Growth Power

Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody
 
 
In Likutei Moharan, Torah 155, Rebbe Nachman writes that emuna is the power of growth. Just like a seed that grows in fertile ground, emuna is the growth medium for personal growth. With emuna, nothing can harm a person – nothing! Despite all a person’s difficulties, nothing can hurt him. All the pressures and difficulties he faces only make him grow. What’s more, with emuna, he’s not afraid of anyone on earth. His boss doesn’t scare him, or his father-in-law, and not even the Hezbollah and Hamas. He just prays with vigor as a person should and he keeps on growing. He rises to challenges and turns to Hashem for whatever help he needs. Prayer is his sword, and he believes in the power of his weapon. He’s not one of the people who whine and complain, “Hashem, why are You doing this to me?” The person with emuna turns his pain into gain – he grows all he time. It’s like using the momentum of the enemy to your own advantage and to defeat him. More than anything, emuna gives a person inner strength, because he’s leaning on Hashem.
 
A person with emuna can thank Hashem for anything. “Hashem, if You want to drop bombs all around me, then I’ll believe in You with bombs falling all around me. If You want to throw me into a pit in the ground, then I’ll believe in You from down there in the pit in the ground.” The person with emuna knows that everyone has their personal track, and that the bombs and the pit in the ground are part of his personal track, for they’re what he needs to grow, so he thanks Hashem for them.
 
What happens to a person without emuna? Rebbe Nachman says that such a person lacks the power of growth, so he rots, literally. Emotional rot is sadness and depression. Rebbe Nachman says emphatically that sadness and depression are the result from a lack of emuna.
 
Suppose a person didn’t accept a trial or tribulation with emuna. Don’t worry – the situation can still be rectified. How? Thank Hashem for your difficulties. They’re all from Him anyway and they’re all for the best. Wait and see. They’re your springboard to personal growth. Once you recognize this important fact of life, you can really turn pain into gain.
 
Whining, complaining, sadness and depression eat away at people – it makes them rot.
 
Why complain? Everything Hashem does is the product of Divine justice and mercy. For a good deed, there is no limit to the rewards in the world to come. But when a person must atone for a sin, Hashem cleanses him and teaches him by way of “measure for measure.” For example, if you caused grief to your parents, your children will cause grief to you. If you talk in the synagogue and show disrespect to Hashem, other people will disparage and and show disrespect to you. Hashem must do this in this world, because there’s no “measure for measure” in the next world. Hashem is cleaning our souls – we deserve everything that happens to us, so why complain? By thanking Hashem and accepting His judgments with love, we grow, both personally and spiritually.
 
Hashem is only good. He does everything for the best. Rebbe Nachman teaches us in  Likutei Moharan, Torah 4, that when a person knows that everything in his life is all for the best, then his life becomes a paradise on earth. This is the way the true tzaddikim lived their lives – our most difficult tribulations are nothing compared to what they went through. So strengthen yourself in emuna and start thanking Hashem. Everyone has their track in life – if they go through life will emuna, then this earth will be paradise. But, if he goes through life without emuna, then life will be purgatory. Either way, you must walk down the path that Hashem designates for you – there’s no way to escape, as Jonah the Prophet learned. He tried to run away from Hashem, but it didn’t succeed. A whale had to swallow him to get him back on track. Yet, we have the free choice to believe or not to believe, to be happy or to be depressed. Yes, we can choose to be happy. By accepting everything with emuna, we gain and attain the power of growth. We turn the pain into gain. Without emuna, the “gain” becomes “Gehennom” – purgatory. A person rots in sadness and depression. It doesn’t have to be that way.
 
An important part of personal growth is to internalize knowledge. Rebbe Nachman teaches us in  Likutei Moharan, Torah 53 that knowledge becomes internalized as soon as a person applies that knowledge to his personal life and lives according to it.
 
A father wanted to prepare his son for Bar Mitzvah. “Listen, my son, at age 13, you’ll start putting on tefillin. You should know that the tefillin are very holy – you should never eat with them on, or speak anything other than prayer, or disrespect them in any way.” Nothing the father said to the son sunk in, because the son never saw his father put on tefillin.
 
How did our forefather Abraham merit Isaac? Abraham had to wait for 100 years and to endure a long list of tribulations before he earned his son Isaac. And, since Isaac was born to a father who applied his emuna to every facet of his personal life, Isaac willingly accepted everything that his father Abraham taught him. Our sages teach that a message from the heart is accepted by other people’s hearts. Since Abraham internalized his spiritual awareness and his emuna in his own heart, he was able to instill emuna in Isaac’s heart. The Torah itself testifies this, when it says that Abraham and Isaac walked “together”, like one man with one heart, to the Akeda. Abraham said to Hashem, “Hashem, if You want me to serve You by sacrificing my son, I’ll sacrifice my son!” Isaac said, “Hashem, if You want me to serve You by being sacrificed on the altar, I” be a sacrifice on the altar.” If Abraham’s emuna hadn’t been totally internalized, he couldn’t have taught his son and Isaac would not have been the holy Isaac whose merit we recall every morning in our prayers.
 
Once again, as we see time and again, knowledge becomes internalized as soon as a person applies that knowledge to his personal life and lives according to it. Otherwise, it’s not knowledge. As such, when a person knows – as Rebbe Nachman says – that everything in his life is for the best, he lives the knowledge that everything is for the best. That’s the knowledge of emuna, when you can thank Hashem for anything: “Thank You, Hashem, for the financial loss! Thank You, Hashem that my wife yelled at me.”
 
Now, Rebbe Nachman explains how a person attains really advanced knowledge and spiritual awareness, by bringing other people closer to Hashem. By guiding them and answering their questions, his own emuna and spiritual awareness become so much stronger and internalized. And, as we said, if a person doesn’t practice what he preaches, others won’t listen to him. So, the more a person lives his emuna, the more he is capable of teaching others emuna and bringing them close to Hashem. This is a beautiful upward spiral, for the more he brings others close to Hashem, the more he gains emuna and is capable of bringing others close to Hashem.
 
Do you realize what this means? If you want to expand your personal and intellectual horizons as well as strengthen emuna, help other people get close to Hashem! Spread emuna books and CDs; teach emuna; be a shining personal example to other people. There is no greater mitzva!