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The Double Profit the opening of the needle is very small, only enough for a small
thread, it must be open at both ends. Otherwise, the needle would
A person who spends an hour in hitbodedut every day has time have no use. This is what the midrash means: all that is required of
for both a daily personal accounting and for devoting half an hour you is that you make an opening and awaken. That opening may
to the work of the will. That is the perfect way in which a person indeed be small, but it must pass from one end to the other! (Kol
can open the eye of a needle to come to Hashem, following which Mevaser in the name of Sefer Niflaot Chadashot). Rabbi Dessler writes in
Hashem will make an opening for him as large as the entrance a similar vein, expanding on this idea (Michtav Mei’Eliyahu, Part 3, p.
of a banquet hall. That is why I earlier wrote that your entire 92):
understanding and performance of everything that you have learned
in this book so far depends on your implementing Rabbi Nachman Where do we make an opening? In the heart. Every
of Breslov’s counsel, which is to engage in an hour of hitbodedut. thought of repentance constitutes an opening that
A person who attains the great and tremendous gift that is called an breaches the iron curtain separating us from our Father
hour of hitbodedut, and who knows how to engage in hitbodedut in heaven. Even if a person only succeeds in making
properly, possesses the entirety of the service of Hashem. He has an opening like the eye of a needle, he receives, by
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s awesome assurance that he will attain the kindness of Hashem, may He be blessed, such
a complete rectification. He engages in a personal accounting and powerful help from heaven that it moves him from the
attains absolute atonement every day, and he also possesses the materialistic situation in which he is steeped, raising
strongest tool for true change, which is the work of the will.
him to an immeasurably higher level…. But that is on
In truth, the work of the will is not my own invention. Rabbi one condition: that this opening should be like the
Nachman himself, who prescribed the hour of hitbodedut, wrote eye of a needle, passing from one end to the other, a
that a very important component of hitbodedut is the work of hole that penetrates through the entire thickness. The
the will: to focus on one issue until one brings about salvations in meaning of this opening is that the will is strong,
that area. Rabbi Nachman took all of these factors that you have true and sustained, and not flawed by hesitation
learned about here—i.e., these principles and rules—and put them and indecisiveness…. After this condition is met, how
into the set framework of the work of prayer. incredible is the amount of profit compared to the small
amount of the original assets…. How wondrous is His
Practically speaking, he built the straightforward and wondrous
tool that we call “the work of the will.” Whoever simply uses this kindness, may He be blessed. He pours spirituality upon
tool—whether man or woman, boy or girl, Jew or gentile, the us in great abundance, in exchange for every slightest
lowest person in the world or the highest person in the world— movement on our part. Moreover, heaven judges all of
will activate all of the mechanisms of the world, all of the secrets these great consequences as though they are truly ours,
of creation, all of the spiritual rules and principles, and he will as though we accomplished them all with our own might.
transform himself and rise.
How do we make an opening that passes from one side to the
To transform oneself means to live a new life, to emerge from other? We do this by means of the work of the will. Only when
darkness to light, to live in the Garden of Eden. Is it possible to we persistently speak a half hour a day, focusing our intention
describe the Garden of Eden? Is it possible to describe a beautiful on achieving a single goal, will the opening truly pass all the way
view, a rainbow, a color, to a person blind from birth? It is through. Then Hashem will open the gates of holiness and purity,