The importance of a positive self-image

This letter was written to a Rav whose identity remains unknown.

B”H, 12 Teves, תשג״ה1 (5703)

Greetings and blessings,

In response to your letter from the seventh day [of Chanukah]:

Certainly you will be able to find four positive activities [to perform]2 … and this will require only minor effort.

Despondency is certainly unnecessary. On several occasions, I heard from my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe shlita,3 that just as a person must not err with regard to his own shortcomings, so too, he must know his own positive qualities.

Experience shows that often minimizing one’s own self-worth is one of the tricks of the evil inclination to weaken [one’s resolve] or cause a disturbance [and prevent one] from carrying out a positive activity, as each person certainly knows.

Certainly you are aware that I wrote to Mr. … concerning the publication of the maamarim and sichos [delivered by my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe,] in Chicago last year. Their publication is being delayed because of the costs of printing. As of yet, no answer has been forthcoming.

Do you know anything about this? Do you have any influence? I have also written to our mutual friend, Rabbi Moshe Leib Rodstein about this.

With the blessing “Immediately to teshuvah, immediately to Redemption,”

Chairman of the Executive Committee

P.S. Note also the contents of the first maamar entitled Mashcheini 5701, sec. 3. One should, however, employ this approach only for a limited period of time only.