But then, read from another direction, his texts read like the ramblings of a medieval madman who believed he was the reincarnation of Moses, who lay sobbing, banging on the tomb of his great-grandfather in Medzhybizh, the holiest tzaddik of all, the Baal Shem Tov, demanding he reveal himself and all the secrets.    

It doesn't even matter who the Rabbi really was. What matters is that in the hours before he stopped breathing, he shouted in the presence of two witnesses that if when the Moon says it is Jewish New Year, a man should come to his grave in Uman and repent, he, Nachman, would pull him out of Hell by his sidelocks.   

What matters is that Hasidic Jews never stopped coming on that day to Uman. Hasids are the mystical Amish of Judaism. They go to extreme lengths to live the Torah's 613 commandments. Hasids still follow dynasties founded by charismatic Eastern European rabbis whose descendants guard specific traditions. Nachman's Hasids are different. They have no dynasty. Their tradition is coming to Uman.

Lenin sealed the city to foreigners in 1917; Hasids smuggled themselves in. The NKVD political police banned them; Hasids refused to listen. NKVD commissars were not used to being ignored. So in 1934 its agents laid a trap. They granted Hasids 34 visas. They killed half of them on the spot; the rest were deported to Siberia.

But Stalin could not stop them. Hasids kept smuggling themselves into Uman. Then Hitler invaded in 1941. The 20,000  Jews of Uman were drowned in the lake under the Rabbi's tomb. This did not stop the Hasids. Rabbis crept in incognito. Soviet refusenik Jews systematically aided the secret pilgrims coming every year. Gorbachev reopened Uman in 1988. 

Uman is a Hasidic magnet. When Ukraine first reopened, 250 made the pilgrimage to the Rebbe's tomb. By the late 1990s, more than 5,000 were making the trip. Now almost 30,000 pilgrims come every New Year. Since Ukrainian independence 400,000 single pilgrimages to Uman have taken place. This has made Nachman's tomb Europe's largest — and only — Jewish mass pilgrimage. I had to see it for myself.