The three hundred sixty-second "room" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 26 Cheshvan 5704.
Shiurim: Chumash, Toldos, Revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, on the 26th of the month, we say the second half of chapter 119 - from the verses beginning with the letter Mem, with the word "Mah", until the end of the chapter with the words "lo shachachti".
Tanya, on this day we begin the final section of Tanya, "Kuntres Acharon". We learn the entire first passage, which begins with the words "Lehavin eich", on page 153, until the end of the passage on page 306 with the words "Hashem davka".
Today's quotation is the conclusion of a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 10 Nissan 5700. The letter is addressed to a yeshivah student, and in it the Rebbe Rayatz gives him orderly guidance in avodas Hashem. The letter contains several points, and the summation of those points at its conclusion is the daily saying.
First, the Rebbe Rayatz writes to him: Know that every sense and every faculty of the soul - if there is a firm will and deliberateness - can be developed, expanded and perfected.
Second, the Rebbe Rayatz tells him: Note that there is a difference between the concept of "ratzon" (will) and the concept of "chefetz" (desire). "Ratzon" is something strong; a person's will has force, yet at times a new will can come and replace the previous one. "Chefetz", however, is something far more inward - an inner yearning that does not change, the innermost thing within you. Therefore, if you wish to bring about a change in your character traits and in your understanding, you must arouse not only the ratzon but the chefetz, so that the matter becomes your innermost yearning.
A third point: the Rebbe Rayatz tells him that success in learning generally takes time, and does not happen in a single moment; only through patient and deliberate work does one succeed.
A fourth point: he tells him that a person's habit of complaining about himself and finding faults in himself is not the correct way, but only causes him harm.
And then comes the daily saying, which is the fifth point in the letter - what the correct way is. And so he tells him: The true way, the approach a Jew should have, is that "the true way is that one must know one's own essence - in true recognition - one's own shortcomings and one's own virtues". A person must know himself well, his essence, in true recognition - both his virtues, and equally his shortcomings.
And why must he know his shortcomings? Not so that he should, G-d forbid, become downcast because of them, but rather "and when one knows the shortcomings - to correct them through actual avodah, and not to discharge one's obligation with sighs alone". When a person recognizes the points of his shortcomings - he must correct them through change and actual avodah, and not suffice with sighs and complaints about his many shortcomings, from which nothing comes; rather he must actually correct and carry out what is required.
And the Rebbe Rayatz concludes the letter that the counsel for correcting one's shortcomings is that a person should not burden himself with tasks beyond his capacities, but should act in the manner of "kol yoma v'yoma avid avidteih" - each and every day he should act and accomplish with the progress appropriate to that day, all with deliberateness and in an orderly fashion. In this way a person can reach a state in which he corrects what is required, and changes and acts and succeeds fully with Hashem's help.
The content of this saying appears in a similar manner also in the saying of 27 Cheshvan, which likewise contains a matter connected to the content of the daily saying.