When a person is distant, you must speak with him in the language he can understand. You can’t speak with him philosophically, because he is not there. He may fool himself, and others, that he is there.... He may pose questions and challenges as though he is just trying to understand things, but we know the truth—and this is a rule that doesn’t have an exception: When people ask questions in Yiddishkeit, they’re heavily immersed in ta’avos. How often do we see people who say, “No, no... it has nothing to do with ta’avah, I have sincere questions.” But this is because the klipah whose spell they’re under allows them to lie bold-facedly... but after some of the layers fall away, they’re able to admit that they were fully immersed in ta’avah.
Such a person cannot be spoken to intellectually, because he doesn’t have the vessels for it. When we attempt to give seichel to a person, it may have the power to bring him pleasure and to uplift him—but only if he has already begun to ascend the ladder, and he therefore understands what you are saying to him. If so, then the seichel can bring him light. When a person is in a lower state, we can speak words from a deeply emotional state that will ignite his soul... but these words, too, must be built on something; that is, the prior readiness of the listener.
But the language of ahavah is a language that can be spoken even to a person in an extremely low state. We see this clearly; when a person is in a low state—whether in ruchanyus, in gashmiyus, or even both—and we give him deep love, from a pure place, simply because he is a Yid... not looking at anything else, we can overtake the person to the point of tears. Why? Because, through our love and connection, we have brought him the light of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And this is precisely what he was missing.
