and the Chazon Ish were able to give those who sought their counsel. I personally benefited from the Rebbe’s advice in a life-changing telephone conversation I had with him more than forty years ago. Thousands of others have benefitted similarly. We have written documentation of these counseling sessions in the multi-volume collection of letters that the Rebbe wrote over the course of his leadership career. This collection is published as Iggerot Kodesh. It amounts to thirty volumes and has scores more in the works. I am drawn to this collection especially because of my training and experience in the field of psychotherapy. A number of major principles of effective counseling emerge from these letters. To name a few: 1. It is important to have clear and achievable goals in life. 2. When those goals are reached, one must immediately set new goals and never complacently rest upon one’s laurels. 3. Study, joy and song are antidotes to depression, as is focusing on helping others. 4. One must cultivate as many friendships as possible, and do so by giving spiritually or materially to the other person. 5. We need much less sleep than we think. 6. One must persist in the face of failure. Failure is seldom total and never final; it is usually a step toward reaching the next level of achievement. 7. One must never compromise one’s religious principles. Such compromise is not effective. 8. Each person has a distinct role to play; both God and one’s fellow man fully rely on him to accomplish it. No one else can do what he is uniquely created to do. The Rebbe tried valiantly to change the orientation of modern psychology from Dr. Sigmund Freud’s approach to that of Dr. Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning. (Dr. Freud and his followers believed that unconscious and dark forces were the essence of man. Dr. Frankl, who was a survivor of Auschwitz, asserted that man’s conscious search for meaning is his essence. The Rebbe personally encouraged Dr. Frankl to persist in his dispute against the Freudians. See Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ article on page 21.) By expanding our view of the Rebbe and increasing our familiarity with his contributions, we get a picture of his unusual significance in Jewish history. More important, we become aware that his teachings remain a vital source of education and inspiration for all Jews, irrespective of one’s background and hashkafic perspective. The Rebbe was not just a rebbe for Chabad Chassidim. He was, and remains, a rebbe for us all. g Listen to Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb discuss the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s scholarship at www.ou.org/life/inspiration/savitsky-weinreb/.
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