Sublime

Each one of us too can work for Hashem. If our source of income (profession, business, job, farm or whatever) is our own, maybe it will succeed and maybe not, but it's liable to be sorely limited by natural circumstances. But, if we turn our endeavor over to Hashem, it must succeed!

IN THE REBBE’S OFT-REPEATED words—paraphrasing the Mishnah408—”hamaaseh hu ha’ikar,” which means that the essential thing is the deed, not abstract study. Otherwise, teachings and words, no matter how beautiful, wise, or aesthetic, are devarim beteilim “empty expressions” and their

As I’ve said, our worth is not something that we earn, but something that we strive to live up to.

the centuriesold mission statement of the Jewish people, expressed by Shimon Ha-Tzaddik (Pirke Avot 1:2): “The world stands on three things: Torah study, worship/service, and acts of lovingkindness.”

to be a Jew is to cry out, even when silence would be safer, easier, and more convenient.

We are thus obligated to affirm our own worth.33 “Just as a person believes in God,” the Hasidic master Rabbi Zadok Ha-Kohen of Lublin (1823–1900) teaches, “one must also34 believe in oneself.”35 How we see ourselves profoundly shapes who and what we become.