Rebbe Nachman compares this practice to a group of blind people who follow and believe in someone who can see. Sometimes, we can’t remember the illumination we experienced in the past, so we should follow the light of others, such as tzaddikim or good friends who shine the radiance of truth into our hearts.
Rebbe Nachman also relates this idea to a blind person who follows his own staff. This comparison can give us incredible strength to withstand life’s tests. As we know, when we’re faced with a challenge, we often lose our daas. Thus, at such times, we must be like a blind person who trusts in his staff, which represents the power to beat down the yetzer hara by remembering that in the past we understood the foolishness of the yetzer hara very clearly. Although we may be currently blind to this reality and our hearts are attracted to temptation, nevertheless, we can follow our staff and strengthen ourselves without needing any understanding.
In short, there are three main pieces of advice in this lesson: 1) Strengthening our emunah by remembering the illumination of truth that we experienced in the past; 2) Believing in the light of emunah of the great tzaddikim or good friends who speak to us about the truth and following their guidance; 3) Breaking our desires with our staff of clarity from previous times, even without any understanding in our current test.
