What Kabbalah, Viktor Frankl, and Your Broken Heart Know About Becoming Whole
It happens to me almost daily.
Someone walks through my door—sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a high-performing leader, a grieving parent, or a seeker mid-collapse. And within minutes—sometimes seconds—the story starts pouring out.
Not the curated version. Not the safe summary.
The real story.
The gut-punch.
The confession.
The secret they’ve been holding back, even from themselves.
They say things like:
“I’m broken.”
“I’ve lost myself.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I just want to go back to who I used to be.”
And underneath all of it, I hear what they’re not saying:
That they believe something is wrong with them… because something went wrong.
Their marriage fell apart.
Their business tanked.
Their health failed.
Their God went silent.
So they assume the problem must be them. That they’re defective. That something cracked inside—and the only way forward is to be fixed.
But I tell them the truth.
The truth our world has forgotten.
The truth that can shake a person—but also set them free:
You don’t need fixing. You need meaning.
You don’t need to go back. You need to go through.
You don’t need to become who you were.
You need to become who only this breaking can reveal.
Meet Jimmy
Let me tell you about a guy—we’ll call him Jimmy.
He came into my office one day, sat down across from me, and within 120 seconds—no joke—his eyes welled up and he said:
“I’m broken. I just want to get back to the man I was before.”
And I didn’t flinch. I didn’t rescue. I didn’t offer advice.
I looked him in the eye and said:
“Jimmy… with all due respect… you’re never going back to that man. He’s gone.”
He froze. So I let it hang.
Then I continued:
“That man hadn’t been shattered yet. That man hadn’t walked through this fire. That man hadn’t touched the grief, the truth, the meaning underneath it all.
You don’t need to get back to him.
You need to meet the man on the other side of this breaking.
And guess what?
This wound right here—is the entry point.”
The Shattering Is the Sacred
Everything that’s born, breaks.
The universe began with a bang—a violent, glorious rupture.
A woman gives birth through the tearing of flesh and the breaking of water.
A man becomes who he truly is only after the illusion of who he was gets ripped apart in the mirror.
That’s not weakness.
That’s transformation.
Something breaks.
Something bleeds.
Something real begins.
We live in a fractured world—cracks in our stories, our relationships, our bodies, our beliefs.
But what if the shattering isn’t a sign something’s wrong?
What if it’s the moment something sacred begins?
Because inside the brokenness, there’s more than pain.
There are sparks.
Not the love-and-light kind.
Not the Instagram-spirituality kind.
I’m talking about sacred sparks—hidden fragments of truth, purpose, and power.
But here’s the deal:
You don’t find them by running from the pain.
You only find them by going in.
Not numbing.
Not bypassing.
Not slapping a positive affirmation on it.
You walk into the ache—eyes open, heart on fire—and start searching the rubble for what’s still alive.
Frankl Knew This Too
Viktor Frankl—Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and founder of Logotherapy—understood this long before the world was ready to hear it.
His entire philosophy rests on one fundamental truth:
There is meaning inside the darkness.
Not after it.
Not when the mess is cleaned up.
Right in the middle of it.
Meaning isn’t what you find once you’ve fixed everything.
Meaning is what you discover when your life is in pieces—and you choose to believe those pieces matter.
That’s what I call your why.
Your soul.
Your fire.
Your truth.
If you want to become whole—not in spite of the breaking, but because of it—you have to go into the wound.
That’s where the spark is.
That’s where the light got buried.
That’s where your soul is still waiting.
There Is Nothing More Whole Than a Broken Heart
The ancient mystics had a saying:
“There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.”
Not a perfect heart.
Not a polished, presentable, fake-it-til-you-make-it heart.
A broken heart.
Shattered. Pierced. Split wide open.
And somehow—through the surrender, the pain, the fire—reborn.
Wholeness doesn’t come from going back.
It comes from going in.
From picking up the pieces and discovering that every crack holds a spark.
Not someday.
Not once it’s convenient.
Now.
Live it.
Own it.
Let it burn in the center of your being like the sacred flame it is.
If You’re in the Shattering Now
If you’re there now—if you’re where Jimmy was, staring at the wreckage, desperate to rewind—please hear me:
You can’t go back.
And that’s not a curse. That’s a calling.
This heartbreak, this death, this unraveling—
It’s not the end. It’s the threshold.
The wound isn’t proof you’re off course.
The wound is the course.
So go in.
Do the work.
Stop resisting.
Start reclaiming.
The pain is real.
But so is the meaning.
So is the spark.
So is your why.
There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.
Because the broken heart has walked through fire—and come out not untouched, but true.
Not flawless, but integrated.
Not shiny, but sovereign.
You’re not here to return to baseline.
You’re here to rise.
Not by avoiding the wound.
By entering it.
That’s where your soul lives.
That’s where your why begins.
With strength,
Baruch “B” HaLevi
Founder, Men’s Peer Groups
www.menspeergroups.com | www.bhalevi.com
P.S. If you’re ready to walk into the fire—not alone, but surrounded by truth-tellers, fire-walkers, and fellow seekers—reach out. A new wave of Men’s Peer Groups is forming now.
This is where we rise.
Through the wound. Together.