What is Hitbodedut?

What is called Hitbodedut?

From the words of the Gaon HaTzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

The Rebbe explains in Torah 72, "The well was dug by the princes" (Bamidbar 21:18)—this is the shame that a person must walk with all day long, so that "His fear may be upon your faces, that you sin not" (Shemot 20:17). This is the shame; all the time, Hitbodedut is to bring about this shame, to feel this shame. A person prays to be a tzaddik, to have parnassah (livelihood), to have children, to have an apartment—all of this Hitbodedut is already called requests; it is not Hitbodedut! Hitbodedut is when a person becomes filled with shame before Hashem and cannot lift his head out of great shame; only this is called Hitbodedut. And if not, then it leads to anger! The Rebbe said that improper Hitbodedut leads to anger! Because a person needs to ask for everything—for an apartment, for a shoelace—so that is called requests, it is not Hitbodedut. Hitbodedut is only to come to a state of tremendous shame, to the point that the Rebbe said, "I would change colors from the intensity of the shame." A person needs to change colors from the intensity of shame... If a person wants to perform Hitbodedut, he needs to sit in some corner with settled mind and truly repent for all the evil thoughts and all the evil deeds... Because as long as a person lives until the age of 120, he has evil thoughts; this comes from the breaking of the vessels. He must fight with this every day until the age of 120, and the whole battle is only to push it away, not to sink into it, not to let the thoughts drag him along. The thought must come, but one must immediately throw it away with all one's might! Except for our Rebbe, who already merited at age four to be pure from all evil thoughts because of how much he cried to Hashem, and this is the aspect of shame, as it is written, "The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed" (Yeshayahu 24:23). So, all of Hitbodedut is to reach shame, to reach shame... "The well was dug by the princes"—the princes, the tzaddikim, draw down shame upon us. The entire work of the tzaddikim is to draw down shame upon us. "The princes dug it, the nobles of the people delved it"—so through the tzaddikim, one merits the "moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed," that even the sun, even the tzaddikim who are in the aspect of the sun, they also feel shame before Hashem... So the princes are the princes of thousands, the princes of hundreds, the tzaddikim who draw down the shame upon us. A person needs to find such a tzaddik upon whom he can draw down the shame, and then he will be able to revive the dead. If a person has this shame of the tzaddik, he will be able to revive the dead! So, "by the lawgiver" (b'mechokek), one only needs to reveal the humility. The Rebbe explains that everyone has humility; a Jew is born with humility. So a person needs to reach the humility of Moshe, that is "by the lawgiver with their staves" (b'mechokek b'mish'anotam). One must reach the humility of Moshe, to the humility of Moshe that is engraved in every limb and every limb, in all 248 limbs and 365 sinews, the humility of Moshe is engraved and clothed in every single limb! A person is born with humility; it is in our genes. A Jew, the moment he is born, already receives the humility in his genes; he receives the humility from his parents, from his grandparents, and a yearning for Torah, a yearning to serve Hashem. His yearning is only for Hashem, and the main thing is the humility of Moshe in every limb, and then he will be able to revive the dead. If a person has the humility of Moshe, our Rebbe says a person can reach such a level that he can revive the dead, and this can happen to each and every one, every single Jew...