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entire hour?” You do not need to speak. All you have to do is set The Double Profit the opening of the needle is very small, only enough for a small
aside time for a meeting with the Creator. Come to the meeting thread, it must be open at both ends. Otherwise, the needle would
and be alone with the Creator. Do this in the simplest way, even 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
if you have nothing to say. Only try, as best you can, to induce for both a daily personal accounting and for devoting half an hour you is that you make an opening and awaken. That opening may
yourself to say whatever you can, and to want and yearn as much 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
as you can. Know that you are in an hour-long meeting. Until you 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
finish the entire hour, you are not leaving. Even when you feel 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.
confused or frustrated, whether you feel like staying or not, you of a banquet hall. That is why I earlier wrote that your entire 92):
cannot go, because you are in the middle of a meeting. Understand understanding and performance of everything that you have learned
this well: you are in a meeting with the Creator. You do not leave in this book so far depends on your implementing Rabbi Nachman Where do we make an opening? In the heart. Every
until the meeting ends. 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
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov guaranteed you that by following this hour of hitbodedut, and who knows how to engage in hitbodedut in heaven. Even if a person only succeeds in making
simple advice you will rise on the perfect pathway to your perfect properly, possesses the entirety of the service of Hashem. He has an opening like the eye of a needle, he receives, by
rectification. By means of this practice, you will attain the perfect Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s awesome assurance that he will attain
rectification of all of your incarnations—which is to say, you will a complete rectification. He engages in a personal accounting and the kindness of Hashem, may He be blessed, such
attain your ultimate purpose. attains absolute atonement every day, and he also possesses the powerful help from heaven that it moves him from the
strongest tool for true change, which is the work of the will. materialistic situation in which he is steeped, raising
A Great and Powerful Medicine 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
The hour that a person dedicates to his personal work is a wonderful Nachman himself, who prescribed the hour of hitbodedut, wrote eye of a needle, passing from one end to the other, a
vehicle that will bring him close to Hashem, to repentance, to that a very important component of hitbodedut is the work of hole that penetrates through the entire thickness. The
manifest faith and to all of the good in this world, as is stated the will: to focus on one issue until one brings about salvations in meaning of this opening is that the will is strong,
explicitly by the greatest of the generations and in particular the that area. Rabbi Nachman took all of these factors that you have true and sustained, and not flawed by hesitation
master of ethical teachings and the ways of serving God, Rabbi learned about here—i.e., these principles and rules—and put them and indecisiveness…. After this condition is met, how
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal), in his Derech Eitz Chaim: 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
This is the greatest and most powerful medicine Practically speaking, he built the straightforward and wondrous kindness, may He be blessed. He pours spirituality upon
that you can produce against your evil inclination. tool that we call “the work of the will.” Whoever simply uses this us in great abundance, in exchange for every slightest
It is easy and its effect is great and it bears much tool—whether man or woman, boy or girl, Jew or gentile, the movement on our part. Moreover, heaven judges all of
fruit. A person should stand every day for at least one lowest person in the world or the highest person in the world— these great consequences as though they are truly ours,
will activate all of the mechanisms of the world, all of the secrets
hour free of all other thoughts to think only about what I of creation, all of the spiritual rules and principles, and he will as though we accomplished them all with our own might.
have discussed, and to inquire in his heart: what did the transform himself and rise.
early ones, the fathers of the world, do so that Hashem How do we make an opening that passes from one side to the
desired them? What did Moses our teacher, peace be 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
upon him, do? What did David, the anointed one of 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
Hashem, and all of the great ones who were before us, 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
do? view, a rainbow, a color, to a person blind from birth? It is through. Then Hashem will open the gates of holiness and purity,