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To Extinguish the Fires times, he should engage in two hours of personal work a day, so
that he can devote two half hour periods to two items. If he can
When a person is addicted to drugs or alcohol, the first thing he only spend one half an hour on one item, he should spend five
must do is devote all of his prayers to overcome that addiction. He or ten minutes every day on the other urgent items in his life,
may not do the work of the will on anything else because this is since even because even that—when it is done in an ongoing and
the most burning issue, and working on this is what heaven wants consistent way—will have an effect, because these few minutes add
him to do. As long as he is addicted to these terrible cravings that up to a large and considerable total over the course of the year.
darken his entire life, any other work is falsehood and deceit, and
he will not truly advance in it. The general principle is that there are no general principles, but
that “every wise person must act with mindfulness” (Proverbs 13:16)
If a man has a severe relationship problem with his wife, clearly and understand the fundamental idea that in order to change he
he cannot pray about anything else until he works on that and the requires consistency and tenacity. When a person’s prayer acts like
Shechinah returns and remains in his house always. Such a person drops of water day after day falling on his heart of stone, in the end
must read my book, In the Garden of Peace, in depth and spend it will pierce that heart of stone and split all of its hard sinews. Then
the entire half hour of the work of the will on everything that is Hashem will remove this person’s heart of stone from his flesh and
written there. give him a heart of flesh and a proper spirit. Amen—so may it be
His will.
A man on the verge of getting married must first of all, before
anything else, dedicate his time of prayer to establishing his home
on the foundations of peace and love. He must do this for a long
period before getting married and afterwards as well, devoting the A New Outlook on the World
half hour of work of the will to the topic of a loving home.
In accordance with everything that you have learned here, you
If a person has a serious anger problem, he must first of all work may understand the depth of the simple truth in Rabbi Natan’s
to eradicate his trait of anger. He does not have the right to choose summarization of Rabbi Nachman’s teaching (Kitzur Likutei Moharan
to work on anything else. First of all, he must stop hurting people. I 2):
To that end, he should learn In the Garden of Faith entirely. In
particular, every day he should read the chapter dealing with anger. A Jew’s essential weapon is prayer. In all of
This chapter is short and concentrated, and sums up all of the work the wars in which a person must be victorious,
on the trait of anger. When a person reads this and applies its words whether wars of the evil inclination or wars against
to a daily half hour of work of the will, he will see changes occur those who obstruct him and contend with him, he
until he breaks and nullifies his trait of anger.
engages in prayer. That is the source of all of his
If a person has huge debts and is unable to make the payments, vitality. Therefore, a person who wants to truly
and he is thus harming people, he cannot work on any other issue. attain the holiness of being a Jew must engage in a
What right does he have to ask what issue to work on first? First of great deal of prayers, requests and speeches to his
all, he must stop hurting the people to whom he owes money. In Maker, because that is the essence of the weapon
this case it is clear that his work is to get out of debt. Therefore, he with which to win the war.
