A person must be at peace with himself. It is no good if the different aspects of his character are in conflict with one another. He must also achieve harmony in his relationships with the outside world. Regardless of whether things are good or bad, he must always look for God in whatever happens to him. He should not allow himself to be thrown off

The main thing is that your heart should be strong and firm. Then nothing at all will stop you, certainly not material difficulties — financial difficulties or opposition from your wife and children, your parents or parents-in-law, or the ridicule of other people and their attempts to persuade you otherwise. None of these things will have any power

Anger can be very harmful to a person’s livelihood. You should know that when the evil inclination starts tempting you to get angry, at that very moment a flow of blessing is descending from above with a certain sum of money intended for you. The evil inclination wants to thwart this blessing with the anger it tries to provoke in you. This is

As long as a person is reluctant to spend money on the mitzvot he performs, his mitzvot are deficient because they have not yet entered the category of true faith, which gives them their perfection. But when a mitzva is so precious in his eyes that he does not mind parting with his money and he spends liberally for the sake of the mitzva, this is

Music has a tremendous power to draw you to God. Get into the habit of always singing a tune. It will give you new life and send joy into your soul. Then you will be able to bind yourself to God. It is especially good to sing on Shabbat and the festivals, and at a wedding celebration (273).

As soon as a person starts thinking about himself and sees how far he is from true good and how full of sins he is, he can become so discouraged that he may not be able to pray at all. He must try and search until he finds one good point within himself. How is it possible that throughout his life he never did a single good deed or mitzvah?

The only purpose of the entire creation is the revelation of God’s glory. This is why everything was created for the sake of man. Because the revelation of God’s glory depends entirely on man. Therefore when some new honor comes to a person, he must be scrupulous about not taking any of it for himself. He must make sure that he gives all the glory

It is necessary to specify exactly what the sin was, and the confession must be put into words. Thought is not enough. Whatever you may have done, you must verbally articulate what you did. There are many

forgotten their true worth. Giving charity enables these souls to remember what they really are and how they have fallen from heaven to earth. They start to take pity on themselves, and long and yearn to be restored. Because the real essence of the soul is beyond all the worlds — for “Israel arose in His thought first” (Bereshith Rabbah 1) and “the