2. If you believe that you can mess up, you must believe that you have the ability to fix.
This second expression has become quite well known but not many people realize its hidden depth. At first glance, this seems difficult to understand. There are many things that are very easy to destroy and extremely difficult to repair. In addition, why does Rebbe Nachman use the expression “believe?” What does emunah have to do with this apparently simple statement of fact?
The answer is that if after a person falls, he still feels like his actions cause damage and he believes that his sins have negative spiritual effects, this shows that he is connected to emunah and he’s still inside the realm of kedushah. In this situation, he can certainly turn everything around and become a truly kosher Jew even if he sees that much time has passed and he hasn’t made any progress.
On the other hand, a person can give up and forget completely about the honor Hashem gets from the Jewish people who keep the Torah. He can lose his emunah that a sin does harm in the higher worlds. But as long as a person hasn’t forgotten that there’s a Creator, and he still remembers that some things are permitted and others are prohibited, he will surely merit to fix his mistakes and become a truly kosher Jew.
In truth, some people feel broken after messing up because of their own arrogance: “How could I fail? When will I be successful?” In such cases, it is difficult to fix the situation, because doing teshuvah won’t change the fact that a person made a mistake to begin with.
However, if a person is broken because he believes strongly that his actions did harm in the spiritual realms, then he can easily strengthen himself to rectify everything through having emunah in the power of his teshuvah. The damage and the repair are things that happen Above, not things that we see in this world (see Likutei Halachos, Eruvei Tanchumin 5).
This is why the word “believe” is so essential in this lesson. If a person believes that his actions cause damage and this pains him, he must believe that he will surely fix everything in the merit of his emunah.
