Shuvu Bonim

   A person must reveal the deep advice through which he will be able to escape the deepest pits of hell, as it is written, “Counsel is like deep water in the heart of man” (Mishle 20:5). The most important thing is that a person is crying out to Hashem day and night. Every hour, he should cry out to Hashem, to draw down the advice by crying out. “And they cried out to Hashem in their distress” (Tehillim 107:6), because all advice is revealed though crying out to Hashem. Baruch Hashem, we’re eating well and sleeping well. We’re drinking and we’re happy. Everything is great—it should last until 120 years—until a million years! But the question is where will all this eating and drinking get us? If we don’t cry out to Hashem, to where will it bring us? When we’re eating and drinking and sleeping well, then automatically we lose our orientation—our sense of direction! Breslov is all about shouting out to Hashem. Everyone shouts out to Hashem to get out of his own personal hell, to escape from his forbidden gazing and his forbidden thoughts. Everyone needs to cry out to Hashem to reveal the advice of Rabbeinu. “Counsel is like deep water in the heart of man.” A person needs to reveal the “nachal novea—the flowing river.” Rabbeinu is the flowing river, gushing springs of advice, but a person has to dig a little—just a few centimeters! If a person will give one true cry, then whole geysers of good counsel will emerge—there will be rivers full. All the advice will be revealed to him on how to escape from his own personal hell.
   When a person is in public, he can cry out a silent cry. “From the depths I cried out to You, Hashem.” This is the heart’s cry from the depths. All advice is drawn though the “voices.” There are seven voices: “the voice of Hashem on the water, the voice of Hashem hewing out flames of fire, the voice of Hashem making the desert tremble…the voice of Hashem causing hinds to calve and stripping the forest bare” (Tehillim 29). These are such powerful voices, voices that strip the forests bare, that uproot trees. There are such cries, cries that can uproot trees—these are the kinds of cries that we need to cry out to Hashem!
   When Hashem gave the Torah, he gave it with such a voice that the entire world was shaking. All the mountains were uprooted from their places. We need to awaken the seven voices of the Giving of the Torah at every moment. Hashem can give you such voices, such screams that all the mountains would be uprooted from their places. All of our foreign ideas, all of our bad habits and desires—all the bad that you inherited though your genes—it all will be uprooted from its place. Reb Shmuel Shapira, one of the great Breslover Hassidim, would shout from Ma’ariv until the morning until he would be throwing up blood. His veins would be bursting from his throat and literally spilling blood, and still he would cry to Hashem. In this merit he had such holy and pure children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We need to return to the Breslov of old, to cry out to Hashem and shout until the advice is revealed. The advice is revealed though the voice of Hashem, because Hashem is speaking to us every moment and every second. Hashem is shouting to us all the time. When a person cries out to Hashem, he awakens the upper voice and all the deep advice on how to get out of the hell he is going through. So even though a person has long pa’os and a long beard, everything is wonderful! He has wonderful appearance, but if he doesn’t cry out to Hashem, then he will be stuck in hell with his pa’os and his beard.
   If you merited becoming a ba’al teshuva, then prove that you’re a real ba’al teshuva—prove it! Cry out to Hashem. Don’t leave your Gemara. Don’t leave the Likutei Halachos or your siddur. Cry out to Hashem, “I don’t want to fall any further! I don’t want to go to places that I once went to, and I don’t want my children to go what I went through!” Now, you’re a captive—you’re in the pit of hell. Eisav hunted and captured you. The klippos captured you. Cry out to Hashem, “I implore You, Hashem, please deliver me!” “Hashem save me!” You weren’t born a tzaddik. You are already 20 years old and only just now starting to learn, and it is a million times harder to start learning at this age. A million times. But the reward will also be a million times greater. The harder it is, the greater the reward. If you will just cry out to Hashem, this will build the world—wars will be cancelled. If you will just cry out to Hashem you will bring back a thousand people in teshuva. To achieve anything in holiness, you need to cry out and shout to the heart of the heavens. Obviously you have no desire to learn, obviously you have no desire to pray. Can a person change in an instant? He is the same as he used to be, just in a different form. He hasn't changed inside—he just put on a streimel and a long coat. A person says, well if that is all there is, then what did I make teshuva for? But in truth, you became a ba’al teshuva so that you would cry out to Hashem, so that you would shout to Hashem. And this is the advantage of being a ba’al teshuva: that it’s hard for him to learn Gemara. It’s hard for him to pray. It’s hard for him to sing the Shabbas songs. It’s hard for him to stay in yeshiva for so many hours. So that is why he has to shout and shout. And through this he merits to go up to the very highest places, says the Zohar. He goes up to the Sefira of Binah, where the secret of the redemption is. But a person from Meah Shearim who was born a tzaddik, what does he have to shout about? He sings the Shabbas songs out loud; he prays; he sits calmly in yeshiva. He doesn’t feel that he needs cry out to Hashem. He is simply doing what comes naturally to him. So, the Zohar says, he can go up only as high as the Sefira of Yesod. But in truth, even a person who was born in Meah Shearim can achieve the aspect of being a ba’al teshuva. Also he can scream out to Hashem just like a ba’al teshuva, but this can happen only if he merits feeling that he is truly deficient, that also he is still far away from Hashem.
   A person must believe that Hashem wants to do miracles and wonders for him at every moment, as it is written, “and for his wonders to the children of man” (Tehillim 107:8). Hashem wants to do the most wondrous things for us. “In You our fathers trusted…to You they cried out and were delivered” (Tehillim 22:5-6). The wonders and miracles are according to one’s cries and shouts, because the salvation of a person is ready and waiting to take place, every minute and second. No matter what kind of trouble he is in, no matter what place he is in—even in the heart of the sea or in the middle of the desert—Hashem has arranged everything that he will need to assist him. His salvation is already prepared for him! He just needs to really cry out to Hashem, just one true cry.