The circumstances matter
Before discussing the inner meaning of the tikkun, we need to keep a distinction made in Sichos HaRan 141. A nocturnal emission can arise from bodily circumstances, including eating, drinking, weakness, tiredness, or the way a person sleeps. The source explicitly reassures a person about those cases.
The discussion then turns to a case associated with the thoughts and sights a person has chosen during the day. The event occurs during sleep, while the connection under discussion begins in waking life. Chazal discuss this relationship in Avodah Zarah 20b.
This also differs from a deliberate physical act. Likutey Moharan 205 opens with mikreh laylah, a nocturnal occurrence. The opening passage has its own subject. The application to other forms of damage needs its own discussion.
The tikkun described there is to say ten chapters of Tehillim on the day of the occurrence. In the first revelation, Rebbe Nachman spoke of ten chapters before revealing which particular chapters to choose. The later teaching identifies the ten that we now know as Tikkun HaKlali.
A power meant to create life
The bris concerns a person's capacity to give life. The body's creative power is entrusted with the possibility of bringing another human being into the world. This is a tremendous power, and its proper use belongs within the Torah's direction for marriage.
There is an aspect here of resembling the Creator. A whole human life can develop from a tiny beginning. The responsibility comes with the power that has been entrusted to the person.
The Torah describes husband and wife becoming one:
עַל־כֵּן יַעֲזָב־אִישׁ אֶת־אָבִיו וְאֶת־אִמּוֹ וְדָבַק בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ וְהָיוּ לְבָשָׂר אֶחָד׃
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Bereishis 2:24)
Likutey Moharan describes a misused power as becoming caught in a kelipah, a covering or force that conceals kedushah. Tikkun includes recovering that power from where it has become caught and returning it to its proper place.
The Arizal's descriptions use the language of a giver and a receiver, often called zachar and nekeivah. These terms describe a relationship between an influence and a vessel capable of receiving it. In the proper relationship, a powerful influence is received within a fitting vessel and can bring life into the world.
The account of damage describes a power sent out without that fitting receiver. It is then received by the opposing spiritual force. This language includes a connection between each drop and a neshamah, a soul, even when no child has been physically conceived. The sefarim describe harmful spiritual consequences, including mazikim, destructive beings or forces. The rav says that he cannot claim to understand even a drop of the depth of this description. We are learning enough of the language to follow what Rebbe Nachman says the tikkun accomplishes.
The comparison in Tanya chapter 7 makes another distinction. A forbidden relationship can produce a lasting physical consequence, such as a child born with the halachic status of a mamzer. Teshuvah does not erase the child's existence. In the other case under discussion, the spiritual power has been dispersed without a corresponding physical recipient. The forms of damage differ. The rav stresses that in another respect the dispersed power can cause greater spiritual damage: without a fitting recipient to contain it, it can spread without that boundary. He does not reduce the seriousness of this loss while affirming that it can be repaired.
Tanya 7 holds those two points together. It describes a great proliferation of kelipos, yet also explains that proper teshuvah and intense kavannah in the bedtime Shema can recover the life-force. Its note distinguishes the life-force being clothed by the forces of kelipah from being absorbed in its female principle through a forbidden relationship. The rav’s broader picture of an opposing receiver also has a parallel in Shaar HaPesukim, Shemos, which speaks of the female forces of kelipah receiving the drops. These are related descriptions with different wording and contexts; the Tanya’s precise distinction should remain visible.
This comparison concerns aspects of spiritual damage. It supplies no permission to choose one transgression over another and establishes no practical ranking of what a person should do. Both the damage and the way of repair must be understood in the terms the sources give.
Why Tehillim?
Rebbe Nachman connects the word Tehillim, written תהלים, with the kelipah associated with this damage. The numerical value of תהלים is 485. The name of that opposing force has a value of 480; adding its five letters gives 485.
The numerical connection expresses the opposition between the force that holds the power captive and the Tehillim through which it is recovered. Rebbe Nachman then connects Tehillim to two Divine Names, written here as Kel and Elokim.
To follow the calculation, we need the meaning of milui. A Hebrew letter can be written as a single letter or spelled out by its letter-name. Aleph by itself has the value 1. Spelled out as aleph, lamed, peh, it has the value 111. Lamed by itself has the value 30. Spelled out as lamed, mem, daled, it has the value 74.
For the Name written here as Kel, those two spelled-out letters total 185. In the spelling of the second Name used in this teaching, the spelled-out letters total 300. Together, 185 and 300 make 485, the value of תהלים.
Some letters can be spelled out in more than one way. The letter hei, for example, has several milui spellings. The calculation here depends on the particular spelling given in the source. It is a specific calculation, with a specific meaning attached to it.
Chesed and gevurah in the same act
Kel is associated with chesed, giving and the flow of influence. Elokim is associated with gevurah. The creative act brings these two qualities together.
The desire to give, the relationship between husband and wife, and the possibility of creating life all express chesed. Chesed is often associated with water, which flows outward. A failing in this area can also be understood as a distortion of that outward movement, a power of giving that has escaped its proper direction.
The comparison with Yishmael develops this idea. Avraham is associated with chesed, and Yishmael is described here as a distorted expression of that quality. Chazal associate his conduct with forbidden relationships. The power of chesed can therefore be misdirected even while it retains its force.
Gevurah has more than one aspect in this discussion. Rebbe Nachman speaks of the heat involved in the act. Heat and fire express intensity and passion. That intensity participates in the same creative power as the flow associated with chesed.
Gevurah also means strength in setting a limit. The flow needs a fitting vessel and the boundaries through which it can be used properly. A person's avodah therefore involves both the power to give and the strength to direct that giving.
When Hashem speaks to Avraham about the bris, the Torah uses the Names written here as Kel and Shakai:
וַיְהִי אַבְרָם בֶּן־תִּשְׁעִים שָׁנָה וְתֵשַׁע שָׁנִים וַיֵּרָא ה׳ אֶל־אַבְרָם וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי א־ל ש־די הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים׃
Avram was ninety-nine years old. Hashem appeared to Avram and said to him, “I am Kel Shakai; walk before Me and be wholehearted.” (Bereishis 17:1)
Chazal explain Shakai through the words “He who said to His world, enough.” The Name is connected here to the ability to set a boundary. Kel points to chesed. The relationship of these qualities belongs to the place of the bris.
The same connection appears in the words chesed Kel:
מַה־תִּתְהַלֵּל בְּרָעָה הַגִּבּוֹר חֶסֶד א־ל כָּל־הַיּוֹם׃
Why do you boast of evil, mighty man? The kindness of Kel endures all day. (Tehillim 52:3)
A shortened form can express a different quality from the longer Name. The verse associated here with the Name written as Kah speaks of chastening:
יַסֹּר יִסְּרַנִּי ק־הּ וְלַמָּוֶת לֹא נְתָנָנִי׃
Kah has chastened me severely, yet has not given me over to death. (Tehillim 118:18)
The point is to pay attention to the particular Name and the quality the source associates with it. In this tikkun, Kel and Elokim bring the discussion back to chesed and gevurah together.
Giving the power its proper direction
The avodah of shemiras habris needs that relationship between giving and restraint. A person's marriage has a place in avodas Hashem. His attention to what he looks at and thinks about during the day also has a place. Boundaries protect the capacity for a proper relationship.
The celibacy associated with Catholic religious life gives an example of abstention. In the Torah's account of marriage, the work includes bringing the bodily power into the kedushah of a mitzvah. Unrestricted desire also fails to give that power its proper direction.
The word chesed can even appear in the Torah's description of a forbidden relationship:
וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־יִקַּח אֶת־אֲחֹתוֹ בַּת־אָבִיו אוֹ בַת־אִמּוֹ וְרָאָה אֶת־עֶרְוָתָהּ וְהִיא־תִרְאֶה אֶת־עֶרְוָתוֹ חֶסֶד הוּא וְנִכְרְתוּ לְעֵינֵי בְּנֵי עַמָּם עֶרְוַת אֲחֹתוֹ גִּלָּה עֲוֺנוֹ יִשָּׂא׃
If a man takes his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace. They shall be cut off in the sight of their people; he has uncovered his sister's nakedness and shall bear his guilt. (Vayikra 20:17)
In the verse's plain meaning, chesed describes a disgrace. The Baal Shem Tov also reads the word through the spiritual quality called chesed. A capacity meant for giving has been drawn into the wrong relationship. Its repair requires direction and a fitting boundary.
The practice of washing with warm water before Shabbos supplies a further illustration. Shaar HaKavanot, Drushei Shabbos, includes washing the face, hands, and feet in warm water among the preparations for Shabbos. The rav uses taking a warm shower as his contemporary illustration. He connects the water with chesed and its warmth with fire and gevurah, calling their union a tikkun for the imbalance under discussion. That stronger spiritual claim is his explanation of the practice; the washing passage itself establishes the preparation without spelling out this entire comparison. It gives no reason to use water hot enough to cause harm.
This also connects to the description of our generation as Erev Shabbos, a time associated in the teaching with yesod, the quality of relationship expressed through the bris. The work of preparation includes directing the power of relationship toward kedushah.
Likutey Moharan 205 asks us to have Kel and Elokim in mind when saying these chapters. The two Names belong to the explanation of what is being repaired: chesed and gevurah meet within the same creative power. Through Tehillim, that power is brought back toward its proper place.