Some of you have been asking why Rabbi Nachman and his teachings were, and to a degree, still are, persecuted. In thinking about it, I realized that this question is, indeed, pertinent to the entire theme of this group. Community can be a great benefit, or it can be a straight jacket of conformity, stifling everything; especially spiritual growth. There are several reasons for the opposition to Rabbi Nachman. I will take them one by one. Some of you may have come across the name of Rabbi Nasan Maimon. When he was a young man, he worked as a computer systems analyst. He had with him at work, a volume of the teachings of Rabbi Nachman. His boss, who was also Hassidic, from a group not opposed to Breslov, picked the book up, and read on the title page great praises of Rabbi Nachman. He immediately threw the book down on the desk. Rabbi Maimon asked for an explanation. "Nobody is that great. Nobody is as great as MY Rebbe, and he's not so much".While it is true that the Talmud speaks of a "yeridat hadorot" (a spiritual decline in all generations after Sinai), this cannot be taken as a hard and fast rule. Great luminaries have appeared throughout history. Most people would agree with this...but not about now. Sima and I became attracted to Judaism through very different teachers. Yet, both of us had been told "you can't imagine the awesome level of the average Jew one hundred years ago". Someone with any rudimentary knowledge of Jewish history will understand how totally nonsensical that statement is. Similarly, I was once in the home of a pious man, whose grandfather was a very prominent Hungarian rabbi. He showed me his grandparents' wedding pictures. I was surprised that there was no "mechitzah" (partition) between the men and the women. He looked at me and said "You're comparing our women to the women of two generations ago?!?!" (that is, they were all very pious then, not like "our" brazen women). In my opinion, this attitude prevents not only progress, but also keeps us from marveling at great spiritual giants among us. Rabbi Nachman CAN'T be seen for the remarkable person he was, because he lived only two hundred years ago! Five hundred, he'd have a chance. It was, at one time, common for great Tzaddikim to sing their own praises. This was not done out of arrogance, but in order to let the people know to whom to turn for help. In Rabbi Nachman's time, this was no longer common. But Rabbi Nachman did praise himself and his work. At the same time, those close to him spoke of his great humility. Outsiders, however, saw him as a braggart. It's as if Einstein would have been rejected by science, because he dared disagree with Newton, who lived over two hundred years earlier! Hassidism's heyday was in the past, and Hassidim were now content with mediocrity. Rabbi Nachman tried to give it back its soul. Many saw this as impossible. It threatened the stature of recognized Ukrainian Rebbes. He "upset the apple cart".In my opinion, it needed upsetting.