The Secret of Submission: The Power of a Broken Heart and the Trait of Dust and Ashes

Lesson No. 14 | Friday, Parashas Bamidbar, 26 Iyar 5755 - At a Bris

A profound article on the virtue of submission and a broken heart in serving Hashem. Through the figure of Avraham Avinu and the spiritual attainments of Rebbe Nachman, it is explained how specifically the feeling of being "dust and ashes" and having self-compassion for lost time are the keys to spiritual growth and rectifying the world.

The Sfas Emes says that every person must know that what is said regarding a Sotah (a suspected adulteress) is actually said about him. He must accept all humiliations with love for the mistakes he makes. Through this, he will merit tremendous spiritual levels. Man was created in the world to rectify everything. Every person can, in the innermost chambers of his home, rectify the entire world without being called Mashiach, if only he knows that he is but dust and ashes. For man is the vessel through which the entire world is rectified, but this is conditional upon his humility.

The Danger of Arrogance After Spiritual Work

We pray the Shemoneh Esrei (the silent standing prayer) and recite its nineteen blessings. But what happens at the end of the prayer? If a person finishes the prayer puffed up with arrogance, to the point where he cannot even fit through the door, then his damage outweighs his benefit. A person might wake up for Vatikin (sunrise prayer), stay awake all night, and instead of reaching submission, he enters a world of illusion and imagines himself to be who-knows-what.

All spiritual work is merely a preparation for one sentence at the end of the prayer:

"Let my soul be as dust to all."

How can you say this if you stayed awake all Friday night, yet you ate ten plates of cholent and ten meatballs? Now you are given an entire night to do teshuvah (repentance) for the holy Shabbos, for the blemishes of the eyes, the blemishes of the Bris (covenant), and the lust for eating, so that on Sunday morning you can truly say, "Let my soul be as dust to all."

Only on Dust Can Fruits Grow

Everything comes from the dust and everything returns to the dust. Hashem brings everything from the dust and returns it there. Therefore, man is required to be like dust. When is the true advantage of man revealed? When he makes himself like dust and ashes.

One who is like dust produces fruit. You cannot plant anything on a wooden board or on iron; you can only plant in dust. A person who wants to have a heart of flesh and succeed in producing fruits and wonderful things must first and foremost become like dust.

Avraham Avinu merited to be dust and ashes, and he passed this trait on to the Children of Israel. Hashem promised him:

"And I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth."

The blessing is that his children will be like him—ready to suffer all humiliations and insults with love and joy. To be among those who are insulted but do not insult, who hear their disgrace and do not reply, and who rejoice in afflictions. This is the primary offspring of the tzaddikim: to birth children who will be like dust and ashes.

The Broken Heart of the True Tzaddik

A baal teshuvah (returnee to Judaism) has an advantage, because he truly has something to be ashamed of. A regular person who is late for prayer or misses counting the Omer is not always ashamed, because he sees that everyone else is like that too. But the baal teshuvah knows his past, and therefore he merits to be like dust and ashes, just like Avraham Avinu.

However, the true tzaddik is the ultimate baal teshuvah, who is ashamed every single second. Reb Noson says that even a person who transgressed the entire Torah thousands of times, and is now broken and crying over a life wasted in vain on nonsense—his broken heart will not reach one-thousandth or one-ten-thousandth of the broken heart of Rebbe Nachman.

Rebbe Nachman would feel every day that everything he had learned and accomplished was absolute zero. He merited the highest spiritual levels, holiness, fasts, mortifications, and the tremendous attainments of the greatest elevated souls. Yet, the more he yearned and longed for Hashem, the more it seemed in his eyes as if he had not even begun any spiritual work in the world.

True Self-Compassion

True Hisbodedus (personal prayer) is when you believe that you have never yet done Hisbodedus. Rebbe Nachman would yearn and cry out, "When will I merit to be a Jew?" He was truly lowly in his own eyes, and full of compassion for himself.

When a person suddenly sees a Jew with a beard and peyos (sidelocks) on the street, he begins to feel pity for himself: "What about our lives? We are just wasting them chasing more money, and life is ending. Here is a person who at least learns Torah and prays."

This is how a person needs to have compassion on himself: "What is happening with me? I don't open a book, I don't learn anything." Rebbe Nachman would sit every day and have pity on himself: "How did my day pass? What a shame and disgrace, I haven't even smelled the scent of serving Hashem." When a person truly has compassion on himself, he has compassion on the entire world and rectifies it.

Crying Over What We Have Lost

People walk around with arrogance: "I am a tzaddik, I was in Uman." But in Heaven, they will make a mockery of this. Do you fulfill even one line from Sichos HaRan (Rabbi Nachman's Wisdom)? One line from Likutey Eitzos (Advice)? Everyone does the exact opposite. There is no submission, no broken heart, no compassion over how the day and night have passed.

The spiritual work is not to fall into sadness, but rather to be filled with compassion and yearning, in the aspect of:

"I rejoice over Your word, like one who finds abundant spoils."

They tell a story of a beggar who, on a day of heavy snow, decided to go to the Kosel (Western Wall) anyway. When he arrived, he saw a woman dropping five thousand dollars into the charity boxes. He managed to receive two thousand dollars from her. Instead of rejoicing, he cried and grieved over the three thousand he had lost because he was ten minutes late.

This is the meaning of "like one who finds abundant spoils." When a person gathers spiritual diamonds, he does not settle for a little. He brings a truck to collect a million sacks, and he cries over every single sack he misses out on.

Part 3 of 3 — Lesson No. 14

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