The next part of the sichah also refers to people on all different levels: “And this person has thoughts, G-d forbid, to expel and uproot, G-d forbid, the Living G-d, Who is the Life of all life, may his Name be praised and exalted!” This can mean a person who thinks about committing a grievous sin for which one receives the punishment of kareis – being cut off from Hashem – or it can refer to a person who considers performing one of the smaller sins that push away our emunah, uproot us from receiving spiritual strength from the Creator, and prevent us from having chiyus in avodas Hashem.
Here, Rebbe Nachman uses particularly powerful expressions to help bring us to true embarrassment: “The Living G-d, Who is the Life of all life, may his Name be praised and exalted!” Other sefarim of tzaddikim describe the greatness of Hashem through explaining the wonders of the stars, constellations, and the higher spiritual worlds, etc. However, Rebbe Nachman gives us another type of concept: “The Life of all life.” Hashem gives life to every single living thing. Furthermore, every single tiny part of our bodies is only sustained through His chiyus. When we truly contemplate this reality, it can bring us to a deep level of humility before Hashem and inspire us to be mevatel ourselves to Him.
Rebbe Nachman finishes this section by telling us that this advice breaks all of our suffering and pain that takes away our strength: “And through embarrassment and a broken heart, a person expels and breaks these questions and thoughts.” In particular, we see from here that we first need to expel our questions and then break them. Expelling is an aspect of sleep – in other words, when we see these thoughts entering our minds, we should enter into “sleep mode” by shutting down our analytical mind and focusing only on emunah. Then, afterwards, when we have more clarity, we can break them and nullify them completely through feeling embarrassment and having a broken heart.
