To Uman or not to Uman?

My friend over at A Simple Jew wrote an intriguing post about Uman here. But one man made a comment which is fascinating and requires a post all its own. Anonymous 2 wrote: "We don’t go to Uman for chizuk – Uman is a Tikkun, if you weren’t there for better or worse you didn’t get it. If you were – you did. There are other mitzvos and there is so much we don’t understand about Uman Rosh HaShanah but there are countless stories passed down that prove this point over and over." You put a lot of stock in stories, but we find that one cannot learn from stories unless he knows the reasoning behind the story and that his application is correct (see Bava Basra 130.) Yes, there is a tikkun no matter what. But do you think that one gets the same whether he davens quickly and fritters Rosh Hashanah away as one would if he davened with intensity and comported himself with profound yiras shamayim? How do you suppose Breslover's in Uman always acted on Rosh Hashanah? Do you think they wasted their time? You think the famous: whether you davened, ate or slept or not don't miss Rosh Hashanah, means that one who doesn't feel like davening made the tikkun?? So although one who missed going lost out, who is to say that someone not there got less than one who made it? This is like Rebbe Nachman's teaching that one connected to the tzaddik is higher than one who is not. But do you really think you are greater than Rav Shach? Or the Lubavitcher Rebbe? Rav Wozner? Rav Karelitz? Rav Eliyashev? Who will be greater in the next world? One who served Hashem with mesiras nefesh his entire life, or one who went to Uman but didn't do much else? Rebbe Nachman merely means what I wrote here: that one connected to the tzaddik has an advantage over others. Not that you should go to some Breslover for a brocha over the greatest tzaddik who is not connected to Rebbe Nachman. The Rebbe means that if these great personages connected to the tzaddik, they would have much more. Not that small fry like myself--even supposing I truly am connected-- are on a higher level than giants of Torah and avodah who are not Breslovers. Rav Levi Yitzchak told that the Breslovers would work to bring accomplishments to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. One man would not go to the tziyun until he had completed Shulchan Aruch. This was the custom of Breslover old timers. They recalled that Rebbe Nachman says that he wipes the slate clean, but only if we accept not to do the sin ever again. Does going help and make a huge tikkun part of what we cannot begin to understand, even if one is not on this level. Of course! Is it as strong as one who does profound teshuvah? Of course not! One who goes for a kind of mini-vacation also receives a tikkun. Sadly it is only a tiny fraction of what he could have attained. Yes we have no understanding of the meaning and greatness of Uman. But it is not equivalent to "being saved" for the year chas v'shalom. I have met enough fools who say, "Don't need to learn or do much of anything this year; I went to Uman! Rebbe Nachman and Rav Nosson say so!" I know you don't mean this, but what you write plays right into this crazy philosophy. True Rav Nosson says to be happy the entire year that one merited Uman, no matter what. But that is not equivalent to taking a vacation from any toil in avodas Hashem and learning for a year b'zchus Uman chas v'shalom. Are you really saying that one doesn't need to work to deepen his experience of the tikkun in Uman? That other mitzvos he does,have no bearing on the tikkun he receives? Yes Rebbe Nachman said that for him a great person and a regular guy are both very much missing (another reason why a Rav who sends others has an argument.) He said they are the same to him, yet he also makes a distinction between a great neshamah and a lesser one. Perhaps they are the same since they are both devoted to him and both had their place in the tikkun but did not make it. Maybe if they would have been there Moshiach would have come. Who knows? Do you really think one who killed himself to connect--a tzaddik who worked hard-- and wastrel are the same in terms of this tikkun? Rav Berland, shlita, once said that one who yearns with his whole heart, but doesn't make is more part of the tikkun than one who didn't yearn and was there but not yearning. Perhaps the key to when people are the same in this tikkun is whether they yearn with their entire heart for Hashem and connect with their whole souls. For such people--chasidim of Rebbe Nachman of old-- maybe the tikkun is the same. But how many people who need to be pushed to go feel that way? You wrote: 'The yearning is to say what the Rebbe really means and strive for it, if we don’t get there we have to be mechazek but we don’t start off by saying that it is lav davka that the Rebbe wanted us there – I don’t feel this is the emerser emes."