The opening line of this sichah, “A person needs to strengthen himself in emunah,” seems to be a simple statement about the importance of emunah. However, when we truly contemplate these words, we can draw from them an amazing piece of advice. Every religious Jew has emunah in Hashem and the Torah. This emunah is the foundation of avodas Hashem. Nonetheless, very often, our emunah falls asleep. In other words, we don’t think about emunah and we don’t apply it to our lives.
We have trained ourselves to get out of bed, go to shul, daven, learn Torah, say brachos, and so on, based on our fundamental belief in Hashem. But we do these things by rote, without actively contemplating the Creator that we serve and His relationship with us. Therefore, Rebbe Nachman tells each one of us to strengthen our emunah every day. When we go outside in the morning, we should look at the world around us and remind ourselves that every single thing that we see is a wonder of Hashem. We should gaze at the sky and awaken our hearts to think about the great acts of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
In addition, each day, we should renew our emunah in how much Hashem treasures our Torah and mitzvos. With every brachah and tefillah that we say, we should strengthen ourselves to apply the simple emunah that is already ingrained in our souls. We should think, “Hashem is watching every little thing that I do with incredible love and appreciation. With each good deed that I perform I give Him unbelievable nachas!”
Just like we wouldn’t forget to start the day without drinking coffee, so too, we shouldn’t forget to have a steaming-hot cup of fresh emunah in Hashem! Today is a completely new day that Hashem created just for us to serve Him.
This practice completely changes our lives and our avodas Hashem. It gives us motivation to do mitzvos with joy and it inspires us to daven and learn Torah with chiyus. This is the first piece of advice that Rebbe Nachman teaches us in this sichah.
