Advice - Likutey Etzot

To find true joy is the hardest thing of all. It is harder than all other spiritual tasks. You must literally force yourself to be happy all the time. Put all your energy into it. Use every kind of ploy. Often the only…

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The deeper a person is sunk in desire for wealth, the less his understanding and the shorter his days will be. He will never hear the voice of the Torah, which calls on men constantly to return to God. He will be forced to toil for his living, and it will come to him only with great difficulty. But if he strives determinedly to deepen his understan

Never eat more than you need. If you eat unnecessarily it can be very harmful. Even the food which the body needs is then joined with the extra food and causes great damage

If a person finds the money he has to live off is too little for his needs, the best thing to do is to make it into charity. Charity is the tikkun for material possessions. In the end he will have plenty of money (Ibid.).

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?

When a person speaks to God and pours out his pain and anguish, confessing his sins and grieving at the enormity of what he has done, the Shechinah herself rises before God and pours out her pain and sorrow.

The only purpose in this world is to draw closer to the ultimate goal, which is the World to Come. Whether you have money or you don’t, don’t worry about it, because if you do you will surely waste away your days, regardless of whether you actually make any money or not. This world is completely deceptive. It constantly makes people think they are

forgiveness for what happened in the past or to appeal to God to help you in the future by releasing you from the traps you are caught in and drawing you closer to Him. Even if you find you are unable to express yourself before God, even if you can say no more than a single word, this is still good. Even if you can say nothing except “Master of the

completely, especially the distractions which come when you are praying. Usually they consist of worrying about the past and wondering if you did this or that right. But as soon as something is over and done with, you should simply put it out of your mind completely. Make this a habit. Just ignore it completely and don’t even start to think about i