Why the different forms of song matter
The ten forms of song are discussed before Rebbe Nachman’s selection of the ten chapters. Rashi’s opening comment on Tehillim and Pesachim 117a list forms of praise and song. The teacher notes that the lists are expressed differently in different sources. They should not be flattened into one identical list without checking the text being learned.
Likutey Moharan 205 connects the ten chapters with those ten forms. Within the kabbalistic account, each form counters a particular aspect of the harm. The shiur also introduces their correspondence with the ten sefiros, a subject to be developed rather than fully explained here.
The teacher previews the imagery of the ten arrows and the princess in the story of the Seven Beggars. The point of that preview is that distinct aspects of the repair need their distinct responses. The rav stresses that eight or nine do not supply the whole tenfold repair.
One detail of the preview needs a distinction from the printed story. The king’s forces shoot the princess with the poisoned arrows; the beggar without hands can draw all ten kinds back out and heal her through the ten kinds of song. The rav’s brief image of arrows directed against different parts of the harm anticipates that tenfold work. It should not turn the healer into the attacker. The full episode and its explanation have not yet been taught in this recording.
In this shiur, the sustained explanation begins with ashrei, one of the expressions found in Tehillim. The remaining expressions are left for later discussion.
Ashrei and learning to see
Ashrei ordinarily expresses being fortunate or praiseworthy. The teaching connects its root with seeing and looking. The verse supplies the word ashurenu:
אֶרְאֶנּוּ וְלֹא עַתָּה אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ וְלֹא קָרוֹב דָּרַךְ כּוֹכָב מִֽיַּעֲקֹב וְקָם שֵׁבֶט מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל וּמָחַץ פַּאֲתֵי מוֹאָב וְקַרְקַר כׇּל־בְּנֵי־שֵֽׁת׃
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star has stepped forth from Yaakov, and a scepter has risen from Israel; he shall crush the corners of Moav and break down all the children of Sheis. — Numbers 24:17
Bilam is speaking of a future figure whom he sees from afar. The relevant point here is the language of seeing. The rav and his listeners briefly work to recall its wording; the complete verse makes that phrase clear.
The teacher brings the opening of Likutey Moharan. A Jew should look for the seichel, the inner wisdom, within each thing and connect with it as a way of drawing close to Hashem. Seeing, in this explanation, includes the way a person understands what stands before him.
A person can be caught by the external appearance of things. That is the image of the kelipah, the shell. He sees the outside and relates to it as though it were the whole reality. The teacher gives the example of judging people only by how they look on the surface.
The work of seeing more deeply is to notice that there is more to the person and to the world. The Torah connects the heart and eyes with how a person strays:
וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְצִיצִת וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת־כׇּל־מִצְוֺת ה׳ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְלֹֽא־תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵֽינֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר־אַתֶּם זֹנִים אַחֲרֵיהֶֽם׃
It shall be tzitzis for you: you shall see it, remember all the commandments of Hashem, and do them. You shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes, after which you go astray. — Numbers 15:39
The order in the verse is heart and then eyes. The rav’s explanation considers the way outward appearances capture a person’s attention and draw desire after them. Ashrei is connected here with that form of sight. The words of Tehillim call a person toward a way of seeing that counters the hold of the external.
The shiur associates this way of seeing with Yaakov and Yosef. It connects Yaakov’s completeness in personal holiness, the description of Reuven as the first of his strength and the connection passed on to Yosef. The verse about Reuven reads:
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. — Genesis 49:3
Rashi reads “the first of my strength” as Yaakov’s first emission, connecting it with his personal holiness. The familiar description of Yaakov’s bed as complete also concerns the wholeness of his family. The rav brings these associations into his account of integrity and inner sight; they should not be compressed into a new diagnosis of another person’s involuntary bodily life.
The opening of Yosef’s story places him beside Yaakov:
אֵלֶּה ׀ תֹּלְדוֹת יַעֲקֹב יוֹסֵף בֶּן־שְׁבַֽע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת־אֶחָיו בַּצֹּאן וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת־בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת־בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה נְשֵׁי אָבִיו וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת־דִּבָּתָם רָעָה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶֽם׃
These are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef, seventeen years old, was tending the flock with his brothers. He was a youth with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Yosef brought a bad report about them to their father. — Genesis 37:2
In the rav’s reading, the inner way of seeing passes from Yaakov to Yosef. He also returns to the blessing of Yosef:
בְּכוֹר שׁוֹרוֹ הָדָר לוֹ וְקַרְנֵי רְאֵם קַרְנָיו בָּהֶם עַמִּים יְנַגַּח יַחְדָּו אַפְסֵי־אָרֶץ וְהֵם רִבְבוֹת אֶפְרַיִם וְהֵם אַלְפֵי מְנַשֶּֽׁה׃
His firstborn ox has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he gores peoples together to the ends of the earth; they are the myriads of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Menashe. — Deuteronomy 33:17
Likutey Moharan I:1 reads bechor through wisdom and shor through the language of looking. The connection he is following is the use of sight to find the seichel within things, not a claim that the whole blessing has been explained here.
Likutey Moharan 205:2 also brings the weakening of Yitzchak’s sight and the spelling of me’oros in the creation account into its discussion of damaged sight and the kelipah. The first verse reads:
וַֽיְהִי כִּֽי־זָקֵן יִצְחָק וַתִּכְהֶיןָ עֵינָיו מֵרְאֹת וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־עֵשָׂו ׀ בְּנוֹ הַגָּדֹל וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו בְּנִי וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּֽנִי׃
When Yitzchak had grown old and his eyes had dimmed from seeing, he called Esav his older son and said to him: My son. He said to him: Here I am. — Genesis 27:1
The creation verse reads:
וַיֹּאמֶר אלוקים יְהִי מְאֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַיּוֹם וּבֵין הַלָּיְלָה וְהָיוּ לְאֹתֹת וּלְמוֹעֲדִים וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִֽים׃
Hashem said: Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, for appointed times, for days, and for years. — Genesis 1:14
The source draws on the phrase about weakened sight and on the defective spelling of me’oros, associated in its derash with a curse and the opposing force. The rav also recalls the moon’s dissatisfaction in the traditional account of its diminution. These are allusions within a kabbalistic reading of sight. They do not make Yitzchak’s age-related difficulty an accusation against him, or provide a general moral diagnosis of visual disability.
Seeing and knowing what one has seen
Likutey Moharan 254 speaks about the loftiness of the eyes and the difference between seeing something and knowing what has been seen. Its example is an object passing before the eyes very quickly. The source uses that gap to explain how a person’s spiritual perception can exceed what he consciously knows.
The teacher illustrates this with cars passing rapidly on a road. A person may have had his eyes open throughout and still be unable to report every detail. The rav describes this through or yashar and or chozer, an outward and returning light, and briefly calls it scientific as well. The distinction must remain clear: ordinary vision works through light entering the eye, signals from the retina, and processing in the brain. The National Eye Institute describes that physical process. The outward-ray description here belongs to the shiur’s spiritual model, not a verified account of physical eyesight. He applies the illustration to the possibility of a deeper perception that has not become clear to the person.
Hagar provides another example in the shiur:
וַיִּפְקַח אלוקים אֶת־עֵינֶיהָ וַתֵּרֶא בְּאֵר מָיִם וַתֵּלֶךְ וַתְּמַלֵּא אֶת־הַחֵמֶת מַיִם וַתַּשְׁקְ אֶת־הַנָּֽעַר׃
Hashem opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. — Genesis 21:19
The emphasis is on being enabled to see what was there. The teacher also points to Avraham lifting his eyes and seeing at the beginning of Vayera:
וַיִּשָּׂא עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה שְׁלֹשָׁה אֲנָשִׁים נִצָּבִים עָלָיו וַיַּרְא וַיָּרׇץ לִקְרָאתָם מִפֶּתַח הָאֹהֶל וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ אָֽרְצָה׃
He lifted his eyes and saw: three men were standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed toward the ground. — Genesis 18:2
He connects this with the tradition of tzaddikim who perceive beyond the surface, mentioning the Chozeh and the Baal Shem Tov. The rav repeats a biographical tradition about the Chozeh’s limitation in one eye; that detail remains an oral attribution here.
His claim goes beyond exceptional tzaddikim. He says that the neshamah naturally sees far more than ordinary awareness can report. The tzaddik’s perception, in his account, makes something of that deeper seeing available. The person who sees a visitor or looks at a kvitel can perceive beyond the person’s clothing and outward appearance. These claims are presented as religious teachings and traditions. They are not a promise that a particular exercise will give a reader supernatural sight.
The work described in this shiur is to use the eyes and the mouth with greater holiness: seeing beyond the shell and speaking in a way that gives something good. Those powers are brought together in the account of how Tehillim participates in repair.