The Mysterious Guest

Translated by Avraham Greenbaum
From "Tzaddik"
(Breslov Research Institute)
Chayei Moharan 85

The year 5569 (1808). First day of Chanukah after the lighting of the Chanukah lamp in the evening. Rabbi Nachman relates:

 A visitor came into a house and asked the head of the house: "From what do you make a living?"

"I don't have a fixed livelihood at home," his host replied, "but the world provides me with what I need to live."

The guest asked him, "What do you learn?" The host answered him, and they continued talking together until they were talking in real earnest, heart to heart. The host began to feel a tremendous longing and yearning to know how to reach a certain level of holiness.

"I will learn with you," said the guest.

The host was surprised, and he started thinking, "Perhaps this isn't a human being at all." But he looked again and saw that he was talking to him normally like a human being. Immediately afterwards he felt a strong sense of faith, and he resolved to believe in him. He started calling him "my teacher" and said to him: "First of all, I would like to request that you teach me how I should conduct myself with due respect for beings like yourself. Not, I need scarcely add, that I could really detract from your true glory, G-d forbid, but even so it is hard for human beings to be as meticulous as they should be in these matters. That is why I want you to teach me how to behave with due respect."

"For the moment I haven't the time," he answered. "Another time I will come to you and teach you this. Right now I must go away from here."

"Well, I also need to learn from you about this," said the host. "How far do I have to go when I accompany you on your way, as the host is bound to do when his guests depart?"[1]

"Until outside the entrance," he replied.

The host began to think to himself, "How can I go out with him? For the moment I am with him among ordinary beings, but if I go out with him alone - who knows who he is?" He asked him, saying: "I am afraid to go out with you."

"If I can learn with you just like this," the visitor replied, "then surely if I want to do anything else to you, who is going to stop me?"

The host went with him out of the entrance. All of a sudden he seized him and started to fly with him. It was cold for the host, so the other took a garment and gave it to him. "Take this garment," he said, "and it will be good for you. You will have food and drink, and everything will be good, and you will live in your house."

He went on flying with him. Meanwhile the host suddenly noticed that he was in his house. He couldn't believe that this was he himself in his own house. But he looked carefully, and sure enough he was speaking with ordinary human beings and eating and drinking normally. But then he again noticed that he was flying like before. Then he looked again, and lo and behold! he was in his house. Again he noticed that he was flying ... and so it went on for quite a time.

After a time he set him down in a valley between two mountains. There the man found a book in which there were various combinations of letters: "aleph, zayin, chet and dalet," etc.[2] Inside the book there were drawings of various vessels, and inside the vessels there were letters. Also, inside the vessels were the letters belonging to the vessels  - i.e., through these letters it was possible to make the vessels themselves. The man had a tremendous desire to study the book. But then he noticed that there he was in his house. He took another look, and he was there in the valley. He decided to ascend the mountain in case he could find some kind of habitation there. When he came to the mountain he saw a tree of gold standing there with golden branches. Hanging from the branches were vessels like those drawn in the book, and inside the vessels were other vessels through which these first vessels could be made. He wanted to take the vessels from there, but he wasn't able to because they were all tangled up in the branches.

Meanwhile, he noticed that he was in his house. It was something extraordinary for him. How was it that one moment he could be here and the next moment there. He wanted to speak about it to other human beings, but how can one explain something incredible like this to other people - they would find it hard to believe.

At this moment he looked through the window and saw the same visitor. He started begging him to come in to him, but the visitor said, "I don't have time because I'm on my way to you."

"This in itself is something amazing to me," said the man. "I'm right here. What do you mean that you are on your way to me?"

He answered him: "As soon as you showed yourself willing to go with me and accompany me beyond the entrance, I took the neshamah, soul, from you and gave it a garment from the lower Garden of Eden.[3] The nefesh - ruach, spirit, remains with you. This is why when you attach your thought to that place you are there and you draw the radiance of that place over yourself. Then when you return here, you are here."

I do not know from which world he is. But this much is certain: he is from a world of good. So far it is not finished. It is not completed.