Rav Yisrael Dov Odesser

Early years

Rav Yisrael Dov Odesser zt"l, also called Reb Odesser or Sabba ("grandfather"), was a Breslover chassid. He was born in Teveria around 1888, when Eretz Yisroel was under Ottoman rule, into a family that had followed Karlin Chassidus for generations. His great-great-grandfather, Rav Yekutiel Zalman Leib, was a close talmid of Rav Avrohom Kalisker, himself a leading talmid of the Baal Shem Tov. In his youth he followed the Karliner path, but his neshamah was not satisfied by it.

It is told that as a young yeshivah student in Teveria he first met the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Someone had torn the cover from a holy sefer and thrown it in the trash. Forbidden to leave a sefer defaced, Yisrael Dov picked it up to bury it properly, but before doing so he began to read. It was Hishtafchus HaNefesh by Rav Alter Tepliker, a collection of Rebbe Nachman's words on hisbodedus and personal prayer. The cover was gone, so he did not know whose teachings these were, but they spoke to him. Only later did he learn that the sefer was a Breslov one.

Torah and leadership

The first Breslover chassid he met in person was Rav Yisroel Halpern, known as Yisroel Karduner, who came to his parents' shop to buy bread. The young man knew at once that he had found his teacher. His parents were strongly opposed to the Breslov path, and his father eventually put him out of the house and tried to stop his wedding. Yisrael Dov was not deterred, and he continued to learn with Rav Halpern. The chasuna took place as planned. His wife, Esther, stood by him through much suffering and the ridicule of the townspeople.

In those days people commonly said that anyone who became a Breslover chassid would end up losing his mind. This came partly from the Breslov practice of hisbodedus, at least an hour a day of private conversation with Hashem, often at night in the fields or woods, with crying out to Hashem. This was not a common practice at the time and was viewed with suspicion, since Yidden prayed indoors with a minyan. His davening in shul was so fervent that he would sometimes clap, dance and spin for hours.

During World War I, when the British entered Teveria, a plague broke out in the city. Rav Halpern fell ill and passed away in 1918, along with most of his family. After that Yisrael Dov became a personal attendant to the great Sefardi Rav and mekubal Rav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari, the Saba Kadisha, who lived in Teveria at the time. One night the Saba Kadisha saw him reciting Tikkun Chatzos, the midnight lament over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. He would no longer allow Yisrael Dov to serve him and treated him as a young colleague. Yisrael Dov then went to Yerushalayim to learn from the elders of the Breslov community there.

On a rainy night of Tu Bishvat in 1957, Zalman Shazar, who would later become the third President of Israel, was in Meron with a friend. They saw a chassid reciting Tikkun Chatzos with great fervor, and when he finished they asked who he was. A lifelong friendship began. Over the years Rav Odesser sent Shazar many letters explaining the Breslov path of personal prayer and urging him to return to Hashem, since Shazar was not yet observant. Shazar was deeply moved and became more observant. He later published the letters with a short biography in a Hebrew book, Ibay Hanachal, which was translated into English in 1995 as Young Buds of the Stream. The Hebrew word ibay (אבי) is formed from the initials of Rav Odesser's name, Yisrael Ber Odesser, reversed, so the title can also be read as Yisrael Odesser, the stream.

Teachings and seforim

When he was about 24, Rav Odesser came into possession of a document that was later published as the Letter from Heaven, known as the Petek. It is told that on the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, he gave in to a craving and ate something, and he was crushed by it. For six days he suffered and felt like a dead man. Then a powerful thought came into his mind to go to his room, open the bookcase, put his hand on any sefer and open it wherever it opened, and there he would find what would revive his soul.

He took a sefer, opened it, and found a letter inside, with words of greeting and encouragement and a phrase in Hebrew built on the four letters of the name Nachman, adding one letter at a time, in a Kabbalistic form. This is the phrase Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman. Rav Odesser said that the letter had been sent to him by Rebbe Nachman, who had passed away 112 years earlier, and that it revealed a remedy for the suffering and illness of the world, in the song and name Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman. In his old age he revealed it to new followers throughout Israel.

For many decades the mainstream Breslov community did not accept his publicizing of the phrase. In the early 1980s Rav Moshe Feinstein, who had heard of the Petek, asked to meet its owner. At the meeting Rav Moshe asked Rav Odesser for a blessing and called in his wife to receive one as well. Rav Moshe then wrote an approbation describing him as a gaon in Torah, saying that he had seen a secret document in his possession that was very wondrous, and calling on others to help him raise funds to print the seforim of Rebbe Nachman, a great mitzvah that Hashem would reward.

Later years and passing

Around 1984, when Rav Odesser was about 86 and living in an old age home in Raanana, a group of baalei teshuvah found him and were drawn to his teachings. He became their spiritual leader. This group, known as the Na Nachs, adopted the name and song Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman, and it has since appeared on billboards, bumper stickers and knitted yarmulkes and in the group's music.

In his later years he brought many new followers to Breslov, and many families made aliyah from France. He would stay with his new followers for anywhere from a week to a month or more at a time, most often in Meron, Tzfas, Teveria, Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, Beitar, Mevaseret Zion, and the Yerushalayim neighborhoods of Har Nof, the Old City and Neve Yaakov.

Without leaving his wheelchair he gathered close to half a million dollars in tzedakah in two years, as people hurried to bring him pidyonos. He left the entire sum to establish Keren Yisroel Dov Odesser, which prints and distributes the seforim of Rebbe Nachman at subsidized prices. The fund was run until his own death in 2009 by his grandson, Rav Amram Horowitz, who was also a grandson of Shmuel Horowitz of Breslov.

A few days before his passing, at the age of 106, Rav Odesser recorded a message on tape. He said that the whole world and its government did not know who he was, and he announced that he was Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman, and asked who the Rebbe of the whole world is. He passed away on 18 Cheshvan 5755 (23 October 1994) and was buried on Har HaMenuchos in Yerushalayim (Gush 11, Chelka bet). His matzeivah reads that he said, "I am Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman."

Legacy

Many people relate that they experienced salvation after davening at his kever. The Na Nach movement continues to follow the name and song that he revealed.