A person lies down at the end of a disappointing day and starts counting the opportunities he missed. He wanted to learn more, daven better and use his time differently. The reckoning leaves him feeling that he has failed at everything. By the time he finishes, he has less strength to make tomorrow different.
This brings us back to the connection between simcha and Tikkun HaKlali. We have learned how Hallelukah answers yelalah, the constant wailing that pulls a person downward. Praise, song and dancing can help him emerge from that place. We now need to understand why joy matters so much, what blocks it, and how a person can begin working toward it.
Likutey Moharan II:23 and 24 will become central to that learning. They are short teachings with a great deal inside them. Their connection with the ten forms of song will also help us understand why simcha belongs within the repair of the bris.
A particular time to work on the covenant
Shovavim is the name given to the weeks of the Torah readings Shemos, Va'eira, Bo, Beshalach, Yisro and Mishpatim. The initials of their names form the word. Terumah and Tetzaveh are included in the extended cycle associated with a leap year. These weeks have become a particular time for work on tikkun habris.
The Arizal's explanation of the descent to Egypt gives a background to this avodah. We learned earlier from Shaar HaPesukim, Shemos, about the souls connected with Adam HaRishon's 130years of separation and their refinement in Egypt. The movement into Egypt and out of it is understood as a process of recovering and refining holy potential.
Learning the halachos of family life and working on shalom bayis belong within this area. The wider question is how to recognize what is bringing a person into a damaging pattern and how to begin coming out of it. The work matters throughout the year; these weeks provide a particular occasion to give it attention.
The opening verse of Shemos gives us a connection with Tehillim:
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הַבָּאִים מִצְרָיְמָה אֵת יַעֲקֹב אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ בָּֽאוּ׃
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Yaakov; each man came with his household. (Shemos 1:1)
Likutey Moharan II:73 associates the final letters of the words with Tehillim and teshuvah. The first five words provide the letters of Tehillim in a rearranged order; the next five, through uveiso, provide the letters of teshuvah, also rearranged. The association brings together entering Egypt, refinement and the possibility of return through Tehillim.
The rav attributes another association to the Chida: the letters of milah appear in the endings of Bnei Yisrael haba'im Mitzraymah, rearranged. The exact Chida passage remains to be located; Likutey Moharan II:73 directly verifies the related Tehillim and teshuvah associations. The covenant and the work of teshuvah are being joined in the same opening of the parashah.
Why Yaakov's bris still mattered
Avraham asked Eliezer to take an oath with his hand beneath Avraham's thigh:
וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָהָם אֶל־עַבְדּוֹ זְקַן בֵּיתוֹ הַמֹּשֵׁל בְּכׇל־אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ שִֽׂים־נָא יָדְךָ תַּחַת יְרֵכִֽי׃
Avraham said to his servant, the elder of his household who governed all that he had, “Please place your hand beneath my thigh.” (Bereishis 24:2)
Rashi explains the connection with the mitzvah of milah. It was especially precious to Avraham: he had received the command and carried it out in old age, with pain and devotion.
Yaakov later used the same expression when asking Yosef not to bury him in Egypt:
וַיִּקְרְבוּ יְמֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לָמוּת וַיִּקְרָא ׀ לִבְנוֹ לְיוֹסֵף וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אִם־נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ שִֽׂים־נָא יָדְךָ תַּחַת יְרֵכִי וְעָשִׂיתָ עִמָּדִי חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת אַל־נָא תִקְבְּרֵנִי בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃
The time drew near for Yisrael to die. He called his son Yosef and said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please place your hand beneath my thigh and deal with me in kindness and truth; please do not bury me in Egypt.” (Bereishis 47:29)
Why did this mitzvah have that place for Yaakov too? The Midrash describes Yaakov as having been born circumcised. Avos DeRabbi Natan 2:5 includes both Noach and Yaakov in that tradition, drawing on the language of completeness:
אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹֽרֹתָיו אֶת־הָֽאלוקים הִֽתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹֽחַ׃
These are the generations of Noach. Noach was a righteous man, complete in his generations; Noach walked with Hashem. (Bereishis 6:9)
וַֽיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים וַיְהִי עֵשָׂו אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד אִישׁ שָׂדֶה וְיַעֲקֹב אִישׁ תָּם יֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִֽים׃
The boys grew. Esav became a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field; Yaakov was a wholesome man, dwelling in tents. (Bereishis 25:27)
That is the Midrash's reading of tamim and tam, alongside the verses' ordinary meanings. It sharpens the question: Yaakov had not undergone Avraham's particular experience of taking on milah in old age. The rav briefly mentions hatafas dam bris for someone born circumcised, distinguishing that from the ordinary act of circumcision. Shulchan Aruch,Yoreh De'ah 263:4 discusses that distinction and expressly requires care to avoid danger. The question here concerns Yaakov's special attachment to the covenant. Why did he still refer to it in such a personal way?
Because the physical beginning of the covenant does not exhaust its avodah. Guarding the bris continues throughout a person's life. Rashi explains Yaakov's words to Reuven in that light:
רְאוּבֵן בְּכֹרִי אַתָּה כֹּחִי וְרֵאשִׁית אוֹנִי יֶתֶר שְׂאֵת וְיֶתֶר עָֽז׃
Reuven, you are my firstborn, my strength and the first of my vigor, foremost in dignity and foremost in power. (Bereishis 49:3)
On reishis oni, Rashi describes the extraordinary guarding of Yaakov's creative power before Reuven's conception. The rav emphasizes that this included both voluntary and involuntary emission: the first seed to leave Yaakov was used in Reuven's conception. This describes Yaakov's exceptional level; it does not establish blame for another person's involuntary bodily event. Yaakov's relationship with the bris was therefore an ongoing part of his life. It could be precious to him at the time of the oath, even though he had been born circumcised.
Chazal give another picture in Menachos 43b. Dovid entered the bathhouse and felt that he was standing without any mitzvah. Remembering the milah in his body settled his mind. After leaving, he said a song connected with the eighth day:
לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַֽל־הַשְּׁמִינִית מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִֽד׃
For the conductor, on the eighth, a psalm of David. (Tehillim 12:1)
The Gemara connects “the eighth” with milah given on the eighth day. The covenant remained with Dovid when his other outward signs of mitzvos were absent. That picture helps us understand the lasting relationship, alongside the further halachic question of how the mitzvah is defined over time.
The Zohar,Va'eira, connects Yishmael's circumcision with a corresponding share in the Holy Land, while distinguishing it from Israel's complete covenant. The rav explains the distinction through milah without pri'ah and extends it to the struggle over Eretz Yisrael, then and now: in his spiritual reading, full possession of the land depends on fully guarding the bris. This is a strong religious claim about our avodah. The present-day application is the rav's; it is not the Zohar's exact wording or a legal test for an individual's rights. His practical demand is that we live and guard the covenant throughout life.
A small daily practice can carry real work
Likutey Moharan II:73 begins with an accessible instruction: someone who wants to come to teshuvah should become accustomed to saying Tehillim. A person may lack the desire to return. He may want to return but not know how. He may approach what seems to be his entrance and find it closed.
The teaching speaks of 49gates that a person can enter, corresponding to the letters in the names of the tribes. Tehillim can awaken the desire and help him find and enter the gate that belongs to him. The point is that a person does not have to possess a finished plan for his whole return before he begins speaking to Hashem.
The familiar tradition about Reb Noson and an elderly man in Tzfas gives a concrete example. The man had been saying the whole Sefer Tehillim, and the practice had become physically difficult. In the version told here, he would go out to holy graves, including the Arizal's, and found the cold and the length of the reading increasingly hard. Reb Noson advised the ten chapters of Tikkun HaKlali, which encompass the ten forms of song. The accounts differ in some details, so we need not attach a settled name or an exact schedule to the elderly man in order to understand the counsel.
The ten chapters are within reach. Several are already familiar from davening. This is a specific set encompassing the ten forms of song, rather than ten lengthy readings of a chapter such as Tehillim 119. The rav estimates that the reading can take less than ten minutes once someone is familiar with it; a person should read at his own pace. Yet Sichos HaRan 141 warns that even this apparently simple practice can be difficult to keep. The significance of the work can itself be met with resistance.
One possible commitment for Shovavim is to set aside a daily time for Tikkun HaKlali: after Shacharis, after Minchah, or another suitable time. The counsel here is to say the chapters in sequence, without interrupting between them. The rav recommends the practice for prevention as well as repair. Saying it every day keeps this avodah in view throughout Shovavim, beyond the Monday, Thursday and Shabbos occasions on which we hear the parashah read. When there is time, Reb Noson's prayer afterward, in its shorter or longer form, can help a person express what he is asking for.
This is an accessible practice alongside ordinary learning and avodas Hashem. The Baal HaTanya, Iggeres HaTeshuvah 3, warns against multiplying fasts where they would harm a person's health or diminish his ability to learn and serve Hashem. The present proposal is not a fasting regimen.
We already recognize the association between Tehillim and teshuvah in Elul, when people add to their usual reading. The rav also reports a tradition, associated in the recording with a Bender-sounding attribution, of adding Tehillim during Shovavim. Its exact collection and wording remain unresolved; no fixed quota is being established here. The underlying reason is the same: we want words that can help us turn toward Hashem.
A translation can help. The goal is to find ourselves within Dovid HaMelech's expressions: asking, thanking, longing, struggling and trusting. A verse that seemed distant can suddenly describe something in our own day. Understanding the words gives us more ways to enter them.