Although both aspects of this practice seem to be very difficult to achieve, we must remember that we’re not alone. In fact, the greatest mistake that we can make is to think that we have to do everything by ourselves. Instead, we must believe in the awesome power of Moshe Rabbeinu and all the extraordinary tzaddikim who awaken Hashem’s compassion to look at our forgetfulness in a positive way. We must draw strength from the great tzaddikim who themselves have completely purified the aspect of forgetfulness and rely on their power to help us to use the good aspects of this incredibly powerful tool to let go of the past and come closer to Hashem.
This is why Reb Nosson reveals to us that Rebbe Nachman himself followed this practice with perfection: “And regarding Rebbe Nachman, his path was that everything that happened and occurred he would completely cut off (from his memory), and he wouldn’t go back over it in his mind at all. And he wouldn’t get confused by the past at all.”
With this, we understand that this advice is one of the amazing tools that Rebbe Nachman used to reach the highest levels of kedushah and deveikus to Hashem. The main reason that we struggle in life and we’re unable to go from level to level in avodas Hashem like the great tzaddikim is that we’re stuck in the past. We think that we can’t let go of our sins, which keeps us back from moving forward. Therefore, we have to forget about our mistakes and block them out of our minds. We have to attach ourselves to the tzaddikim to find the strength not to go over them in our thoughts whatsoever, except at the right time – as we do teshuvah in our hisbodedus.
Furthermore, in Chayei Mohoran (453), there is another sichah from Rebbe Nachman that is a perfect illustration of this practice: “Even though you see me as a perfect tzaddik, if I committed a great sin, G-d forbid, nevertheless, that sin wouldn’t throw me off or knock me down at all. Instead, I would be an upright Jew just like I was before. However, afterwards, I would do teshuvah.”
This is the incredibly profound path of forgetting about the past that Moshe Rabbeinu brought into the world in order to help every single one of us to return to Hashem and live a good life.
