SEEING THE TZADDIK

It says in Torah 4 of "Likutei Moharan" that, as soon as a person sees the tzaddik, they are cured of laziness and depression, as well as of any evil desires they might have had. This is because the tzaddik is called the mother of the Jewish people: he takes care of them and teaches them Torah which is compared to milk. So the people are like a child who, as soon as he sees his mother, forgets all his petty hurts and childish games and runs to her happily.

Now, "seeing the tzaddik" is understood as studying his seforim and trying to implement his advice. So recently I had a thought: "Hey, I've been doing all that for more than two years already, and I haven't seen that much progress! Can it be that this just doesn't work, or that I have been doing it wrong?"

But then I looked at this parable from a different angle. A child will only be happy to see his mother if he is not sick. Yet if he is in pain, he might start crying even harder, just to let her know how miserable he is. Then again, if a child is autistic, he might be in perfect physical health and still pay absolutely no attention to his mother.

This probably means that a lot of healing needs to take place before we (or at least some of us) can really see the results promised in this Torah. First, the tzaddik has to work on us to make us truly capable of receiving from him and benefitting from his advice. Yet, however long it takes, as true Breslovers, we need to believe that this healing is constantly taking place and that we will all get there in the end.

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