By the Grace of G‑d

28 Elul, 5716

Brooklyn

Blessings and Greetings!

In response to your letter, in which you write about the state of your mood, behavior and your attitude, at least in regards towards the near future, and you ask my opinion about this.

The foundations upon which you build your perspective and conclusions do not seem correct to me at all. With this I mean that in my opinion, these foundations do not truly exist, i.e., your current mood is a passing mood, and the more you exert yourself, the quicker the mood will disappear. Clearly, you have the strength and also the talents that you can use not only for your own benefit, but also for the benefit of many others.

It is only that just like with everything in existence, one must transform things from the potential to the actual and develop them. In the vast majority of cases this demands effort, though only effort that the person has the ability to put forth.

When a person contemplates that through his effort during a relatively short time, he will benefit himself for many long years to come, and benefit others by improving their physical or spiritual matters, or both, and that this impact is bound to produce many fruits, he will understand easily that the devotion, effort and exertion are all worth it.

It is appropriate to say, that normally, it is impossible to change from one extreme mood to the total opposite mood. However, this does not have to be the case, and it suffices if you will decide upon receiving my letter that you will go in the correct direction, i.e., towards a productive life and to actually begin so by making a first step, then step by step, which accumulate to more steps, you will soon enough find yourself in the path of the King, i.e., the path which leads to a life of inner satisfaction and fulfillment.

If you follow my opinion, you should continue with your studies in the coming year, but along with this you should involve yourself in the area of education, and even better if you can do so a few times during the week. I mean by this to arrange groups of girls that you can lead, or teach them things that are appropriate to their understanding, organizing Shabbos and Yom Tov groups for them, etc.

You should think to yourself, there is so much to accomplish in our world. So many capabilities can be found within every single person. Due to the large amount of work that must be done, we cannot give up on even one capability or on one talent. It is the purpose of every single person to accomplish everything that they are able to, to improve their surroundings. The start of this, as with all matters, is to learn the subject, to gain a wealth of general necessary knowledge, and especially knowledge that is necessary to be able to utilize the talents and capabilities of that specific person.

When you contemplate what was mentioned above, once or twice, I hope that you will very soon start actualizing, not to be overwhelmed by the effort or exertion, and soon you will see the sweet fruit of your labor as well.

With blessing for good news very soon regarding everything mentioned, and for a Ksiva Vechasima Tova.

(Igros Kodesh, Vol. 13, p. 487)