On the topic of original Torah insights: There are prominent individuals who are praised for their ability to deliver a Torah lesson without prior contemplation or study. Rebbe Nachman said that this did not make them so exceptional. A person can certainly deliver a Torah lesson extemporaneously, because it is possible to bind one’s thought and speech to God and then deliver a Torah lesson without prior contemplation and study.

However, it is better when one contemplates Torah. Is this not what even God does? We find in the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 24:5 ; Shemot Rabbah 40:1) that when God wants to reveal Torah, He reviews it four times before speaking it. They derived this from the verse “Then He saw it and told it; He prepared it and also explored it” (Job 28:27). Four aspects are recorded here: “He saw it and told it….” God sees, tells, prepares and explores the words of Torah, as it were; four times before speaking. Then, afterwards, He reveals it to the world. All the more so a human being; he first has to contemplate, study, research and clarify well in his mind the words of Torah, before he speaks.

2. Rebbe Nachman also said that, nowadays, it is easy to produce new Torah insights, on account of the wide circulation of many holy works of the tzaddikim of our era. In accordance with the parlance and revelations that have spread widely in our times, it is very easy to originate in Torah.

The Rebbe also spoke about that which the holy Zohar brings: “Rabbi Yitzchak opened by saying…,” and similar statements about others of the holy fellowship. He said: “Rabbi Yitzchak opened”—all he did was open his mouth, and immediately he began speaking and revealing Torah. Nevertheless, it has already been explained that better still is to study and contemplate (called trakhtin) Torah.