“Whoever builds a home,” the sages say, “goes broke over it.”

Midway, you run past your budget. To complete, you borrow and fall into debt. It’s only then that your home is built and your investment pays off.

It’s the protocol of life—every success is preceded by despair. But why?

Because our minds and hearts are too small to reach their own fulfillment. But once we hit that point of desperation, we call upon something much deeper, something we never knew we had. We borrow from our innermost, hidden powers. And only then can we build a home.

So it is with our own homes. So it is with the home we build for the Creator to dwell in His world. There is only one way to make real change in this world: by borrowing from our innermost, most hidden powers. By changing who we think we are.

From a letter of the Rebbe, dated 14th of Kislev, 5718 (November 27, 1957)