Likutei Moharan, Part II 72:8/ליקוטי מוהר"ן·תנינא ע״ב:ח׳

18. And this leads to returning to God, because repentance is mainly generated by embarrassment. Thus, on account of the leader who is a “Moshe,” who gazes into each person and causes his mind to shine, so that he merits Torah interpretations, i.e., original Torah insights—through this, embarrassment is drawn to each person.

2Each person then perceives his own shame and humiliation, for transgression is certainly very embarrassing. This is because sin is totally inappropriate for a Jew, and it is certainly entirely unbecoming for a Jew to transgress, God forbid.

3But also a mitzvah—when a person wants to perform some mitzvah, he ought to also feel greatly embarrassed. What right does he have to perform the mitzvah? How does he dare to enter the Chamber of the King to perform the mitzvah? He should reflect on the greatness of the One before Whom he performs the mitzvah, and also the significance of the mitzvah itself. For the mitzvah itself is very precious, incomprehensibly so. And so certainly a person ought to be flooded with great embarrassment when he is about to perform a mitzvah, when he looks at himself and sees that he is very distant from God and has no merit that would make him worthy of performing it.

4A person who felt embarrassment would be ashamed even to take the food to put into his mouth, because whoever eats what belongs to another is embarrassed to look him in the face (Yerushalmi, Orlah 1, p.6a). And now that he hasn’t any merit to have food, he consequently eats what is not his and is embarrassed to look into another’s face. Thus, he should certainly be ashamed to even put the food into his mouth.

5Yet, mainly, the embarrassment is drawn through the aforementioned leader, the concept of Moshe, who draws Torah interpretations to each one. Through this he draws embarrassment upon each one, as during the Giving of the Torah, when Moshe drew the Torah to the Jews. It is stated there: “and in order that His fear be upon your face, so that you do not sin” (Exodus 20:17)—and as our Sages, of blessed memory, expounded: this is embarrassment (Nedarim 20a). And this is “so that you do not sin”—i.e., they should feel shame so as not to commit an unintentional- or an intentional-sin, God forbid.

6And also even “so that you do not sin,” when not committing a transgression, His fear must be on one’s face—i.e., shame. For even when a person performs a mitzvah, he must also feel great embarrassment, as mentioned above. How can he come and snatch the tefilin, the very crowns of the King, and suddenly put them on his head? He certainly ought to feel great embarrassment when about to perform some mitzvah. This embarrassment is drawn through the Torah interpretations, by means of the aforementioned leader, as it was during the Giving of the Torah, as mentioned above.

7Therefore, when the Torah was given, the entire Jewish people merited holiness and abstinence, as it is written (Exodus 19:15), “Ready yourselves for three days. Do not go near a woman.” They all sanctified themselves by means of abstinence, through Moshe, who was holy and exceedingly abstinent. He drew the Torah to them through this, and so holiness and abstinence, too, were drawn over them.

8And when people merit feeling embarrassment, each person then perceives his distance from God—how he is very far from Him. He is flooded with great shame, and as a result of the shame, repents. For repentance is mainly generated by embarrassment. And, conceptually, repentance is life, the concept of “Return, and live” (Ezekiel 18:32). This is the concept of the eternal life of the World to Come/Shabbat, the concept of “those who taste her merit life.”

9This is also BeReIShiYT—YaReI BoSheT (fear, embarrassment), YaReI ShaBbaT (fear, Shabbat) (Tikkuney Zohar #7, p.24a; ibid. #9, p.24b). Fear and embarrassment—i.e., the concept of repentance—correspond to Shabbat, the eternal life of the World to Come. And essentially, what will live is each person’s lowliness, because it is that lowliness which will be restored to life and resurrected, as mentioned above. Therefore, by virtue of the repentance/eternal life of the World to Come, the lowliness of Moshe Rabbeinu, which is in every Jew, within each and every limb, returns to life and is resurrected.

10Know! each and every limb of every single Jew has Moshe Rabbeinu’s lowliness within it. The Jews merited this at the revelation at Mount Sinai, as then Moshe drew his lowliness into each and every limb of every single Jew. But that Moshe-lowliness which is rooted in every single Jew lies dormant in each one, in the aspect of sleep and death. This is because for each person this lowliness is concealed. It does not rouse or reveal itself in him.

11However, through repentance, which is the eternal life of the World to Come, each person’s lowliness will be restored to life. This is because the Resurrection will essentially be of the lowliness; the lowliness will be restored to life and resurrected, as mentioned above. Through this, Moshe’s lowliness, which is rooted in every limb of every single Jew, is restored to life. Previously, this lowliness lay dormant, concealed and covered in him, in the aspect of death. But now, through repentance, which is the eternal life of the World to Come, that lowliness reawakens and returns to life, as mentioned above.

12For eternal life, the resurrection that will take place in the future, will in essence be of nothing other than the lowliness—each person’s lowliness will be restored to life and resurrected. And when his lowliness—that Moshe-lowliness which is within each and every limb—is restored to life, each person then perceives and feels his lowliness, now that the Moshe-lowliness within each and every one of his limbs has returned to life and been revealed.