Jump in Through the Window!
Late one night a young man was waiting in front of Rebbe Nachman’s house. Rebbe Nachman looked out of his window and said, “In the middle of the night you have to talk to me? What do you want to talk to me about?”
He was nearly crying and he said, “I don’t know what I am born for.”
So Rebbe Nachman put his hand on his head and said, “You know something, I’m just walking up and down here in my room and I’m thinking the same thing. I’m troubled about the same thing. You better come in fast, but don’t go through the door, jump in through the window! Don’t waste even the two half seconds to go through the door. Jump right through the window.”
You know friends, this road is not traveled anymore. Are people walking around thinking, “I wish I would know what I’m born for?” You know what kind of world we are, sadly, living in? Not our world, but the outside world? If someone would say to their parents, “Tell me really, what am I born for?” You know what their reaction would be? “You better see a psychiatrist fast! You’re talking completely crazy! What do you care what you’re born for?”
Do you know why they have this reaction? Because they don’t know the answer, they just don’t know the answer.
But the truth is that now there is a great revival in the world. People begin to ask each other, “What am I born for, what is this all about?”
And the answer has to be, “Jump in through the window. Jump in through the window, and fast!”
Mt. Sinai
It says, “If I hadn’t been on my way to Mt Sinai, I’d be long lost.” Do you know where Mt. Sinai is? Mt. Sinai is there, where people know that the world is still a desert. Mt. Sinai is there, wherever people really would like to hear G-d’s voice. Mt. Sinai is wherever people are really troubled, and are asking, “What am I born for? What am I doing here?” and they are really waiting for the answer.
So friends, could you possibly jump through this open window, and could we get much closer, because we all are troubled about the same thing, so let’s get close.
To be free
When we came out of Egypt, G-d did the ten plagues and all the miracles; G-d turned over the earth. We walked through the Red Sea; He turned over the waters. When G-d spoke to us on Mt. Sinai; He turned over the heavens.
To be free is also very hard. To be free you literally have to turn over the earth, and even the waters. You literally have to walk through the waters where there is no way. Everybody thinks you are drowning. If you want to be free, you better be ready to walk through the water.
In fact, this isn’t enough. If you want to know why you are free, if you want to know what you are born for, you have to be ready to turn over Heaven! You have to turn over Heaven. And you can turn over Heaven.
The Kotzker Rebbe asked one of his Chassidim, “What do you think man is born for?” So he answered, “To lift up the earth.” He says, “That’s all? Man is born to lift up Heaven!”
The angels ask each other, “Where is G-d?” And we answer them back, “He is right here,” meaning to say, we know G-d better than the angels.
Every human being knows G-d in a different way.
Rebbe Nachman talks about it so often. There is a passage in the Psalms: David HaMelech says, “I know G-d is great.” So Rebbe Nachman says, what does David HaMelech mean to say, “I know that G-d is great.?” Rebbe Nachman says that it is not only that the way I know G-d nobody else knows Him, but that the way I knew G-d yesterday is not the way I know Him now.
And do you know something? The way I knew Him before I began talking to you, is not the same way that I know Him right now.
If you really have to turn over Heaven, do you know what is the prerequisite? Really asking G-d, “What am I born for?”
