Rebbe Nachman continues: “A person who has these questions and thoughts, G-d forbid, it is fitting for him to be very embarrassed over the fact that he was born with such physicality or that he did such actions that caused him to have thoughts against our holy emunah – ‘and the glory of Hashem fills the whole world!’ (BaMidbar 14:21) For ‘the entire world is filled with His glory (Yeshaya 6:3).’” With this, Rebbe Nachman teaches us how to come to feelings of holy embarrassment in front of Hashem. Very often, we go through times when we have no awareness of Hashem’s Presence in our lives. We fall into situations of such hiddenness that we can’t feel any remorse for our sins. This is the nature of our existence in this world of darkness where the spiritual light of Hashem is concealed.
This is one of the main reasons why Rebbe Nachman requires us to do hisbodedus every day. Hisbodedus is an opportunity for us to awaken our awareness of the Creator. It is a time for us to remind ourselves that His glory fills the entire universe, as we see from the two verses that Rebbe Nachman brings here. It is time for us to contemplate the awesome greatness of HaKadosh Baruch Hu that we learn about in the sefarim of the tzaddikim.
Through this, we naturally come to feelings of humility. We think, “Who am I? What am I worth? Why do I get so upset when things don’t go my way?” And the more we attach ourselves to the true reality of Hashem’s Presence in our lives, the deeper the embarrassment we have before Him over the impurities of our existence and the sins we’ve committed.
It is important to note that, on a simple level, it seems that Rebbe Nachman refers to a person who doesn’t follow the Torah at all, G-d forbid, and thinks that no one sees him. However, this can’t be Rebbe Nachman’s main intention, since it is not usually possible for such a person to have these elevated thoughts of embarrassment before Hashem. Rather, as we explained at the beginning of this sichah, the heretical thoughts that Rebbe Nachman refers to are mainly the questions and lack of emunah that even religious Jews struggle to overcome. Rebbe Nachman refers to the thoughts of the power of the laws of nature – the doctor is the one who heals us, our boss is the one who gives us our income, etc. – that enter our minds and damage our emunah. He refers to the questions that go through our heads, such as, “Why does that person have something that I don’t have? Why do I have to suffer?” It is primarily for these types of heretical thoughts that Rebbe Nachman gives the advice of breaking our hearts and being embarrassed in front of Hashem, which can help us to do teshuvah and escape these dark places.
We see this also from the fact that Rebbe Nachman says, “It is fitting for him to be very embarrassed.” This seems to imply that it is fitting for a person who doesn’t follow the Torah at all to feel very embarrassed, but he won’t be able to do it.
Thus, it must be that the main person that Rebbe Nachman is assisting with this advice is someone who is on a higher level. He is talking to those of us who yearn to be good Jews and long to have pure emunah, but we struggle to do so due to our mistakes and lack of kedushah. Since we already have some faith in the Torah and the teachings of the tzaddikim that reveal Hashem’s Presence in the world, it is possible for us to contemplate the verse, “and the glory of Hashem fills the whole world!” and feel true humiliation. We can sense that Hashem is really right here with us, and be embarrassed before Him.
