Because I’m journeying to Rebbi Nachman.

I had wanted my husband to go to Uman for years. Every Rosh Hashanah I secretly hoped this would be the year. There was something so captivating about Rabbeinu that I could not quite explain. Long before my husband ever packed a suitcase, Rebbi Nachman had quietly found his way into my life.

It all began in 2020 when I learnt one of the stories of Sipurei Maasiyos, The Story of the Lost Princess. I could not get enough. I read and reread it and eventually found myself hosting a Breslov book club. There was something about Rebbi Nachman’s Torah that felt timeless, almost as if he was speaking directly to our generation. His words did not simply teach ideas. They taught a practical way of life that applied to the ups and downs of our existence. They awakened something inside me.

So when my husband and his brothers finally left for Uman this past Rosh Hashanah, I stayed home with our six children, and the yom tov cooking, guests, davening, carpools, and all the other beautiful Uman wives who somehow turned yom tov at home into its own kind of pilgrimage.

When my husband returned, I could not quite describe what had changed. He carried back a certain calmness. A menuchas hanefesh. A quiet. There was something about Uman that seemed to linger long after the flight home, and I found myself wondering what exactly Rabbeinu had given him. I wanted to taste more of it. I still do. 

My own journey with Chassidus had begun a few years earlier. I had immersed myself in the deepest waters of Chabad Chassidus through learning and teaching Tanya, the sefer from the first Chabad Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe. It arrived at exactly the moment I needed it most.

I often joke that Tanya turned me into a Baalas Teshuvah even though I grew up frum. It introduced me to an entirely new language. Suddenly, I was living with words like Nefesh Habehamis and Nefesh Elokis. I discovered the breathtaking idea that every Yid carries a chelek Eloka mima’al mamash, an actual spark of Hashem within. I learned about Dirah B’Tachtonim, that Hashem’s deepest desire is not found somewhere in Heaven, but right here, within this world that often feels so ordinary.

The Alter Rebbe taught me that moach shalit al halev—the mind has the ability to guide the heart. He taught that thoughts can actually reshape emotions, and that hidden inside every Jew lies an ahavah mesuteres, an eternal love for Hashem that never disappears, no matter how deeply buried it may seem. Those ideas completely transformed me.

My favorite part was the meditations. Thinking deeply about how Hashem fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds. How creation is renewed every single second. How every mitzvah reveals another piece of His garden. Slowly those lofty concepts stopped living only in my head and began trickling into my heart. And one day I realized something. I liked how Hashem felt in my heart. I had spent years learning about Him. I understood creation more deeply than ever before. I understood mitzvos differently. Halacha became alive. The world itself felt more purposeful and I was discovering the incredible architecture of creation.

But somewhere along the journey I found myself quietly asking a new question. I know so much about Hashem. But do I actually know Him? I had spent years speaking about Hashem, now I wanted to speak to Him. I wanted Him beside me during school pickup. While sitting in traffic and cooking supper. During the ordinary moments that quietly make up a life. I did not want Hashem to remain the greatest idea I had ever learned. I wanted Him to become my closest companion.

Around that time, after completing Tanya for the second time with our chaburah, I asked my Rav, Reb Yussi Zakutinsky, what we should learn next. Without hesitation, he answered Yichud HaHisbodedus, a sefer by R’ Kluger based on the teachings of Rebbi Nachman. Looking back now, I smile because my husband had actually bought me the sefer years earlier. I had opened it several times, read a few pages, and quietly closed it again. It simply was not my time yet. Now it was.

The Baal Shem Tov came to reveal that Hashem is present everywhere. The Alter Rebbe explained how that works. Then Rebbi Nachman, the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, gently asks us one simple question. “If He’s already here… have you spoken to Him today?” That question changed everything.

Rebbi Nachman dreamed of restoring Chassidus to its original heartbeat. Not simply learning about Hashem, but living with Him. Discovering that Hashem is present not only in the Beis Medrash or during moments of inspiration, but inside the messy, beautiful, complicated details
of ordinary life. 

And then Rebbi Nachman gave us perhaps the most revolutionary gift of all. Hashem is not only Avinu.` He is not only Malkeinu. He is also your closest Friend. Now, I turned forty this year. At forty you start realizing how precious genuine friendships are. They are built through daily conversations, through sharing the ordinary and  checking in simply because you care.

And suddenly I wondered… What would happen if I treated Hashem like that? Not just Someone I daven to. Not just Someone I learn about. But Someone I can not wait to tell about my day. Someone I want to invite on every beach walk. Someone who already knows every thought in my heart but still delights in hearing me say it aloud.

Rebbi Nachman teaches that setting aside an hour for hisbodedus, preferably in nature, has the ability to transform a person’s entire life. To build a relationship with Hashem that is panim el panim—face to face. At first, an hour felt impossible. So I started with five minutes. Five honest minutes. No polished words, no perfect kavanos. Just conversation. Some days I thanked Him. Some days I cried. Some days I laughed. Some days I simply sat quietly because I did not know what to say. And somehow those five minutes began changing the other twenty three hours of my day. And I felt how applicable Rebbi Nachman’s teachings are two hundred years later. 

It’s incredible how Hashem sends the refuah lifnei hamakah, the remedy before the challenge. Months earlier, on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, Rebbi Nachman’s birthday, I had begun saying Tikkun HaKlali every day without fully understanding why I felt so drawn to it. I kept copies everywhere—my nightstand, my minivan, tucked inside my siddur.

Only later did I realize that Rabbeinu had already been preparing me for this next chapter. Maybe that’s why his Torah feels so alive today. He wasn’t writing only for the Jews of two hundred years ago. He was writing for us. Sometimes I think we are standing at the very end of history. But Jewish time isn’t linear, it is circular. The place that feels furthest away somehow becomes closest to the beginning. Perhaps that’s why Rebbi Nachman’s fire burns even brighter in our generation. When the world feels darker, when loneliness is louder and anxiety has become the language of an entire generation, his messages are almost startling in their simplicity. Never despair. There is no place empty of Him. Keep talking. Keep searching. Keep walking. Keep beginning again.

As Elul quietly approaches and the words
Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li begin echoing through my heart once more, I realize something beautiful. For years, I wanted to understand Hashem. Now I simply want to know Him. Maybe that’s what journeying to Uman has really meant for me.

Not simply waving goodbye while my husband boards a plane to Ukraine, but beginning my own journey toward learning from Rabbeinu.

Learning to speak to Hashem like the truest Friend
I have ever known.

One whispered conversation, one “ABBBBBBBBBA…” at a time.