Why ten?
Tehillim contains different forms of song and prayer. Rebbe Nachman connects the ten chapters with ten forms of song. Their role in spiritual repair is developed in Likutey Moharan I:205 and II:92, the teachings the teacher identifies for the next part of the series.
This gives a starting point for understanding the number ten. It does not yet give a complete explanation of why precisely these chapters were chosen. The teacher begins the series with that limit in view and sets out to understand as much as possible through the teachings that follow.
The first shiur therefore gives the background and identifies the questions. The following shiurim are needed for the fuller explanation.
Mikveh, attention and the words themselves
The account in Sichot HaRan speaks about going to a mikveh, a ritual bath, in connection with this practice. It gives importance to going promptly, on the same day as the occurrence being discussed.
It also addresses someone who cannot go, such as a person who is ill or travelling. Reciting the chapters still has value in that situation. The account speaks about the ideal and also gives an instruction for someone who cannot meet it.
It distinguishes occurrences connected with bodily weakness, tiredness, eating and drinking, or how a person sleeps from those associated with daytime thoughts. The rav emphasizes that the former can be beyond the person’s control and need not become a cause of worry. The source’s distinctions must remain alongside its severe language about spiritual harm. An involuntary bodily event by itself does not establish that a person chose wrongdoing.
The rav recalls the teaching to guard one’s thoughts by day because they can affect the night. He also mentions sleeping on one’s side. These belong to the traditional discussion; the shiur is not a medical assessment of a particular person’s sleep or a basis for inferring consent or culpability from a bodily response.
The same is true of attention and feeling. Saying the chapters with kavana, attentive intention, is preferable. Saying the words also has value when that feeling is missing. Someone beginning the practice can take the actual words seriously and keep learning their meaning, without waiting to produce a particular emotion.
Repair and human nature
Rebbe Nachman also speaks about the difference between repairing harm and removing the underlying difficulty from human nature altogether. The account records his desire to remove the problem completely, followed by his explanation that a permanent change in human nature is a different matter.
The teacher dwells on that distinction. A tikkun gives a person a way to repair and continue. It does not mean that the human struggle disappears from the world. A person can therefore take repair seriously while still recognizing that further work lies ahead.
The rav adds the account in Yoma 69b of the attempt to restrain the inclination for sexual wrongdoing after the struggle against idolatry. When the inclination was held captive, even a fresh egg could not be found. The Sages could not simply destroy a drive needed for the world’s continuation. The passage ultimately describes a limitation on its power in relation to close relatives, not the abolition of every desire.
This distinction protects the meaning of the practice. The continuing existence of a struggle does not tell us that the work of repair has no meaning.
The special promise at Rebbe Nachman’s grave
The shiur also discusses Rebbe Nachman’s promise concerning someone who comes to his grave, says the ten chapters and gives tzedakah, charity. It is a particular promise with particular conditions, and should be kept distinct from saying Tikkun Klali elsewhere.
The teacher stresses the person’s commitment to leave a harmful path. The discussion places prayer together with a willingness to change. The promise should be learned in its actual context, with its conditions preserved. In the familiar image the rav repeats, the Rebbe will pull a person out by his peyos, even from the depths into which he has fallen. Sichos HaRan 141 records the undertaking to make every effort to save and repair the visitor who says the chapters and gives a coin to tzedakah. Chayei Moharan 225 explicitly includes the peyos image and the condition emphasized by the rav: from now on, the visitor must resolve not to return to his former wrongdoing.
This is introduced here as a subject for further discussion. It should not be expanded into an unconditional promise on behalf of the rav or this app.
Why can something simple be difficult?
Near the end of the account, Rebbe Nachman says that even the simple practice of saying ten chapters can be difficult to carry out. The teacher pauses over the point. The chapters are relatively short and some are already familiar, yet a person can meet resistance to doing it.
The shiur includes resistance to the teaching itself: a person may dismiss it because it is associated with Breslov. Reb Noson records the responsibility to make the teaching known, while leaving each person to decide whether to follow it.
The rav also describes people who make the reading a daily practice and a contemporary recommendation he heard that very morning. That reported counsel does not turn this introduction into a new universal daily obligation. The prescribed use after the occurrence under discussion, a voluntary daily practice, and the particular grave-related promise are related subjects with different contexts.
The simplicity of the action is part of its invitation. A person can open the chapters and begin. Understanding more of the teaching can deepen that reading, but the first action is available already.
Why preserve the attribution?
Reb Noson discusses books that mention the ten chapters without naming Rebbe Nachman. He explains that the teaching comes from Rebbe Nachman and should be said in his name. He also discusses the possibility that opposition led some writers to omit the attribution so that people would use the practice.
Sichos HaRan 141 specifically disputes an attribution in Seder Tikkun Shabbos, directing the reader to a book that names Rebbe Nachman. It does not establish that every similarly named collection necessarily contains a different set of chapters. Its concern here is who revealed this practice and whether that source has been acknowledged.
That is Reb Noson’s account of the teaching’s transmission. A complete historical claim about every printed edition would require checking those editions separately. For this learning path, the point is clear: the practice should be presented with its source and attribution intact.
Giving a teaching back to its source
The rav ends with the request to say the teaching in Rebbe Nachman’s name, so that his lips will move in the grave. Sanhedrin 90b gives the teaching that when a halachah is repeated in someone’s name, his lips move in the grave. It draws on Shir HaShirim:
וְחִכֵּךְ כְּיֵין הַטּוֹב הוֹלֵךְ לְדוֹדִי לְמֵישָׁרִים דּוֹבֵב שִׂפְתֵי יְשֵׁנִֽים׃
And your palate is like the finest wine, going smoothly to my beloved, moving the lips of those who sleep. — Song of Songs 7:10
The verse belongs to the song’s language of love and wine. Chazal read its final phrase as the lips of those who sleep, referring here to the departed. Reb Noson applies that teaching to preserving the Rebbe’s attribution. Naming the source lets the relationship between the teaching, its teacher, and the learner continue.
The first shiur leaves the learner with a concrete practice and a direction for the series. The coming explanations will investigate the ten forms of song and the work of repair. They begin with confidence that a person can return, together with the responsibility to use the help he has received.