When the reason for joy does not reach me
I can know that being a Jew is precious and still feel very little. I can know that putting on tefillin connects me to Hashem and think, “But my tefillin do not mean anything.” The mitzvah has value; I cannot presently feel its value. Repeating the explanation more loudly may leave me exactly where I began.
This is the situation in which milei d’shtusa, a little harmless silliness, becomes necessary. Rebbe Nachman’s instruction in Likutey Moharan II:24 is to find ways to bring oneself to joy, even through foolish play. Reb Noson explains its depth in Likutey Halachos. The distinction matters: the teaching of Rebbe Nachman and the explanation of his student are connected, but they are not interchangeable attributions.
The earlier shiurim approached the advice through the body’s heaviness. Tanya associates earth with laziness and sadness; the rav contrasts being pulled toward adamah, the ground, with reaching upward toward resemblance to the One above. This is spiritual language about a person’s struggle. Sometimes the body resists an earnest appeal, yet a funny voice or a ridiculous joke gets past that resistance.
Reb Noson adds something more. When the Shechinah is in exile, the joy associated with holiness is also concealed. A person looks at Jewish life and sees only burdens, while wealth, food, a particular vacation, or an imagined ideal marriage appear to contain all the happiness. The chen, the attractiveness of holiness discussed at the beginning of Likutey Moharan, seems to have moved elsewhere.
Within Reb Noson’s account, those misplaced sparks of joy still have a holy root. Restoring them is part of bringing the Shechinah out of exile. That makes the small joke more than a useful pause before the serious work. When its joy returns to tefillah, a mitzvah, or life with one’s family, the recovery itself belongs to the avodah.
A cup of tea and an ordinary joke
This does not give me a mission to pursue forbidden pleasure and rescue holiness from it. The rav is explicit: I can become caught in the very thing I claimed I was going to elevate. Nor does calling something “permitted” mean I should chase every restaurant, luxury car, and unnecessary indulgence under the banner of gathering sparks. The story I tell about my motives may be much more elevated than my actual motive.
Start with the ordinary life already in front of me. Tanya 7 describes how permitted food and activity can be directed toward serving Hashem. The rav’s example is a cup of tea. The tea is not itself learning or davening. But if drinking it helps me learn, daven, or give a shiur, its energy has entered that service. Lunch, supper, and the things I encounter while walking down the street can become part of making a dwelling for Hashem in this world.
An ordinary clean joke can work in the same way. It is neither the intrinsic joy of a mitzvah nor forbidden entertainment. A knock-knock joke may have almost no intellectual content. Yet if it lifts the heaviness enough for me to return to a mitzvah, something has happened to the joy hidden in that ordinary moment. Joy can lead a person into the mitzvos that previously felt inaccessible.
“Neutral” here describes the joke’s place in the example; it is not a claim that Tanya regards every ordinary impulse as equally good and bad. Tanya’s account of kelipas nogah, the mixed realm from which permitted things can be elevated, has its own distinctions. The practical question is what I actually do with the permitted thing.
A joke that humiliates another person or makes something holy seem worthless moves in the opposite direction. The tool is harmless play that helps a person come back to holiness.
Dovid in the hands of the Pelishtim
Reb Noson now reads a frightening episode in Dovid’s life through this teaching. Dovid has fled Shaul and come to Achish, king of Gath. Achish’s servants recognize the man celebrated for defeating their people. Dovid is afraid. He changes his behavior before them:
וַיְשַׁנּוֹ אֶת־טַעְמוֹ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם וַיִּתְהֹלֵל בְּיָדָם וַיְתָו עַל־דַּלְתוֹת הַשַּׁעַר וַיּוֹרֶד רִירוֹ אֶל־זְקָנֽוֹ׃
He changed his manner in their eyes, acted like a madman in their hands, made marks on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva run down onto his beard. — I Samuel 21:14
וַיֹּאמֶר אָכִישׁ אֶל־עֲבָדָיו הִנֵּה תִרְאוּ אִישׁ מִשְׁתַּגֵּעַ לָמָּה תָּבִיאוּ אֹתוֹ אֵלָֽי׃
Achish said to his servants: “Look, you see a man behaving madly. Why do you bring him to me?” — I Samuel 21:15
חֲסַר מְשֻׁגָּעִים אָנִי כִּֽי־הֲבֵאתֶם אֶת־זֶה לְהִשְׁתַּגֵּעַ עָלָי הֲזֶה יָבוֹא אֶל־בֵּיתִֽי׃
“Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act madly before me? Should this one enter my house?” — I Samuel 21:16
Tehillim introduces the episode this way:
לְדָוִד בְּשַׁנּוֹתוֹ אֶת־טַעְמוֹ לִפְנֵי אֲבִימֶלֶךְ וַיְגָרְשֵׁהוּ וַיֵּלַֽךְ׃
Of Dovid, when he changed his manner before Avimelech, who drove him away, and he left. — Psalms 34:1
The names need a short clarification. Shmuel calls the king Achish; this psalm calls him Avimelech. Rashi explains that Avimelech was a title used by Philistine kings, as Pharaoh was used for Egyptian kings. The psalm and the narrative are referring to the same episode.
On the straightforward level, Dovid’s conduct is a way to survive. He makes himself appear unthreatening, and the king rejects his presence. The verses describe Achish’s dismissal; the rav retells it in the language of being spared and allowed to go.
Reb Noson asks what is happening within that outward action. Dovid represents malchus d’kedushah, holy kingship, and the revelation of the Shechinah in this world. Chazal speak of earthly kingship as resembling heavenly kingship; here Reb Noson applies the language of malchus to Dovid’s particular avodah. His struggle against the forces of concealment is also a struggle to bring joy into a place ruled by sadness.
This is why Tehillim is central. Dovid draws the ten kinds of song into the world. The struggles voiced in his psalms also give us words for our own struggles, in both material and spiritual life. Likutey Moharan II:101 and II:125 explicitly teach a person to find himself in each psalm, applying Dovid’s battles to his own struggle with the yetzer hara. His music is a way of fighting for the possibility of remaining connected to Hashem.
עֲֽלֵי־עָשׂוֹר וַעֲלֵי־נָבֶל עֲלֵי הִגָּיוֹן בְּכִנּֽוֹר׃
Upon a ten-stringed instrument and upon a harp, with thoughtful music upon a lyre. — Psalms 92:4
כִּי שִׂמַּחְתַּנִי ה׳ בְּפׇעֳלֶךָ בְּֽמַעֲשֵׂי יָדֶיךָ אֲרַנֵּֽן׃
For You have gladdened me, Hashem, through Your work; at the works of Your hands I sing with joy. — Psalms 92:5
The ten-stringed instrument belongs here to the discussion of the ten kinds of song and their joy. The rav also looks ahead to the future fullness of that music. Arakhin 13b associates ten strings with Olam HaBa, distinguishing this from the eight strings of the days of Mashiach. This is a primary clarification of the future-music allusion, rather than a new assertion about Dovid personally playing a particular instrument. The point is not that every psalm sounds cheerful. Tehillim contains fear, remorse, pleading, and grief, while continuing to turn toward Hashem.