אות-צו

The commanding power of speech

Words of the mouth have enormous power, as we can see by what our Sages o.b.m. constituted for us, that whoever dreamed a not good dream, should better it <yitteyvennue> in front of three people, saying to them: “a good dream I saw,” several times, and with this we see the wondrous potency of speech, that even though in reality he dreamed a bad dream, even still through the mayteevim (-those who make it better) saying to him verbally, “a good dream you saw,” several times, with this they have the power (to effect) that the dream will be in fact good, (and) to turn around from bad to good. It comes out, that it can be seen from this how great the power of holy speech is, because speech has enormous power to turn around the person himself from bad to good, because the main victory of the battle is through speech which is the main weapon of Israel, because our strength is only with our mouth (see Bamidbar Rabba, 20:4), as mentioned above. And this is the main weapon of Messiah (as explained in Likutay Moharan, Torah 2) and of all the true tzaddikim, for their arsenal is just (armed) with prayer and holy speech. And likewise the essential nullification of the forgetfulness, and to merit to holy memory, to bind one's mind to the future world, generally and particularly, consummately, is only by means of speech, as our Rabbis o.b.m. said (Megila 18a), “Zuchor (- that which the Torah commands to “remember” the Sabbath, is meant to be fulfilled) – with the mouth.” And as can be seen empirically also with regard to regular study, that through reviewing one's studies (mishna) many times out loud (see Eruvin 53b-54a), through this he always remembers what he learned. And likewise, this is also the case regarding remembering (-consciousness of) the future world, as mentioned above, that the main aitza (-advice, remedy) to merit to this is to review (the mention of) this remembrance (-consciousness) with word of mouth, to frequently speak aloud about it everyday: “What will be the tachlis (-ultimate end – What will I amount to) of me in the future world? What will be my end? For did I come here to situate myself permanently Heaven forbid in this world? Behold everyone knows that there is no permanence in this world which is transitory, and speeds by, and is very ephemeral, and I didn't come here except to prepare myself for the future world etc..” And therefore it is necessary to learn a great deal of books of mussar (-moral, morale, and ethics) which are built upon the foundations of our holy faith, because the holy books of mussar remind well of the tachlis (-ultimate purpose) of the future world. And similarly it is necessary to do a lot of hisbodidus everyday, and to speak with oneself aloud of the tachlis (-ultimate purpose) of the future world, as mentioned above, because speech has great power to bring remembrance (-higher consciousness) to a person. And this is the aspect of (Jeremiah 31:20, and see above article 62), “because as I speak of him, I strongly remember him ever more.”