TWO TYPES OF BROKEN HEART

There is a broken heart that comes from despair, or from pursuing the desires of this world that can never be satisfied completely. As Dovid HaMelech says in the passuk (Tehillim 69:21) quoted by Rabbeinu at the beginning of Torah 34, "Disgrace has shattered my heart." This shattered heart can be called "lev shabur" in Hebrew, and in that Torah Rabbeinu goes on to explain how it is possible to rectify it.

Yet there is also another type of broken heart that can be called "lev nishbar". This is something altogether different. Everyone knows the famous saying of the Kotzker Rebbe, "There is nothing as whole as a broken heart." Rabbeinu explains in "Chayey Moharan" 441 that we have to raise our heart up to Hashem because He commanded us "to lift our heart with our hands to Hashem in the Heavens". But our heart is "a heart of stone", which is too heavy, so in order to raise it up to Hashem we have to break it into smaller pieces. This is accomplished through speech, through saying many prayers as well as talking to Hashem a lot in hisbodedus. So this broken heart is something very positive, something worth striving for.

But how can we turn our lev shabur into lev nishbar? It occurred to me that the gematrias of these two adjectives hold the keys to the whole process. The gematria of  "shabur" ("שבור") is 508, and the gematria of "nishbar" ("נשבר") is 552. The difference between them is 44, which is the gematria of the word "dam"("דם") that means "blood". So the difference between these two types of broken heart lies in the blood!

This brings us to what Rabbeinu explains in Torah 6: that the strength of a person's Evil Inclination is contained in the blood that resides in the left hollow of their heart. This is what makes them chase the desires and honor of this world, which inevitably results in disgrace and humiliation. The way to end this disgrace is by to turning "dam" into "dom" - "blood" into "silence". These words in Hebrew are both spelled "דם", only with different vowel points, which means that they have the same gematria. 

So one of the ways from the "lev shabur" to the "lev nishbar" lies through silence. By remaining quiet when insulted (both outwardly and deep inside), we can transform the heart shattered by the disgrace of pursuing worldly desires, which can never be fully attained anyway, into the heart that is the epitome of wholeness and holiness.