Igrot Kodesh · Letter 4023 — Faith & Bitachon

B"H

11 Teves* 5716

Brooklyn

Greetings and blessings,

I have received a request for a blessing on your behalf, that you find peace of mind and earn your livelihood with ease.

Your name will be mentioned, at a propitious time, at the holy resting place of my father-in-law, the Rebbe*, whose merit protects us, leader of Yisrael*, so that you obtain all of this.

To integrate the Divine blessings, however, one must forge the vessels capable of containing them. It would therefore be good to have your tefillin* checked, to ensure that they conform to halachah*. Each weekday, before putting them on, place two or three coins in a tzedakah* box. After removing the tefillin*, read at least one chapter of Tehillim*.

When one puts on tefillin* — which are to be worn on the head and on the arm, facing the heart — one exercises a positive influence on one's intellect and on one's emotions. One can thereby calm one's feelings, clarify one's mind and memory. In this way, the situation improves and will become even better.

There is a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov* that we heard many times from my father-in-law, the Rebbe*, whose merit protects us, according to which one can derive from every thing a lesson applicable to daily life. How much more so is this the case when it concerns a daily act.

You are a watchmaker by profession. Now, a watch has the purpose of enabling a person to organize his life, to conduct it according to a pre-established schedule. It is in this way that he can achieve the objective he has set for himself.

The mechanism of a watch is as follows: a round gear is in contact with a second one, to which it imparts movement. This movement is transmitted to several other gears, until it reaches the most central one, to which is attached the minute hand. This in turn sets in motion another gear, activating the hour hand. It is in this manner that a person can keep to the schedule he has set for himself.

Now, the mechanism that sets the first gear in motion has no proximity, no connection, no relation to the person and his work, which must be carried out at a certain hour according to the indications of the watch. Nevertheless, these gears have cogs that enable the movement to be transmitted from one to the other, until it reaches the hands. What results from this determines the person's work and plans.

What has just been explained will answer the following question: Tefillin* are merely pieces of parchment bearing inscriptions, with large letters, inserted into cases made of parchment as well. How can they, when worn, influence a person's intellect and emotions? Yet is it not evident — and does one not observe — that a person's actions are changed thereby? You will surely understand this analogy.

With blessing for good tidings regarding all of the above,