Knesset Member Danny Danon wants Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss with the visiting president of Ukraine on Thursday the idea of reburying the revered Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Israel.
“Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are followers of Rabbi Nachman are not able to fly to Ukraine and visit his grave,” and reburying him in Israel would allow them to do so, said MK Danon.
Before he died, he said that every Jew who visits his grave on Rosh HaShanah will be saved from evil even if someone “pulls his side locks.”
MK Danon told Prime Minister Netanyahu, ”We have a rare opportunity to do justice for Rabbi Nachman, for whom Israel was so important. Re-burying him in Israel will bring historic honor to the country that is the home of the Jewish people.”
The Knesset Member suggested that the Mount of Olives Cemetery opposite the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a potential and central location for the reburial of Rabbi Nachman.
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10 Responses
Maybe they should ask his descendants and followers.
“the Mount of Olives Cemetery opposite the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a potential and central location for the reburial of Rabbi Nachman.”
What, and stand by idly while Arabs desecrate it?!? Me thinks he is safer in the Ukraine. Besides this is a cash cow for Ukraine, what with 50K people visiting Uman every year, a kosher hotel built etc.
@2 – The Ukrainians are and always were notoriously anti-semitic. They hate Jews. They really don’t deserve to have him, and all the cash that his grave brings. He should be moved. That said, I don’t think the Ukrainian government would ever let it go.
Who died and left this MK in charge of where he should be buried? We don’t just stamm move maysim even if it is to EY.
makes sense. why should 30,000 people travel each rosh hashanah and spend good money to support anti semites in Ukraine? Let them come to Israel and enjoy religious freedom expression there.
@4 (Mark Levin):
Actually reburial in EY is considered to be an honor to the deceased and therefor allowed.
On the other side of the spectrum you have those who say/said (tana’im if I remember correctly) “You didn’t honor EY in life, why should you bring your tuma here in death”, but the general consensus as far as I always understood was what I wrote above.
(And R’ Nachman certainly did not “not honor EY in life”)
I walked by the tziyun of Chidah on Har Hamanuchoth many times on my way to my grandfather’s kever. I haven’t yet seen a single person go in there. Do you know why? Because, moving him to Eretz Yisroel from Italy was controversial.
It would be real nice to have him in Eretz Yisroel, but we are praying that it will be with Techiyas Hameysim when Hashem wills it.
What a brilliant idea! Why not move all the people in the Me’oras Hamachpeilo while you’re at it, and Yosef Hatzadik as well? Then people wouldn’t have to risk going among the “Palestinians”!
Reb Nachmon specifically chose that cemetery to be buried in. When he knew he was dying he moved to Uman for the express purpose of being buried there, among the kedoshim. Just as Yaacov Ovinu specifically wanted to be buried in Me’oras Hamachpeilo”, and Yosef to be buried in the “Shchem Achas” that his father had given him, and I would hope that nobody would have the chutzpah to move them, the same applies to Reb Nachmon. He loved Eretz Yisroel, but he didn’t say anything about being buried there; we can’t presume he’d be happy if we moved him.
On the other hand, perhaps it would be appropriate to move Ribi Yaacov Abuchatzeira, who was on his way to EY when he died, and therefore presumably would like to complete his journey if possible. If the Islamists take over, who knows what they will do to him chas vesholom.
Rebbe Nachman gave several reasons for wanting to be buried in Uman, one of which was to be buried among the thousands of victims of a pogrom 42 years earlier, and another was that at the time it would have been difficult for his followers, most of whom were in Ukraine at the time, to visit a grave in Eretz Yisroel. It’s a deep and complicated issue which imho deserves discussion by the Gedolim and tzaddikim of our time. Given that the government is now in the process of taking Kever Rashbi away from the mosdos that have controlled it for centuries and making it into a “Kabbala” center for people who have no connection with Torah and mitzvos, it’s not so simple giving them any control over Rebbe Nachman’s grave.
Another point: It’s hard to imagine how the 10’s or 100’s of thousands of people who would want to visit Rebbe Nachman’s kever could be accommodated on Har HaZeisim. Another place would have to be found, and who would develop it and control it are very sticky questions, even in the fragmented Breslov movement. It’s not at all simple.