"A STILL, SMALL VOICE"

From Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, Tzaddik (English translation of Chayei Moharan, compiled by Reb Noson; Breslov Research Institute, 1987), “His Attainments,” sec. 241, p. 254.

“A Still, Small Voice”

I was told that the Rebbe [Rabbi Nachman of Breslov] once said: “When do I have my meditation? When everyone is standing around me, and I am sitting there in the middle. That is when I seclude myself with God. I know how to cry out in a ‘still, small voice’ (I Kings 19:12)! And my voice is heard from one end of the world to the other.”

I myself once heard the Rebbe say something to the same effect – that he had a “still, small voice,” and he could stand in a great throng of people and still cry out in this “still, small voice” from one end of the world to the other. And none of the people round about would hear anything at all.

The Rebbe said something similar with regard to dancing. He said that when he was sitting with other people he could dance the most wondrous dance.

I once heard him say that he could be sitting among other people and “I am like someone who is surrounded by all the people in the world, and he dances and dances.” As the Rebbe was saying this, a number of musicians passed by with their instruments on their way to a wedding.

On another occasion, the Rebbe elaborated on this idea, teaching us how it is possible to be among people and still cry out with a “still, small voice” (see Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom, sec. 16).