Hassidut is like coffee?

Rabbi Zalman Kaplan

Rosh Yeshiva

The consistency in performing a specific action at regular times usually indicates the importance you attach to that action.

For example, if we see you every day at the same time with the same book and chavruta, it's obvious that this study is important and dear to you, which is why you are careful to keep to the schedule. But I think we can also look at it from the other side - sticking to a schedule is not only a 'sign', it's also a 'cause'.In general, sometimes the path to the 'sign' goes through the 'cause'.

A young man who wants to establish a proper Hasidic life should internalize this point. Until now, you were a 'receiver', "mekabel". They gave you instructions and told you where to go and when. You kept to the schedule because you were under the supervision of the yeshiva you were in, and subject to the daily routine in your parents' home.Today you are independent. This means - taking responsibility and making sure to create this importance, making sure to create for yourself this adherence to a schedule that indicates more than anything else the importance, the centrality of something in your life. And it starts by doing it with kabalat ol and a sense of personal responsibility.

And the instruction, in fact, is that every young man is responsible for setting fixed times - every single day - for studying Chassidus. To find a chavruta and decide that this study hour is a law and will not pass. The cup of coffee without which you will not start the day. It's not just a requirement to decide that I don't pray without studying Chassidus first, or that no day passes without studying Chassidus. It's a simple decision to set a specific time and hour every day, and to stick to it like a businessman who is devoted and committed to his business. It will change your lives. And one day this adherence to schedules will change from 'cause' to 'sign'. It will become a part of you.