A person trapped on a low spiritual level might assume that deep Torah understanding is beyond their reach. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says the opposite is true: the pathway from the lowest place to the deepest wisdom runs through something deceptively simple. Speech.
"They are life to those who find them" (Proverbs 4:22). The Talmud reads this not as l'motza'eihem, "to those who find them," but as l'motzi'eihem, "to those who express them verbally" (Eruvin 54a). Speaking the words of Torah out loud activates a power that silent reading cannot.
Speech, Rabbi Nachman explains, illuminates a person regarding all the areas in which they need to repent. "Open your mouth and your speech will enlighten" (Berakhot 22a). Each act of verbal Torah creates a micro-repentance, each repentance shifts you to a higher level, and level by level you ascend from spiritual darkness to genuine understanding.
This teaching connects to the two unifications that every Jew is meant to achieve daily: the Shema Yisrael (upper unification) and Barukh Shem Kevod Malkhut (Sovereignty)o (lower unification), as taught in the Zohar (I:18b). These two declarations, spoken aloud, bind the upper and lower worlds together.
The Talmud records that the Egyptian sorcerers Yochani and Mamrei challenged Moses: "You are bringing straw into Apharayim?" meaning, how can you bring the heights of Torah understanding (teven, related to tevunah, understanding) to people on the lowest spiritual level (aphar, dust)? Moses answered with a proverb: "To the vegetable market, take vegetables." In other words: go where the need is. Use speech. Speak the words of Torah to people exactly where they are. Let the words themselves do the work of illumination.
The warrior of God does not fight with silence. The warrior fights with song, with speech, with Torah spoken aloud in the darkest places.