Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was born on 1 Nisan 5532 (April 4, 1772) in Medzhybizh, Podolia (today in Ukraine). His mother, Feiga, was the daughter of Adel, daughter of the Baal Shem Tov; his father, Simcha, was the son of Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka, a close disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, after whom the child was named.

He had no principal teacher and studied mostly on his own, in the atmosphere created by the great Chassidic masters who came to pray at the Baal Shem Tov's grave in Medzhybizh; his uncles, Rabbi Ephraim of Sudilkov and Rabbi Baruch of Medzhybizh, strongly influenced him. From his youth he devoted himself to hitbodedut, fasting and long prayer. Married at thirteen, he moved around 5550 (1790) to Medvedivka, where a circle of Chassidim gathered around him.

In 5558 (1798) he travelled to the Land of Israel. Reaching Haifa on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5559, he spent about six months in Tiberias, visited Safed and Meron, and returned home amid Napoleon's campaign. The journey was a turning point in his teaching; he would say, "Wherever I go, I am going to the Land of Israel." After a stormy period in Zlatopol, he settled in Breslov in 1802, where Rabbi Nathan Sternhartz of Nemirov joined him, became his right hand and recorded his teachings.

His teaching stresses prayer, hitbodedut, simple faith, yearning for God, and above all joy and the rejection of despair: "It is a great mitzvah to always be happy" and "There is no despair in the world at all." His path aroused fierce opposition in his lifetime. Works: Likutey Moharan, whose first part appeared in his lifetime in 5568 (1808), Sefer HaMiddot, and the Sippurei Maasiyot, published after his death by Rabbi Nathan; he also instituted the recitation of the Tikkun HaKlali, ten selected Psalms.

Suffering from tuberculosis, he moved to Uman in the spring of 5570 (1810), after a fire destroyed his home in Breslov. He passed away there on 18 Tishrei 5571 (October 16, 1810), aged thirty-eight, and was buried in the town's old cemetery. Before his death he promised, before two disciples as witnesses, that whoever came to his grave, gave a coin to charity and recited the ten Psalms of the Tikkun HaKlali, he would strive to help. Each Rosh Hashanah, more than sixty thousand people now gather at his grave.