The Breslov approach to Tikkun Habrit
Taken from www.breslovworld.com

Very often, a spiritual decline is preparation for a significant ascent, as Rebbe Nachman and Reb Nosson often remind us in their writings.

 

If a person failed to break his fall in time and has transgressed clear prohibitions, he must be prepared to deal even with this. In Likutei Moharan II:12, Rebbe Nachman tells us that when one is in the lowest of depths, stuck in the mire, he has a special opportunity to find the highest levels of holiness which are hidden there - but only if he is firmly resolved to search for God.

 

Not only is despair pointless, it can also lead to falling to further depths. But how can anyone escape despair when he  understands the seriousness of these moral transgressions? How can a person not despair when the Zohar (219b) states that repentance does not help when it comes to the sin of Er and Onan?

 

Rebbe Nachman states (Sichot Haran 71) that the Zohar should not be understood literally. Repentance always helps, and the main thing is not to repeat one's wrong doing.

 

Rebbe Nachman declared that one can completely rectify this sin if after repenting he goes to the mikveh and then recites ten particular Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150) to rectify the damage of that transgression. (Earlier tzaddikim attempted to find ways to rectify this sin. See for example the Shl"a and Yesod Yosef, written by Rabbi Yosef ben Shlomo of Posen, dealing mainly with this topic. But they would not guarantee that their recommendations would completely correct the problem). Afterwards, a person should continue striving towards perfection without worrying about this episode.

 

These ten Psalms are known as the Tikkun Haklali. In Likutei Moharan I:29 Rabbi Nachman explained that to rectify all of a persons transgressions is very difficult, but if he can rectify the trangressions associated with the Brit, which encompasses all the other transgressions, he will thus rectify all of them. Therefore rectification of the Brit is called the general rectification – Tikkun Haklali.

 

In addition, Rebbe Nachman stated that these ten Psalms  have a special power and declared before two witnesses that if a person recites these Psalms at his grave in Uman and donates a pruta (a tiny amount of money) to charity in Rebbe Nachman's honor, then Rebbe Nachman will make every effort to help that person escape from the depths, no matter how deeply he had fallen.

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Click here for the Ten Pslams of the Tikkun Haklali on-line.