One of the prominent rabbis of religious Zionism, Yoel Bin-Nun, never hesitating to express his own point of view on controversial issues and always trying to substantiate it, made an unexpected statement for many.

Religious authority believes that the tradition that has developed in the last decades to make a pilgrimage to the Ukrainian city of Uman before the autumn Jewish holidays, where the founder of the Hasidism of Rabbi Nachman, which was founded in Brazlav (which is inaccurately called Braslav or Breslav), is not only meaningless from the point of view of Judaism, but even is harmful.

An Israeli rabbi, born in 1946 in Haifa to a family of two researchers of Judaism, following the example of his parents, defended his doctoral thesis in theology and now occupies the post of rabbi of the settlement of Shiloh and head of the Yeshiva Beit Orot, urges all who are going to go to pray to Ukraine, reconsider their plans.

Rav Bin-Nun does not dispute that the great-grandson of the founder of the entire Hasidism of Israel Baal Shem-Tov (Besht), Rabbi Nachman, born in 1772 in the town of Medzhibozh (now in the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine), died in 1810 and was buried in the town Uman (now Cherkasy region).

An indisputable fact is that the grave of Rabbi Nachman in Uman immediately became a place of pilgrimage of the Braslav Hasidim, especially on Rosh Hashanah. This tradition persisted until the mid-1920s and was revived in the late 1980s.

After Ukraine gained independence in 1991 under the decree of President Leonid Kravchuk, the burial place. Nahman received the official status of the Historical and Cultural Center of the Bratslav Hasidim, and the latter bought out the land on which the grave is located.

However, p. Ben-Nun believes that the Bratslav Hasidim treat the teachings of their spiritual mentor too formally and do not penetrate into his essence.

One of the most important postulates of p. Nahman says: "You are where your thoughts are. So take care that your thoughts are where you want to be ".

In thought and teaching, p. Nakhman, as far as they have come down to our days, neither the then Russian Empire, nor Austria-Hungary, where he spent part of his youth, much less today's Ukraine of any weighty place did not occupy.

As far as it was accepted and probably in the pre-Zionist era, the founder of the Braslav Hasidism proclaimed the spiritual capital of the Jewish people Jerusalem and dreamed to visit there.

"The thoughts, dreams and the inescapable anguish of the Jewish people are directed towards Eretz Yisrael. How I dream to get there and settle there, in the Holy Land, for it is there that the original source and foundation of the sacred faith "- so wrote down the words p. Nachman is his faithful disciple and biographer.. Noson (Nathan) Shterngarts.

In the year 1798. Nahman traveled through Turkey to Palestine (Eretz Israel), visited Haifa, Zefat and Tiberias, but could not reach Jerusalem because of Napoleon's invasion.

As for today's Uman, then there, according to r. Ben-Nun, "there is filth" and "there is nothing that can be worshiped".

"The soul of Rabbi Nachman is crying because his disciples make a great mistake and worship him where his mortal body is buried, and not where his spirit is hovering," emphasizes the modern catechist.

"When a person lives, his physical location is important, but after the death of his body the living soul stays in the places that he thought during his lifetime and where his teaching lives".

"An additional sin is the abandonment by the men of the family for the time of the pilgrimage," continues Ben-Nun.

- On such fateful days when we pray for forgiveness from the Almighty for past sins and ask Him to bring us to the Book of Life next year, there are no compelling reasons to encroach on the sanctity of marriage, leave the wife and children at home and go to where your prayer is very little chance of being heard ".

References to the fact that pilgrims return spiritualized from Ukraine, the rabbi absolutely do not convince: "Well, some people the sin of the golden calf is also able to increase vitality".

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