Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Sanctifying the Candles

We continue our Chanukah series on Rabbe Nachman's teaching of the Seven Candles of the Face, this time giving an overview of what sanctifying the candles entails.

Rebbe Nachman himself gives the following overview:
You can sanctify your mouth by not speaking falsely; your nostrils by having fear of Heaven; your ears by by believing in the Tzaddikim; and your eyes by shutting them in the face of evil .
----Likutey Moharan I, 21:2
Reb Yitzchok Breiter (may Hashem avenge his blood), a famous Breslov chassid who died in the Holocaust, explains the issue in the following way:
Sanctify your eyes by not looking at evil; sanctify your ears by listening to the words of the wise; sanctify your nostrils by taking a long breath of patience, no matter what, thus showing love to the person with whom you were about to be angry; and, sanctify your mouth through words of Torah and prayer and refraining from saying anything forbidden.
----Seder HaYom 21
While these two overviews seem to differ with respect to certain points, they are in fact the same. G-d willing I will continue this short series by taking a more detailed look at how one sanctifies the mouth.

For those who are interested, Yitzchok Breiter's Seder HaYom is available on the Azamra Institutes website, translated as "A Day in the Life of a Breslover Chassid".

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