The Secret of the Beating Heart: How Our Inner Work Revives the Entire Jewish People
Lesson No. 69 | Motzaei Yom Tov (the night following the festival) of the First Day of Sukkot, 15 Tishrei 5756 – A Lesson for the Yeshiva Students
The entire Jewish people are a single body, in which the believers serve as the heart and those who are spiritually distant are the extremities. When we serve Hashem with heartfelt intention and true humility, we channel a spiritual vitality that revives even those who are furthest away. Through the story of how Reb Noson drew close to Rebbe Nachman, we discover how a sense of lowliness and self-nullification is the ultimate key to saving souls.
Children growing up in a secular kibbutz, even at the tender age of seven, can suddenly cry out: "Hashem is in the world! Why are you feeding us nonsense? Aren't you ashamed? Hashem is the One who gives us life!" Where does this sudden realization come from? Rebbe Nachman teaches that when a person serves Hashem and prays with deep concentration, he actively nullifies the false beliefs that exist in the world. Through pure heartfelt intention, a person rectifies the hearts of the "philosophers" and the heretics, transforming their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
However, for this to happen, you must first create a beating heart within yourself. Too often, we approach our service of Hashem heartlessly. We must begin to pray and serve with genuine intention. Once a true heart is formed within us, a heart is automatically awakened within all the hearts of the Jewish people.
The Central Vitality of the Jewish People
The entire Jewish people are a single unit, a single spiritual stature, and a single body. Within this body, there are internal vital organs, and there are also those who represent the hair, the nails, or the skin at the very extremities. Suddenly, a wart appears, the skin begins to peel, hair falls out, or nails become damaged. Why does this happen? It is because the central life-force is slowly weakening.
The heretics are the spiritual equivalent of these bodily extremities—the nails and the hair—which slowly harden and fall away. Their detachment is a direct sign that the vitality at the center of the body has diminished. Those who truly know Hashem are the center of the body; they are the heart. If we possessed a truly living, beating heart, there would not be a single heretic left in the world.
Everyone has a heart, but for some, it has somehow been silenced and desperately needs to be revived. When we direct our own hearts with absolute sincerity, we bring about the creation of a new heart for them as well. Their hearts will begin to pulse with life; they will see for themselves that Hashem is present in the world, and they will cry this out from the very depths of their souls.
The Secret of the "Waste" and True Humility
The sefer "Kochavei Or" explains that one of the primary reasons Rebbe Nachman drew Reb Noson so close was because Reb Noson genuinely viewed himself as the worst person in the world.
"This is exactly what Reb Noson explains in Likutey Halachos (Hilchos Sukkah, Halacha 4), regarding the mystical secret of the pesoles (the agricultural waste used for the Sukkah roof). He declares: 'I am the waste.' When a person recognizes that he is nothing but waste and that there is no one worse than him, only then can he truly achieve the salvation of souls."
To encourage him, Rebbe Nachman pointed out a heretic who had come to him and sworn severe false oaths. Rebbe Nachman told Reb Noson: "Look, there are heretics here who are far worse than you. They have already sworn the terrible things they swore, whereas you have never sworn such oaths." Through this, Reb Noson began to realize that a Divine spark still remained within him.
From this, we learn the profound secret of self-nullification and humility. When someone speaks against you, you must feel: "I do not even exist, so what does it mean that they are talking about me? Who are they talking about? I am nothing. I was never born, and I have never died. After all, it has already been said about me that even after my passing, I have not even begun."
Part 3 of 3 — Lesson No. 69