When regret arrives at the wrong time
The Baal HaTanya gives a very precise warning in chapter 26. A person may be occupied with his work when sadness about his spiritual condition suddenly takes over. Because the subject is religious, he assumes the thought must be good. Tanya tells him to examine what the thought is doing to him. It may be a tactic of the yetzer hara, weakening him so that he is more likely to fall afterward.
The rav gives the example of a man at his desk at 11:30. He remembers his Shacharis: he arrived late, left early, and barely paid attention. He starts turning this over until he feels like a failure. A few minutes later he faces a test of his boundaries with a woman who comes into the office. He is now approaching the test with the thought, “I am hardly a serious person anyway.” His earlier self-reproach has made the next good choice harder.
That office scene is the rav's illustration of Tanya's warning. The chapter describes the spiritual accusation arriving during business; the clock time, details of Shacharis, and subsequent office encounter develop that warning in the shiur. Tanya itself says to set aside an appropriate time, with a settled mind, for honest reflection and a broken heart over wrongdoing. It then speaks of putting aside the sadness and trusting in Hashem's forgiveness. There is a place for charatah, genuine regret, within a process that helps a person return.
So a person at work does not have to follow every accusation that crosses his mind. He can recognize that the thought deserves a proper time and a constructive response. Meanwhile, there is another piece of avodah in front of him: conduct his business honestly, protect his boundaries, and do what Hashem asks of him now.
The verse in Mishlei gives another way to understand rebuke:
מוּסַר ה׳ בְּנִי אַל־תִּמְאָס וְאַל־תָּקֹץ בְּתוֹכַחְתּֽוֹ׃
My son, do not reject Hashem's discipline, and do not recoil from His rebuke. (Mishlei 3:11)
The rav brings a reading from the Slonim tzaddikim that hears the word beni, “My son,” as the heart of the mussar. You are Hashem's child. Remember whose child you are, and live in a way that befits that relationship. Being a ben melech, a child of the King, gives a person something to protect. He can take wrongdoing seriously while retaining the knowledge that he belongs to Hashem.
Heaviness, feet and the ground
Tanya 1 links atzvus, dejection, and atzlus, sluggishness, with the element of earth. In the traditional four-element account, fire rises, water draws toward pleasure, air is associated with empty expression, and earth with heaviness. Dejection can leave a person inert; remaining inert can make it harder to emerge from dejection.
The avodah suggested here is to begin making a movement toward life, even before the feeling follows. A person may have to get up and begin his day while he still feels heavy. The rav urges a person very strongly to get out of bed and begin acting, and describes the movement out of inertia as a way to break this cycle. His wording also calls it the “only way” to break depression. That absolute claim should not be read as a clinical conclusion. Depression can require professional treatment; the avodah of beginning an action does not establish that illness is laziness or that effort alone cures it.
The nachash gives the Torah image behind the pull toward the ground:
וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אלוקים ׀ אֶֽל־הַנָּחָשׁ כִּי עָשִׂיתָ זֹּאת אָרוּר אַתָּה מִכׇּל־הַבְּהֵמָה וּמִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה עַל־גְּחֹנְךָ תֵלֵךְ וְעָפָר תֹּאכַל כׇּל־יְמֵי חַיֶּֽיךָ׃
Hashem Elokim said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed beyond all livestock and all wild animals. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” (Bereishis 3:14)
וְאֵיבָה ׀ אָשִׁית בֵּֽינְךָ וּבֵין הָֽאִשָּׁה וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ וּבֵין זַרְעָהּ הוּא יְשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ וְאַתָּה תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ עָקֵֽב׃
“I will place hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will strike you at the head, and you will strike him at the heel.” (Bereishis 3:15)
The serpent is brought down to the earth and threatens the heel, the part of the body closest to the ground. In the spiritual reading developed here, this pictures the attempt to pull a person downward until he can hardly lift himself to do anything. The rav also describes the loss of the serpent's legs as losing the ability to stand upright with a sense of worth. He contrasts that with Yaakov lifting his feet after hearing Hashem's promise. The discussion of food becoming part of a creature's life, and of the serpent eating dust, belongs to this symbolism of being drawn toward earth.
Yaakov's journey gives the opposite picture. In his dream he saw:
וַֽיַּחֲלֹם וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה וְרֹאשׁוֹ מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אלוקים עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּֽוֹ׃
He dreamed, and there was a ladder standing on the earth, with its top reaching heaven; angels of Hashem were ascending and descending on it. (Bereishis 28:12)
After receiving Hashem's promise of protection, he continued on his way:
וַיִּשָּׂא יַעֲקֹב רַגְלָיו וַיֵּלֶךְ אַרְצָה בְנֵי־קֶֽדֶם׃
Yaakov lifted his feet and went toward the land of the people of the east. (Bereishis 29:1)
Rashi explains that the good news lifted Yaakov's heart, and his heart lifted his feet: walking became light for him. The feet were still on the earth. What had changed was the life and confidence with which he walked.
Joy reaching the heel
Likutey Moharan 169 develops this through the opening of Ekev:
וְהָיָה ׀ עֵקֶב תִּשְׁמְעוּן אֵת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים הָאֵלֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְשָׁמַר ה׳ אלוקיךָ לְךָ אֶֽת־הַבְּרִית וְאֶת־הַחֶסֶד אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶֽיךָ׃
It will be, because you listen to these laws and guard and carry them out, that Hashem your Elokim will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your fathers. (Devarim 7:12)
The ordinary meaning of ekev here is “because.” Rebbe Nachman's derash also hears ekev as “heel.” He reads vehayah in the language of joy and asks that joy spread so far through the person that even his heels hear it. That is the movement expressed in dancing.
The teaching connects heaviness in the feet with din, judgment. When the dinim are sweetened, the feet become light and joy can spread into them. This is a spiritual account of judgment and joy, rather than a way to diagnose someone's physical ability to dance.
There is an important step in the primary text: a person should judge his own conduct, examine it according to Torah, and put it right. This self-examination is part of sweetening the din. The passage itself therefore joins responsibility with joy. It cannot support an instruction to disregard wrongdoing.
The closing part of the verse promises that Hashem will guard the covenant. Rebbe Nachman reads this as help in guarding the bris: simcha helps a person leave the place of constant wailing and gives him strength for kedushah. Likutey Moharan 10 likewise teaches that dancing and clapping sweeten dinim. Clapping brings the two hands together, an image of joining the sides of chesed and din. The hands and feet become involved in the person's avodah; the ten fingers will become important again when we return to the ten forms of song and the Seven Beggars.