Parshat Noach: "Through Words of Truth, One Escapes the Evil Inclination"

"Make a window for the ark"

"Make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side; with lower, second, and third stories shall you make it" (Genesis 6:16).

"Make a window for the ark" – this means that you should speak words of truth that illuminate... The main intention is that when a person is submerged in the ultimate intensification of darkness and the *kelipah* (shell), and is imprisoned and enclosed within the darkness and gloom that surrounds and encompasses him on all sides with many layers, *rachmana litzlan* (Heaven forbid), and he has no opening, remedy, or strategy to emerge from the darkness, then his primary counsel is to draw himself toward the truth, to look at the absolute truth, and to seek only the true truth" (Likutey Moharan 112).

A person must know that the first foundation of the Rebbe is truth. Everything the Rebbe wants is a point of truth—no politics, no *lashon hara*. Thank Hashem, a person eats, drinks, and is happy, living until 120 years, but where will he arrive with his eating and drinking? Where will he get to? A person is in the lowest depths of *Sheol*; is this how he will come to the World to Come? "He who says that Hashem is lenient, his innards will be loosened." Therefore, one must cry out to Hashem in truth! Start being a person of truth! Let every word come out in truth.

A person needs to wake up from his sleep. If he sees that his mind is blocked and he cannot study, what does he do? He goes to sleep. Is your mind blocked? Go to the field! Cry out to Him! Until your mind is opened, as it is written: "Out of the straits I called to Hashem," "From the depths I called to You, Hashem." Because every person is found within the straits, and through a cry in truth, one draws down the counsels to emerge from the lowest depths of *Sheol*, from the darkness.

For one must know the counsels in order to emerge from the darkness, which is the concept of "deep waters in the heart of man" (water represents the counsels that are revealed through the cry from the heart). There are deep waters, a "rushing stream, a source of wisdom." The counsels of our Rebbe are a rushing stream, flowing springs. Give a cry, one cry from the depths! Dig a little deeper! Then geysers of water will erupt, rivers of water, and the counsels to emerge from the darkness will be revealed to you.

The Rebbe said: "It was also hard for me to pray, it was also hard for me to study, but I wept and cried out to Hashem." A person can easily study mathematics or physics, but it is hard for him to study Gemara. A person's mind is a physical mind; it is the mind of an animal, the mind of a gentile. Just as a gentile can study mathematics, etc., so too can he, but it is hard to study a spiritual matter. Gemara is a spiritual matter. Through studying Gemara, one merits to transform physicality into spirituality. Therefore, if a person sees that he cannot study, he should pray about that very thing, he should cry out about that very thing. He should cry out to Hashem in truth from the depths of his heart—true cries from the depths of the heart. And one must constantly cry out to Hashem, and when a person is in public, he should cry quietly, he should cry from the depths of his heart.

A person is in an abyss, in the midst of terrible desires, and if he cries out to emerge from these things, then a point of truth will be revealed to him. This is what is written: "Please, Hashem, save now," "Please, Hashem, grant success now," meaning one must cry out to emerge from the desires.

If a person owes large debts and needs to cover a check, he looks for a loan, so he cries out to Hashem, "Save now!" And when he is saved... now, what will he cry out for?!

Rather, now the main cry and prayer is to emerge from the desires, from the blemishes of the covenant, and from forbidden sights, because every day a person's *yetzer hara* (evil inclination) renews itself against him and seeks to kill him. The entire war is with the *yetzer hara*. If a person decides to defeat his *yetzer hara* and emerge from all the blemishes, then there will be such light in the world that all of the people of Israel will return in *teshuvah*. This is a 24-hour war; every second and moment, there is not a second of rest. There is not a second that the *yetzer hara* leaves a person, as Rabbi Akiva Eiger *zt"l* says in his letter, in his will: "The *yetzer hara* is woven into all 248 of your limbs and 365 of your sinews." There is no corner in the hair, in the sinews, in the arteries where the *yetzer hara* is not present. All your blood is *yetzer hara*; the turbid blood incites a person to bad things, and only with cries are they cleansed, only with deep study of Torah are they cleansed, with powerful prayer are they cleansed.

Through truth, one creates the world, one creates a new world. Every moment is a point of truth. Even when a person is in the lowest depths of *Sheol* and below it, and from there he cries a true cry to Hashem: "Take me out of the terrible desires!"—this itself shows that he is in the truth.

Every person is a root for all souls; he is a root for 600,000 souls, a root for all the souls in the world. And the moment a person cries out in truth, "Please, Hashem, save now," then he will emerge from his lowest depths of *Sheol*, and then he will elevate with him thousands of people, and the entire world as well.

'My soul thirsts'