It is so important to guard your memory. Do not fall into forgetfulness, which is the death of the heart.
And the main type of remembering is to constantly remember the world-to-come. Don’t think, heaven forbid, that all there is is one world….
Likutei Moharan I 54
With the mitzvah of the Hannukah flame, we draw onto ourselves a holy state of consciousness, which is the olive oil, the awareness: we are constantly aware of the world of spirituality—in general and [even] in detail.
Kitzur Likutei Moharan 54:16 (from V’hilchata k’nachmani)
A person has to pray to God, clinging to Him intensely.
But if sometimes you cannot pray with such cleaving to God, don’t say that because you can’t concentrate properly and cling to God in your prayer, and your prayer will not be accepted, that you won’t pray at all.
R. Chaninah ben Dosa said that “when my prayer rolls smoothly in my mouth, I know that it has been accepted…” (Berachot 34b). [At other times, his prayer wasn’t smooth in his mouth—but he prayed at those times too.]
If you pray and cling to God, then your prayer is smooth in your mouth and it is accepted. If not, heaven forbid, the opposite holds true.
Still, don’t let that discourage you. Instead, always pray.
And if you cannot pray and cling to God properly, pray with all your might.
And when you pray and cling to God properly, then you will lift up all of your other prayers as well.
“I pleaded with Hashem at that time, saying” (Deuteronomy
“I pleaded with Hashem”—constantly, whether clinging to Him or not.
“At that time, saying.” When a person can pray and cling to God, when his prayer rolls smoothly in his mouth, when he is saying them easily because he is praying and cleaving to God, then all of his prayers rise to God.
Likutei Moharan 99
The Torah is received principally through our mindfulness.
Our mindfulness is Moses. It is the messiah. It is “the wise man [who] has gone up with the city of mighty men” (Proverbs
The revelation of the Torah comes from the union of [the two expressions of the Infinite One called] the Holy One, blessed be He, and the In-Dwelling. “Listen, my son, to the rebuke of your father, and do not reject the Torah of your mother” (Proverbs 1:88). “Your father” refers to the Holy One, blessed be He. “Your mother” refers to the Congregation of Israel [which is the In-Dwelling] (Zohar Yisro 85, Pinchas 213).
They are united when the spirits of
And the wise man can take the souls and lift them, like water rising. “He who takes souls is a wise man” (Proverbs
From this union, the Torah is born.
When the wise man rises with the souls, “with the city of strong man rises the wise man,” then “He brings down the strength of its security.”
Likutei Moharan 13
But do not make this into a test, for then you might see nothing at all.
Likutei Moharan 281
Looking at something creates a container—the container of space and time.
Before you look at something, it is indeterminate. But when you look at it, it gains definition….
And that is the meaning of “trust.” “Trust” is a type of looking: you look to and hope in God alone, and you trust in Him…
And when you look toward Him with trust, you create a container—the container of space and time. God’s energy flows down from above without cease, but it is outside the realm of time. So it could be that you need something now, but it will only come into the world in two or three years.
But when you look [toward God] with trust, you create a container of space and time for that energy, so that it will come when [and where] you need it. “The eyes of all look towards You”—and as a result, “You give them their food in its time” (Psalms 145:15).
from Likutei Moharan 76
In a number of places, the Talmud tells of a case in which someone did something wrong, and a holy man “placed his eyes upon him and he turned into a heap of bones” (Berachot 58, Shabbat 34, Bava Batra 75, Sanhedrin 100).
What does this mean?
The answer is that when a person does something wrong he doesn’t see how far the damage reaches.
But the tzaddik, the holy person, does see, because he has the “eyes of Hashem.” We see this from the verse, “Hashem’s eyes [look] toward the righteous” (Psalms 34:17), which can be translated homiletically as “Hashem [gives His] eyes to the tzaddikim.” And so the tzaddikim possesses the eyes of Hashem.
And we learn from a verse that “the eyes of Hashem travel across the entire world” (Zechariah
Thus the tzaddik sees how far the damage of a sin reaches.
And so this is what the Talmud is saying. The tzaddik “placed his eyes upon him.” He gave his own eyes to the other person so that he would be able to see with the eyes of the tzaddikim.
“And he turned into a heap of bones.” The word for heap—gal—is also related to the word meaning “be revealed.” And “bones” is related to the word meaning to squeeze tightly—particularly, to squeeze one’s eyes shut tightly, as in the verse, “and shuts his eyes from seeing evil” (Isaiah 33:15).
So the phrase can now be rendered, “The tzaddik gives the man who committed a sin his own eyes of a tzaddik so that his closely shut eyes can now see.” Now he sees the damage that he caused, which had been hidden from him before.
And there is no great punishment than seeing the damage than one has oneself caused.
Likutei Moharan 98.
