“Make a skylight for the ark and make it slanted, so that it is one cubit on top; place an opening in its side, and make a bottom, a second, and third [floor]” (Breishis 6:16)
“Make a skylight for the ark” – that is to say, you should speak words of truth which illuminate… The main intention is that when one is stuck in the most overwhelming darkness and husks, and he is imprisoned and closed up amidst the darkness and despair which surrounds and envelops him from every side in several layers, G-d help us, and he doesn’t have any opening, solution, or strategy to escape the darkness – then his main advice is to draw himself to the truth and to focus on the absolute truth and request only the absolute truth (Likutey Moharan 112).
A person needs to know first of all that the foundation of the Rebbe is truth. Everything that the Rebbe wants is the point of truth – not politics, not evil speech. Baruch Hashem, a person eats, drinks and is happy – until 120 years, but where does he get to with the eating and drinking? Where does he get to? A person is found in the bottom pit of hell. Like this he’ll come to the Next World? “One who says that G-d concedes will have his innards unraveled.” Therefore, one needs to scream to Hashem in truth! Begin to be a man of truth! That every word should come out in truth. A person needs to get out of his slumber. If he sees that his mind is clogged and he can’t learn, what should a person do? He goes to sleep. His mind is clogged?
Go to the field! Scream to Hashem! Until He opens up your mind for you. “From the straits I called to G-d.” “From the depths, I called to you Hashem.” Because every person is found in the midst of straits, and through screaming in truth, one draws down the counsel to escape from the bottom pit of hell, from the darkness. Because one needs to know that the counsel for getting out of the darkness, in an aspect of “deep waters are in a man’s heart” (the waters are the counsel which are revealed through screaming from the heart).
There are deep waters, a flowing stream, a source of wisdom. The counsel of Rabbeinu is the flowing stream, flowing springs. Give a scream – one scream from the depths! Dig a little to the depths! Then geysers of water will come out, rivers of water. The advice for escaping the darkness will be revealed to you.
The Rebbe said: Also for me it was hard to pray. Also for me it was hard to learn, but I cried and screamed to Hashem. A person can easily learn math, physics, but Gemara is hard for him to learn. A person’s brain is a physical brain. This is an animal’s brain, a gentile’s brain. Like a gentile can learn math, etc., also he [the Jew] can learn. But a spiritual thing is hard to learn. Gemara is a spiritual thing. Through learning Gemara, we merit to turn the physical into the spiritual. Therefore, if a person sees that he can’t learn, then about this itself he should pray, about this itself he should scream. Scream to Hashem in truth from the depths of the heart — true screams from the depths of the heart, and we need to scream all the time to Hashem. When a person is found in public, then scream quietly from the depths of the heart.
A person is found in an abyss, amidst terrible lusts, and if he screams to escape from these things, then the point of truth will be revealed to him. This is what’s written, “Please Hashem, save now, please Hashem, bring success now.” One needs to scream to escape the lusts.
Such is life — a person has great debts. He needs to cover the check, to look for a loan. Then he screams to Hashem, “Save now!” And when he is saved… now what does he scream for?! However, now the main scream and prayer is to escape from the lusts, from blemishes of the covenant, and from forbidden sights, because every day a person’s urge is renewed for him and desires to kill him. The entire war is with the evil urge. If a person decides to conquer his evil urge, to escape all the blemishes, then there will be such light in the world that all the Jewish people will return in repentance. This is a war of 24 hours, every moment and second – there’s no second of rest. There’s no second that the evil urge abandons a person, as Rabbi Akiva Eiger zt”l says in his letter, in his will: “The evil urge is interwoven in all your 248 organs and 365 sinews.” There’s no inch in the hair, the sinews, the arteries where there isn’t the evil urge there. All your blood is the evil urge. The turbid bloods lead a person astray to evil things, and only through screaming are they cleansed. Only through learning Torah in depth are they cleansed, through prayer with strength they are cleansed.
Through truth, we create the world, create a new world. Every moment is a point of truth. Even when a person is found in the bottom pit of hell and below, and from there he screams a true scream to Hashem, the essence of the scream from there to Hashem: “Save me from these terrible lusts!” – this itself shows that he is found in the truth.
Every person is a root of all the souls – he is a root to 600,000 souls, a root to all the souls in the world, and the moment that a person screams in truth “Please Hashem, save now,” then he escapes his bottom pit of hell; then he raises up with him 1000’s of other people, and the entire world.
From the Tzama Nafshi newsletter
