A Warm Rebuke — "How Long Do You Sleep?" — The Daughter of the King

And in passing — I have come to you, my dear friend. [Yiddish:] "What will become of you — the ultimate purpose? How long do you sleep? All this time you have not sent even one little letter. As long as the second-to-the-king [השני למלך — from the parable in Rabbainu's Story of the Seven Beggars; the companion to the king who was asleep and could not be woken by the Daughter of the King] did not wake himself — the Daughter of the King was unable to wake him. Likewise: as long as you yourself are sleeping and do not know how to wake yourself — who is to blame?" [Hebrew:] (What will become of you — the ultimate purpose? How long do you sleep? All this time you have not sent even a single letter. As long as the second-to-the-king did not wake himself, the Daughter of the King was unable to wake him. Likewise: as long as you yourself are asleep and do not know how to wake yourself — who is to blame?) Only remember — the times that have passed, how we engaged together in the service of Hashem, and the love that was between us. The Daughter of the King said: "Great compassion upon me and upon you." My dear friend — look around you! See how time is passing, to our great sorrow. Is this then the ultimate purpose? "Is it conceivable that I was created to waste my days in such vanity?" [היתכן שנבראתי לבלות ימי בהבל כזה — a phrase of Rabbainu, appearing here for the first time in this collection; it will recur throughout Letters 24–26 as a recurring cry]. "I am a small creature of the sea — and I go into the mouth of the Leviathan" [from Torah 17, Likutay Moharan]. The holy Rebbe, of blessed memory, taught us the concept of hischadshus [התחדשות — renewal and rebirth; starting fresh in one's spiritual life as if for the first time] — to strengthen oneself again, and to revive oneself with: "I will sing to my G‑d while I still live" [Psalms 146:2], etc., and in the Torah Va'ayeh HaSeh La'olah [ואי' השה לעולה — "Where is the lamb for the offering?" — Genesis 22:7; a Torah teaching in Likutay Moharan related to renewal and finding the Divine in every situation] — study it there.

[Yiddish:] "My dear friend — it causes me very great pain: how you, to our sorrow, are passing your years and days for nothing and less-than-nothing. This is, to our sorrow, a great loss. 'Which is the damage that cannot be repaired — that his companions were counted for a matter of mitzvah and he was not counted among them' [Ecclesiastes Rabbah on 1:15 — a midrashic interpretation: the 'deficiency that cannot be counted' is one who was excluded from a group performing a mitzvah and thus lost an irreplaceable opportunity]? What more can I do for you? See how the baal davar has surrounded you so — that you did not even come to Rabbainu's, of blessed memory, Rosh Hashana gathering. Look around yourself carefully." [Hebrew:] (My dear friend — it pains me greatly: how you, to our sorrow, are passing your years and days for nothing and less-than-nothing. This is, to our sorrow, a great loss. Which is the damage that cannot be repaired — that his companions were counted for a mitzvah and he was not counted among them. What can I do for you? See how the baal davar has so surrounded you that you did not even come to Rabbainu's, of blessed memory, Rosh Hashana gathering. Look around yourself carefully.) What more can I do for you — that when you arrive here and could do something in the service of Hashem — the baal davar confuses your head and you go to seek money, or you want to get involved in everything, or you have complaints against us, etc., etc., and you do not know how to hold onto us together. Who is to blame? It is certainly a great loss that you should not be at the wedding. What one snatches away — that is his; and only that remains and nothing more. I cannot persuade you of this — for I see that when you come, the baal davar brings about a division of hearts [פירוד לבבות]. Only act according to your own understanding.