Why does understanding belong in a tikkun?
One of the forms of song in Tehillim is called maskil. The word is connected to seichel, understanding. A maskil makes something clear so that another person can understand it.
Likutey Moharan 205 connects this word to meshakel, bereavement or the loss of life. The same Hebrew letters can be read with a sin or a shin. In one reading, they describe understanding and illumination. In the other, they describe destruction. Rebbe Nachman connects this difference to Targum, the Aramaic translation through which the Torah was made understandable to its listeners.
How does a translation become part of repairing the bris, the covenant expressed through the body's power to create life?
The answer depends on a larger question. What happens to all the parts of our lives that are permitted and ordinary? We eat, work, earn money, speak to people, and raise families. Those activities take up much of the day. They are also where a great deal of our avodah, our service of Hashem, takes place.
Seeing a person beyond the surface
The previous form of song, ashrei, was connected to sight. Our eyes can reduce another person to what is physically visible. We can also learn to see a person as someone with an inner life and a connection to Hashem. Guarding the eyes includes the work of changing how we look.
The Torah puts the heart before the eyes in its warning against wandering after them:
וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְצִיצִת וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת־כָּל־מִצְוֹת ה׳ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְלֹא־תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר־אַתֶּם זֹנִים אַחֲרֵיהֶם׃
They shall be tzitzis for you. You shall see them, remember all of Hashem's commandments, and do them; and you shall not wander after your heart and your eyes, after which you stray. (Bamidbar 15:39)
The teacher describes a collector from Eretz Yisrael who told him how moved he was by the chesed and tzedakah he encountered in Lakewood. He had scarcely traveled outside Eretz Yisrael before, apart from visiting Uman. When the rav asked whether he planned to collect in other cities, he said that he wanted to remain where he felt able to protect his shemiras einayim, his care with what he looked at.
He described going with a friend to buy inexpensive socks in a large store. Afterward, he felt that the saving had cost him too much in this area. He would rather pay more at a Jewish store and return to Eretz Yisrael once he had raised enough to cover even part of his debts. This was a person's own decision about the conditions that would support his avodah. He was weighing the financial saving against something he wanted to protect.
Rabbi Shimon Shapiro, the son of Rabbi Shmuel Shapiro, had just passed away at the time of this shiur. Both were known for their shemiras einayim. It was said that Rabbi Shmuel's care with his eyes sustained half of Yerushalayim. The rav tentatively recalls Rabbi Shlomo Zalman as the person who said this; he expressly leaves the attribution uncertain. Their care to keep their gaze within their daled amos, their immediate surroundings, expressed a life directed toward what was within.
The rav connects this care to Avraham raising his eyes and seeing the visitors. A person can look at another human being and see only a body, or recognize a life with kedushah within it. The work of ashrei includes changing that way of seeing. The collector's decision and the accounts of the Shapiros show how seriously people can take the conditions that affect their eyes.
The place between holy and forbidden
In Likutey Moharan 19, Rebbe Nachman describes three levels of language. Lashon hakodesh, the holy language of Torah, is associated with kedushah. The seventy languages are associated in this teaching with the forces opposed to kedushah. Targum stands between these levels.
This is a spiritual account of how the levels relate to one another. Targum can convey the Torah and make its meaning accessible. The Gemara Bavli and the Zohar themselves use Aramaic. Rebbe Nachman also describes the danger of this middle level: what stands between two sides can be drawn toward either of them.
The spiritual condition associated with Targum is called kelipas nogah. A kelipah is a covering that conceals kedushah. Nogah contains a mixture of good and evil. It differs from the three completely impure kelipos, which are associated with what the Torah forbids. Permitted food and other ordinary permitted activities belong to the area in which a person must choose how to use what is available.
The Eitz Hadaas is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Its name expresses this mixture. The work of a person in this world includes separating out the good and bringing it into the service of Hashem.
Take a cup of tea. The tea is kosher. The cup is an ordinary physical thing. A person makes a brachah, recognizes that what he has comes from Hashem, and uses the strength he receives for something good. The physical act becomes connected to kedushah. The same permitted enjoyment can also become part of a person's absorption in his own desires and draw him farther from Hashem.
Tanya explains this movement in chapter 7. Something permitted can be brought into kedushah through its purpose and use. A person can also draw it down through the way he uses it. Permission creates an area of avodah that requires attention.
The rav attributes to Reb Noson the teaching that this mixed area is a principal test of a tzaddik. Davening and learning are plainly directed toward kedushah. How does a person live when he leaves those activities? That question concerns his eating, business dealings, and the way he speaks to people.
He also draws a strong conclusion from the Tanya: permitted things can begin in this mixed condition, but the person's use of them gives them a direction. Calling an activity “ordinary” does not remove its spiritual consequences. A cup of tea can give a person strength to serve Hashem, or feed a life increasingly absorbed in desire.