Likutei Moharan 38:5/ליקוטי מוהר"ן ל״ח:ה׳

15. Now, when one elevates the spoken word to its source—i.e., to the gevurot —and begins speaking to His Creator with the flame of the gevurot and rouses himself to the service of God, then the light of the root of the gevurot —i.e., the warmth of the heart—moves inside. This is because the heart is the root of the gevurot, as is written, “My heart grew warm within me, in my meditation [a fire blazed]” (Psalms 39:4). And the true source of the spoken word’s truth is there, as is written, “and speaks the truth [that is] in his heart” (ibid. 15:2). Thus he starts speaking with the warmth in his heart—the true word in his heart.

2And when a person speaks the true words in his heart to His Creator, with an arousal for repentance, and he realizes <and recognizes> his own shortcomings and the Creator’s greatness—for until now he disregarded his sins and paid them no mind, but now he acknowledges them—then he is filled with great embarrassment for having seriously transgressed against the Master, Ruler, Essence and Root of all worlds.

3Now, this embarrassment is not yet manifest. In other words, the embarrassment is <still within him> and does not show on his face, <corresponding to,> “my face covered the shame” (Psalms 69:8). This is because this embarrassment precedes repentance. And this is known: There is no comparison between a villager and a city-dweller (Chagigah 13b). The closer he is to the king, the greater his embarrassment. And the more aware he is of the kings glory, the more he feels embarrassment before the king. But prior to repenting, his awareness is still limited and as a result his embarrassment is not manifest on his face. For his sins clog his intellect and awareness, because of the spirit-of-folly he has within him. As [our Sages] taught: A person only sins [when infected by a spirit-of-folly] (Sotah 3a).

4However, afterwards, when he repents <completely> and frees himself of foolishness—so that his intellect grows—then he becomes exceedingly embarrassed and the embarrassment shows on his face. And this embarrassment is an aspect of the light of the tefilin which becomes visible on his face, on his forehead. Thus the primary disclosure of embarrassment is on the forehead, as is written, “You had the forehead of a prostitute, you refused to be ashamed” (Jeremiah 3:3).

5{“Then you will understand the fear of God and attain awareness of the Lord” (Proverbs 2:5).} This is the explanation of “Then you will understand the fear of God” (Proverbs 2:5). As is brought in the holy Zohar (Tikkuney Zohar, Introduction, p.9b): Tefilin are an aspect of Imma (Mother) over her son. <And Imma is Binah, corresponding to “Em you call to Binah.”>

6This explains “Then you will understand”—i.e., by means of the added Binah (Understanding) that he will have in recognizing the Creator. Through this [he will have] “the fear of God”—i.e., the aspect of tefilin. As our Sages taught: “All the nations of the world will see that God’s name is associated with you, and they will fear you” (Deuteronomy 28:10) —this is tefilin (Berakhot 6a). For fear is embarrassment, as is written, ‘the fear of God be on your faces’—this is embarrassment (Nedarim 20a), which is on the face. In other words, it is the aspect of tefilin made by <added> Binah, which is “Imma over her son.”

7This is as our Sages taught (Berakhot 11a): Tefilin are called pe’er (glory), for it is said (Ezekiel 24:17), “Put on your pe’er.” And Pe ’ER is the encompassing of the colors, because hitPe’ARut (a show of pride) is through an encompassing of the colors, as is written, “Israel, in you etPa’ER (I take pride)” (Isaiah 49:3). For [the Jewish people] are comprised of many colors. And this is as we see, that when a person is embarrassed, he turns different colors.

8From this we are able to discern whether after rectifying the sin that person has fear of God, i.e., embarrassment—if, when we look at his face, we are subjected to fear and embarrassment. In other words, we are filled with awareness of the Creator’s greatness, blessed be His Name.

9This is the explanation of “Then you will understand the fear of God <and attain awareness of the Lord>.” The explanation is: With this you will understand that he possesses fear of God—<if you> “attain awareness of the Lord,” that is, when you too attain awareness of the Creator’s greatness, namely, embarrassment and fear. This corresponds to “All the nations of the world will see… and they will fear you”—i.e., when they are also filled with fear.