The Power of a Sigh

Translated by Aaron Yoseph

Rebbe Nachman says that a sigh is so powerful that it can literally replenish a person’s soul, giving him a renewed and recharged ruach, or spirit.

Where does the Yetzer Hora – the evil inclination – get his strength from? From sins. And every person gives food to his own “dogs”. Every sin feeds the Sitra Achra, the dark side, which then comes back to bite us. The more we’re caught up in the four elements, the more we strengthen them. When we use this world to serve Hashem, we elevate the world. But with sins, we create our own Yetzer Hora’s with our own hands. What’s the way to escape them?

Longing is giving a sigh. This is why Hashem made this world – so that we should long to be close to Him. A sigh of this sort wipes out the klipot, the negative spiritual forces. We want to be close to Hashem. How do we come to love Hashem? Emuna. We take this world, and use it to arouse ourselves to love Hashem. This is what we all truly want. But most of us don’t get anywhere near it. Our forefathers reached it, so did the Baal Shem Tov and Rebbe Nachman. Why is it so hard for us? There are so many songs today. Why don’t we get aroused? What’s holding us back? We must focus less on body and more on neshama – the soul – and start living for Hashem. When you do all this – you’re heading for a battle. The klipot are going to fight back, and throw you into a fiery furnace.

All of a sudden, a person gets depressed. It was delivered from Above, express delivery, EMS. It’s a mission. What you need to do is fight against it. “I don’t want to be depressed. I have a kippa on my head – that’s enough. There’s nothing worth more than keeping one Shabbat.” Encourage yourself with all the good points you have and all the good you do.

This is what Hashem wants from us. We’ve been send down into a pipe. Depression is something that has fallen, and you need to make it good. “Baruch Hashem, I have depression, which I’ll work to break. Even though I’m depressed, I’m still doing good things.” If you find yourself pursuing pleasures, “But I’ve made a blessing with intent over my chocolate pie, even though I know that this isn’t really what I want.” This is life. We are sent down into the pipelines, to fix them. But it’s all G-dlinesss. Up Above it’s the four letters of Hashem’s name, and down here it’s… also the four letters of Hashem’s name! Just that we can’t see it. 

Whatever we go through, especially the things we struggle with the most – these things are all Elokut – G-dliness. Something happens that upsets you. Why did it happen? Because Hashem has shown you your bad character trait, and your task is to elevate it. Just like our people went down into Egypt, and then came back up again. It’s all Elokut. Know that Hashem is behind everything.

The Rebbe  is teaching us how to just stay afloat.

Hashem sends us down into the pipelines of this world. We need to eat, sleep, make money, and deal with people. All in order to elevate and fix things. Hashem is behind everything. Behind every person we meet and everything that we encounter. Everything is planned and measured. The whole world is filled with His glory, literally. Every test is Elokut. But we all think that this doesn’t apply to us – that we’re the one lost cause, but this just isn’t true. Our task is to bring everything back to Hashem. Believe that you have something to do here, and it’s not that difficult to do. You don’t need to have a great head to achieve great things.

Facing problems and obstacles isn’t a sign that we aren’t serving Hashem, or that Hashem doesn’t want us. It’s a sign that we fighting the Sitra Achra, and it’s fighting back against us.

We need to remember that we’re fighting for Hashem. It’s a great honor. Soldiers in a King’s army march happily into battle. “Fire, brimstone. Whatever you’ve got. Bring it on. I’m fighting for the King!”

It’s a battle, and this is our life. This is Breslev. Tefillah, Hitbodedut. Whatever we do is Gan Eden. But what the Rebbe really wants for us is to really serve Hashem, and fighting against the Yetzer Hora is really serving Hashem. So sigh, take a deep breath, and get back into the fight!