Parshat Tzav by the holy Gaon and Tzaddik, Rabbi Berland shlit"a

How does one merit to maintain constant enthusiasm in the service of Hashem (God)? Parshat Tzav by the holy Gaon and Tzaddik, Rabbi Berland shlit"a.

"A constant fire shall burn upon the Altar; it shall not go out" (Leviticus 6:6).

The soul comes from the upper realms; the soul descended to this world in order to withstand trials. "The soul You have given me is pure..." The soul is higher than the angels; it was created before the angels. In the future to come, everyone will have dominion over the angels. The angels cannot ascend from level to level; rather, as Hashem created them at the beginning of creation, so they remain for all eternity. But for a person to ascend from level to level, he must take all the desires that burn within him and transform them into flames of fire—"A constant fire shall burn upon the Altar; it shall not go out"—into flames of fire for Hashem, may He be blessed. It was for this purpose that the soul was created, and therefore it is greater than the angels.

Rebbe Nachman says in Torah 158 (of Likutey Moharan): "Many people have told of how they sometimes saw a fire burning from a distance, but when they drew near, there was nothing there... Similarly, there are many people whose hearts sometimes burn for Hashem, may He be blessed, and they begin their service of Hashem, but after an hour it is nullified and they return to their previous state..." A person has enthusiasm, he has fire, but afterwards the enthusiasm fades. Why did my enthusiasm fly away? Why did my enthusiasm melt away? Why did it evaporate? I came with such simplicity and enthusiasm, with such warmth and a blazing fire for Hashem, and suddenly it disappeared, it was taken from me—and I didn't sin, I didn't err, I didn't transgress!

Rebbe Nachman says that this is because it was nothing! It was imagination (dimyon); it isn't called enthusiasm at all! It is a good thing, a "good point" that there is enthusiasm, but nothing more than that. If a person wants to reach true enthusiasm, warmth of the heart in prayer, and warmth of the heart in study, this is very, very deep work! Any enthusiasm a person has [without this] is just a fleeting thing (urva parach). It is good that a person is enthusiastic; it is better than being a log of wood or a piece of stone, but it won't help him at all until he receives internal enthusiasm—enthusiasm with Da'as (knowledge/wisdom), enthusiasm with depth, with deep intellect.

A person must know that he needs to reach deep internal enthusiasm so that it will be "a constant fire shall burn upon the Altar; it shall not go out"—a constant fire that never ceases. A person thinks that because he has enthusiasm, that's it—he'll already be like Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) within a day, he'll see Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet)... But if he knew that the enthusiasm would slowly fade and fly away, then he would begin to go deeper. This is what Rebbe Nachman says: that sometimes a person's heart burns for Hashem, may He be blessed, and he begins the service of Hashem, enthusiastic, happy, and dancing. Truly, there is reason to dance, there is reason to be happy, there is reason to dance for 120 years without ceasing. A person has returned in Teshuvah (repentance), he came from here or there, he left all the "idols" (foreign influences)... Thank Hashem, this is certainly a joy—"I rejoice over Your word like one who finds great spoil"—but how much can one dance? A day or two? If it is not a constant fire, if it is not an internal fire, if he doesn't work on his Middos (character traits) in depth and study Gemara (Talmud) in depth, if he doesn't work on "and you shall take it to your heart," then nothing will help him. He isn't making a "hole" in his heart; he isn't making a place for the fire so that the fire can take hold of him, so that he will have a constant fire.

A person is burning—but why are you burning? Is it a true burning? Is it a true burning from the depths of the heart? After all, this is a burning for a moment; you currently have "boiling blood," stormy blood, so you burn for Hashem. Soon the blood will quiet down, the burning will end, and that's it. One person burns for a month, another for a year, but after that... it's over.

Rebbe Nachman says in Torah 21 that the flame of the heart should "rise on its own." How does one reach this flame of the heart? What ignites the heart? What lights up the heart? Only the Sechel (intellect) lights up the heart. What moves the heart is the movement of the intellect. When a person thinks and understands the Gemara deeply, then the intellect moves and gives birth to heat in the heart. If a person wants to have the intellect so that the flame rises on its own, so that he has fire in his heart and a true burning, the first thing he must do is see to it with all his strength to begin studying Torah. He must know that what Rebbe Nachman wants from us is only the Sechel (intellect), because only the intellect will purify the heart; only the intellect can bring us enthusiasm of the heart and bring purity to the heart!

If there is no intellect, if there is no study with Iyun (depth/analysis), then a person is enthusiastic for a day or two, and after that, he can fall into such "falls" (spiritual descents) that he won't know where they came from. Therefore, everything that comes to a person without Torah study—all these things, all these enthusiasms—they immediately disappear. Only when a person studies Torah and truly goes deep will he merit true enthusiasm and merit that "a constant fire shall burn upon the Altar; it shall not go out."