Dear Son

Dear Son

Dear Son,

Be strong, and give yourself infinite amounts of encouragement.

Don’t pay any attention to any negative feeling which enters your heart.

Don’t listen to the Mussar and reprimand of the Yetzer Hara, which scolds a person in his heart in order to weaken him and distance him from whatever little good which he wants to grab. Don’t listen to them.

Only listen to reproof which will bring you closer and inspire you to grow, not that which distances you.
The books of Mussar and those who give reprimand honestly may seem to scold a person and humiliate him, but that isn’t their real intention. They only want to bring you closer, not to make you feel far.

But even more important is to focus on making sure not to come to feel distanced or to give up because of the reproof which enters your own heart.

It may very well be that the awakening which each of us feels every day to change ourselves and become closer to Hashem is coming from a holy source, but the forces of evil are always laying in ambush to attempt to ruin it.

Every thought, word, and action which happen to a person has in it two possibilities. It may bring him more life and vitality in his service of Hashem, or it might kill him spiritually.

You must therefore be exceedingly vigilant, to make sure that the Yetzer Hara doesn’t succeed in throing you down from these things.

Based on Alim LeTrufah 28. See also Likutei Halachos, Bechor Behema Tehora 4:27