Advice - Likutey Etzot

When God helps you to pray you will be able to express yourself before Him in the same way that a person speaks to a friend. You should get into the habit of talking to God like this. As if you were speaking to your teacher or your friend. For God is close by. He can be found everywhere. The whole earth is full of His glory

The way to begin serving God is to imagine there is no one in the entire world except for you. Pay no attention to anyone who puts obstacles in your way, whether it is your father or mother, your parents-in-law, your wife, your children or anyone else. There are certain people who can make things difficult for you through ridiculing you or offering

God has many ways of executing His judgements. He has the power to clothe them in anything in the world, because all things are His messengers, and he can use whatever means he chooses to execute His judgements. We can actually see this in practice. When something bad happens to a person, the particular cause which precipitates the problem is often

Be sure that you make your days very long. With each new day and each fresh moment, make sure that the time is longer, fuller and richer with added holiness. So it must be with every day that comes. You must continually extend the days by filling them with more holiness and more purity. This is the secret of a long life. When you start each day, at

The key to everything is the way you start. All beginnings are difficult, because you are trying to turn things from one direction to the opposite direction. But once a start has been made, you begin to get used to the direction you are going in and things are no longer so hard. The level of awe and devotion a person attains each day depends on the

Man’s image-making faculty is the source of all temptations. It is one of man’s animal aspects. If it becomes dominant, it is because of depression, which is a “broken spirit, an evil spirit.” Forgetfulness gains a hold, and one forgets one’s purpose and fails to bear in mind the reality of the World to Come, both as a general concept and as one wh

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 c

It is a great mitzvah to be happy at all times. Be determined to keep away from depression and aim to be happy constantly. Happiness is the remedy for all kinds of diseases — because many illnesses are caused by depression. You must be resourceful in order to make yourself happy. Often you must do something a little bit crazy in order to make yours

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