Skip to main content

Rabbi Nachman's Mantra

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov would chant the following mantra: 

“Ribono shel Olam”. 


Whilst we often translate “olam” as “universe” or “world” the Hebrew root connects to notions of “concealment” and “hiddenness”. 


Therefore, we might understand “Ribono shel Olam” as meaning 

“Sovereign of that which is Hidden”. 


Chanting this mantra can be a humbling experience as it draws one's attention to the limitations of their own knowledge. 


No matter how much I know, there will always be more for me to discover. Over the course of my lifetime I will only reveal a tiny fraction of all that is even theoretically knowable. 


With this in mind I must use my time wisely, in order to reveal a singular truth: 

That everything in existence is connected. 

That everything has within it the Divine spark!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Ordination Address

I received my rabbinical ordination (s'micha) on Sunday, 3 July 2022 / 4 Tamuz 5782. My Presenters were Rabbi Jeremy Gordon & Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers. I was ordained by Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh. This was my address. --- I was raised by loving parents in a small shtetl called Hendon.  My childhood home was a beacon of Jewish practice and my formative years bathed in the glow of the richness of Jewish ritual and theology.  However, around the time of my Bar Mitzvah - my Jewish coming of age - I began to find the former cumbersome and the latter archaic and dogmatic.  I might never have re-immersed myself in Jewish life had it not been for one other vitally important thing ever present in my life - chesed .  Sometimes English speaking Jews translate chesed as kindness, but this does not do justice to our tradition.  The Hebrew root for chesed -  ח-ס-ד - appears in the Tanakh (The Jewish Bible) around 250 times and these can be translated in almost ...

Jews In Jewish Spaces

The other day I attended a meeting of cross-communal Jewish organisations. At the table were people who held a range of beliefs and practices. One of the challenges of such umbrella groups is how they accommodate such a diverse range of deeply-held religious ideologies. The inherent tensions of this debate were highlighted during an impromptu discussion as to whether a key feature of a website should remain active on Shabbat or if they should be turned off for all users during this 25 hour period. Though the thing itself may seem trivial the issues surrounding it do have wide-reaching implications. I believe people on both sides of the debate are driven primarily by this simple question; "How can my religious practices and beliefs be accommodated and respected by other people?" The key words here is other for it refers, not to the general non-Jewish population, but to other self-identifying Jews. This type of other often prompts a very different kind of conversation; partic...

Being Safe Online: Reviewing NOS's Online Safety Course

The other day I was invited by my children's school to take an Online Safety Course for Parents & Carers . The course, created by the National Online Safety (NOS), is made up of 23, three-six minute, videos. Each video focuses on a different area of online safety such as 'online bullying', 'pornography' and 'screen addition'. The course will likely take you somewhere between two-three hours depending on your attention span and how many cups of tea you require to sit through all the videos. Overall I found the course extremely useful with the vast majority of videos able to clearly distill the challenges of being online into steps that a parent or carer might wish to take to address them. I was particularly impressed with the non-judgemental tone of each video and each of the presenters will put you, the viewer, at ease. As a parent, and educator who works with school-age children, I found that many of the videos offered a useful reminder that children,...