Rebbe Nachman continues: “For, in truth, holy wisdom is above emunah, but nonetheless, we shouldn’t go through life with analytical thoughts and questions – only with emunah, since emunah is something that is very strong. And then, when a person goes through life just with emunah – without any questions and analytical thoughts – he merits to come to an aspect of yearning that is even higher than wisdom.”
The “holy wisdom” that Rebbe Nachman refers to is the teachings of penimiyus haTorah – the sefarim of Kabbalah and chassidus – which reveal the living G-dliness that is in all aspects of Creation. This wisdom parallels the sefirah of Chochmah. When we learn these sefarim, it is important to contemplate their teachings – an aspect of the sefirah of Binah – in order to come to a clear understanding – an aspect of the sefirah of Daas. Then, we should apply what we learned to all of our middos, which relate to the six sefiros of Zeir Anpin: Chessed – love of Hashem, Gevurah – fear of Hashem, Tiferes – holy splendor, Netzach – defeating the yetzer hara, Hod – the beauty of the Torah, and Yesod – attachment to kedushah. Finally, we should bring down all of this light into our fulfillment of the Torah, which is an aspect of Malchus. This avodah should be done with simplicity – without any questions and doubts.
However, what do we do when our minds are distracted or confused, and we’re unable to think about all of these deep concepts? This avodah works when we have mochin d’gadlus, but what about when we fall into mochin d’katnus? The answer is that at such times we must attach ourselves to simple emunah. When we can’t think deeply about the teachings of the tzaddikim and we can’t awaken any feelings of kedushah, we should strengthen our emunah in the truth of the reality of these sefiros. Certainly, whether we experience them or not, there are higher spiritual worlds that exist, and everything that we do has a tremendous effect on these worlds. This is an avodah that we can do all the time. This is an amazing tikkun for our mochin d’katnus that heals our minds.
