The Secret of the Good Point: Nothing is More Complete Than a Broken Heart

So what exactly should we do? Look at the evil within us or ignore it? Give it a place in our lives or not? This can be very confusing. We're reading a book that's supposed to connect us to our good points, yet so far we've been dealing with negative points and negative forces within us.

Beyond that – even if I need to see the evil in order to work through it – do I need to deal with it all the time? Feel my pain, confusion, and frustration all day long?

Rabbi Nachman's short answer is – no. For twenty-three hours a day, be joyful and maintain good desires, and for one hour allow yourself to have a broken heart.

"Although a broken heart is also very good, nevertheless it should only be for a certain hour, and it is proper to set aside a specific hour of the day to break one's heart and pour out one's speech before Hashem, as we have mentioned, but the entire rest of the day one must be in joy" (Likutei Moharan, 24).

What is a broken heart? What's the difference between a broken heart and sadness?

With a broken heart, a person looks inward and sees things they want to change. Things they're really not happy with. When someone tries, for example, not to get angry, and works on controlling their anger, and then in a moment of crisis falls back into it and yells at their children out of anger – that's a broken heart. It hurts. And if you give it space – it hurts a lot.

A broken heart is not despair. It's the opposite of despair. In fact, it's a state of hope and willingness to see the difficulty, take a breath, admit that I need help, that I want to change. A broken heart is understanding and believing that even though I'm far from where I want to be – I can still get there. But I'm not pretending everything is fine. I'm not acting as if nothing happened. If I decided to stop getting angry and I exploded again – it's not okay and I need to fix it. But first, I need to allow myself to feel the pain of it, so that the desire for change awakens within me.

And sadness? In sadness, I see difficulties that seem like mountains and despair, or worse – blame others. In sadness, I release my responsibility for my emotional state and attribute everything to others. I blame them. I remember how wonderful and painful it was when I realized that many times, instead of listening to someone trying to help me – I only defend myself, dig into my position, and even blame them for what I'm going through. This happened, for instance, with a friend who tried to show me something in my writing that he thought was too superficial and external. Instead of listening to him and trying to understand what the real problem was - I accused him of being jealous and wanting to ruin everything for me.

For me, this was an explosion of internal pain that I refused to take emotional responsibility for. Like a burning hot potato I couldn't hold and tried to throw at my friend. After I realized I was doing this, I began to see how it happens in many other areas of my life, and I felt shame in double and triple portions. An internal contraction facing my behavior, behavior that was shaped years ago and still active within me. And it was precisely this shame that melted the hardness of my heart and brought softness and reflection. My desire to change for the better, to stop hurting others, became sharper and stronger. Not to harm especially those who want what's best for me, which I often refuse to recognize.

Did this solve the issue? Did everything get sorted out and I simply stopped reacting that way at that moment? No. But it gave me direction for prayer and self-work, and also for support. It gave me hope. Precisely when I saw how difficult the situation was, how I wasn't seeing what was happening around me but reacting in ways not necessarily related to others – it was then, when I agreed to accept it, to see it, that I received a gift. A broken heart.

A broken heart is a wonderful thing. It is said in the name of the Kotzker Rebbe: "Nothing is more complete than a broken heart." The broken heart is the place of your heart's truth at that moment, of the infinite lack in the face of the tremendous potential that lies within each of us.

The acceptance of despair is what turns the broken and sensitive heart into a heart full of sadness, despair, and melancholy – which are negative and do not lead to hope, joy, or desire.

The broken heart leads to desire. It can create tremendous forces in a person, but even it – Rabbi Nachman explains – must be contained within boundaries. One hour a day and no more!

When should one allow the heart to be broken? During hitbodedut (personal prayer).

Exercise:

Do I allow myself to encounter my broken heart?

Try to reflect on your life journey. Do you dedicate time to meeting with the broken heart, with the place inside you that feels the lack? Do you dedicate enough time to it? Or perhaps too much time?

Does the broken heart cross boundaries, filling significant portions of your day and turning into sadness and despair?

From the book "The Secret of the Good Point", by Ran Weber, writer, therapist, and workshop facilitator in the spirit of Hasidism. Contact: ranweber@gmail.com