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00:01 This is Igris. We are not looking at letters from fifty years ago today. We are doing another special episode that's like three in a row. So this is a special time, special episode. That's what it is to be in Kislev. By the way, gut Chodesh everybody. It is a Chodesh Kislev today. And today we're going to look at letters involving loneliness. This was by recommendation. A couple people asked me about it. Um, I was asked about it in our Shaar B'Tachon share where we covered loneliness and looked at a couple letters. I was also asked about it in the Igris share itself, uh, specifically Lagav Shluchim writing to the Rebbe saying that they felt lonely or that they felt, uh, alienated from people because they were in a different place. So we, uh, I put together a, a long list, uh, even longer than the list I'm going to show you, of letters where the Rebbe responds to people saying that they feel lonely. We're going to look at some key ones today, and the reason why we're choosing these letters out of a sea of, I don't know, about twenty letters maybe in all of Igris that talk about loneliness, we're choosing these letters because they're particularly illustrative. The first one, two, three, four that we are gonna look at are the Rebbe trying to fix loneliness, telling people how to not be so lonely, how to make friends, or how to, uh, or how to remember that really they're not alone, how to

00:59 think about loneliness. And in the last two letters, we're gonna look at examples where the Rebbe tells people to lean into the loneli-- lean into the loneliness, to use the fact that they are isolated to serve Hashem in a better way. So some very interesting letters on the topic of loneliness, of what it is and what we do with it, starting now. The first one is the shortest one and a real direct approach. I almost didn't include it, but then I realized maybe it has the most important message of all. If you look down at the bottom, the letter is labeled Yud Beis and then Tav Reish Lamed Gimel. This is from the year Tav Shin Lamed Ches, and, uh, this is an answer to somebody. It says, "Blah, blah, blah, mein del achas sh'kas mi shi bas twenty-six. Ve'lomedes be yeshiva university, uh, be Los Angeles." She's twenty-six. She's learning in YU in L-- in Los Angeles, YULA, as we used to call it. "U'margisha bededos," and she feels lonely. "Ve'ein hu matzliach lemtsa shidduch." She's lonely, and she can't find a shidduch. And the Rebbe writes back to her, "On hage yemis al pi Shulchan Aruch, mamshich hab-- birchas Hashem, mitz-- mitzvah hamitzvos." That when a person lives their life according to the Shulchan Aruch, this brings down the brachos of Hashem, who is the one who commanded the mitzvahs in the first, in the first place. And then he adds, "Kedesht ish kashe in Beis Chabad bemekomecha." It would also make sense

02:02 to, uh, link up with a Beis Chabad in your area. Now, why, why is this a deep message? The Rebbe's giving what sounds boilerplate. I don't think it's boilerplate at all. When you write to the Rebbe saying that you're lonely and he writes back, "Keep Shulchan Aruch," that is saying something special, which is that any emotional problem that I'm having, no matter what I think the cause is, at the end of the day has a spiritual cause. If I'm having emotional distress, and the fact is even if I'm having physical distress, emotional and physical problems in my life, at the end of the day, stem from my relationship with God and my relationship with my own neshamah, my relationship with spirituality. And here the Rebbe is saying that step one for anybody who's facing a social anxiety, a, uh, a mental health change, a, uh, a difficult time, specifically a loneliness, but you could add in anxiety and any of these other things, step one, of course, if it's medical, is to see a doctor, but step one spiritually is to check the Shulchan Aruch of all places. Uh, that at the end of the day, what makes a Jew healthy is keeping Jewish law. So the Rebbe's first advice here is, uh, is make sure you're living your life according to Shulchan Aruch. The number one thing that makes a Jew's soul sick is when their soul isn't doing mitzvahs. So try Shulchan Aruch. The rest of the Rebbe's letters on this are relatively

03:02 long. The Rebbe writes long letters to people who write to him that they're lonely. Uh, we have a couple here. This is a collation of letters that is in, uh, Bechal Derecha, I believe, Sefer. But, uh, in any event, you'll also find in Itz-- Itz... Itze Igris Kodesh, this letter that we're looking at is from the year Tav Shin Yud Ches, and I don't have the label of what number it is. That's a shame. Okay. Anyway, you'll find in Itze Igris Kodesh under the section of Bededos, under the loneliness section, they have two very popular letters. They show up in a lot of other books. This one's from the year Tav Shin Yud Ches, and if you attended the Shaar B'Tachon share, we did read this one there. Shalom U'bracha, the Rebbe writes. "Mein del mechtav mi yom shishi," I'm responding to your letter from Friday, where you wrote that for your entire life, from the time you were a young child, you always felt lonely, and you feel that it's very difficult for you because of your loneliness. Your loneliness is causing you anguish. The Rebbe says, "Im yivun hashen avrech hanitz be yeshiva tem chitzvim be kitah shel kah al bechorim be negiloy, midigreila be di-- beyah devar talui, beyah devar talui." That when a student finds himself in a yeshiva, there's a yeshiva student writing to the Rebbe, and he's in a class with other people his age, it's largely dependent on him whether he decides, "Li siat hadrim," whether he decides

04:07 to become friends with them or not. So the fact that you're lonely isn't, uh, isn't some sort of outside factor here. If you are in a place where there's a lot of people your age, and of course, this doesn't just apply to a yeshiva student, this applies to anybody who feels lonely in a big crowd. The Rebbe says, if you feel lonely and there are people around you, you feel lonely and you're in solitary confinement, then we have to talk. But if you feel lonely and you're surrounded by people who are your age and of your temperament, then really it has a lot to do with you. "Beyah devar talui." It's generally speaking on you, "Li siat hadrim," whether you've decided to become friends with them or not. "Vach shubun gam ken she ein ze yochlach livmile be hoys herim." It's true that this isn't gonna be any substitute for your parents, people you're most comfortable with. Nonetheless, "Eize u'midah chashuv vegdel laaver t'kupas shanan eilu," it can definitely help you through these years to make friends with these, uh, to make friends with these, uh, with these people who are close to you already. So the Rebbe's first piece of advice is, if you find yourself feeling lonely in a crowd, it's kind of your fault. Why don't you try to reach out to some of them and make some friends? The Rebbe continues, "U'mash ez ein matzav mifne ielu." Another thing that helps in these situations, helps people who are feeling lonely, "Hein

05:04 pulas tevas ha'zulus." This is helping other people. Helping other people can help you feel less lonely. How's that work? "Hasher azmar dish min nefesh prim hashaychech sh'bni Yisroel ish v'reyehu." Intrinsically, we're connected. We're all c-- all, all people, and specifically Jewish people, are completely connected intrinsically, and we don't always feel it, and we sometimes can raise that up and feel it a little bit when we reach out to help another person. "Ach ein betchilah. Her gez der, ein haba begilul hagam." Even though I don't always feel this, I don't always feel my connection to other people, "Seif ze, kayol pulas," eventually doing good things for other people reminds me of my inherent connection to other people. And when I'm reminded of my inherent connection to other people, it helps me feel less lonely and also helps me socialize with other people. "Pimi dege le chabadim Yisroel devarim. U'mor na me'achas gam. U'kam be nimsus vesivva chassidusis. Mishtatei pulas teva lach-- pulas-- le pulos le tevas ha-chassidus." This doesn't just apply-- I mean, this of course applies to anybody, but it applies especially to people who are involved in Chassidus and involved in helping, uh, other people in Chassidus. Why? Because Chassidus has a unique guarantee. We're gonna jump a few lines causes somebody to not feel so lonely. You'll feel at a very high level that you are connected to Hashem and to everything else. Okay. So what he's saying in the second half is that although everybody will, uh, enjoy the benefits of helping

06:22 other people and thereby reminding themselves of the fact that they're connected to other people, and thereby feeling like they wanna socialize with other people, and thereby not being so lonely, this especially applies when you mix Chassidus in with it, when you're helping other people in the ways of Chassidus or when you're involved in Chassidus yourself because Chassidus has an additional guarantee on top of the regular guarantee. There's a standard guarantee that every Jew has that, uh, we are connected to other Jews, and so all we have to do is help them to remind ourselves of that connection, and we won't feel lonely anymore. Chassidim have an extra boost, and that is that the Rebbe Me told us, the Friediker Rebbe says that Chassidus cause has the effect. It's, uh, it's me- it's, uh, it's macht. It creates. It, uh, it's It creates that a person does not feel lonely. So in addition to that, Chassidim have an extra tool in their toolbox that Chassidus itself repels loneliness. We have a third letter. At the end, we're gonna summarize all of these. Let's try to get through some of them. This one's super long. We're only gonna look at one paragraph of it, but let's just scroll to the top to see what it is. It's Tuf Shin Pe He. This letter is, uh, from Tuf Shin Yud Alef, so it's a letter from the very early days of the Nesius. It is written to, uh, Rabbi Lipsker, who was the Rebbe in Morocco at the

07:23 time. And we're gonna go all the way down to here, The letter says, You say that you feel lonely and that you feel abandoned, I assume the galmut and the loneliness here is, uh, is less about the fact that he has nobody around and more about the fact that the Friediker Rebbe just went nostalgic, uh, so there wasn't, uh, there wasn't a Rebbe, so to speak, that he could talk to. This has caused a weakening in all of your avoda. The last thing you said should give you an answer about the first thing you said. That is that he said first that he's lonely, and second of all, that it's affecting his shlichus. Says the Rebbe, "That it's affecting your shlichus should be a hint." You can tell this is coming from the Yetzer Hara. Yetzer Hara's job is to prevent people from doing their jobs, from doing their shlichus. And every Yetzer Hara talks to the shliach in the words that work for him. So the Yetzer Hara has figured out that the way to make you stop doing your work is to make you feel lonely. So your particular feeling of loneliness comes from the Yetzer Hara and from nowhere else. That a Chassidus makes a person not feel lonely, the same expression that you keep on seeing. Um, this is the year that he had just passed. Uh, Specifically, when it comes to your feeling of loneliness that the Rebbe's not around, you need to remember that the Friediker Rebbe himself said

08:40 about the Rebbe Rashab that the shepherd does not leave his sheep, and certainly this applies to him too. And the Rebbe goes on in this paragraph furthermore to say that fulfilling your shlichus brings Moshiach. We're cutting down all the way to here. If you wanna bring the Friediker Rebbe back, you have to bring the dead back, and if you wanna bring the dead back, you're going to need to bring Moshiach. And part of bringing Moshiach is not letting your loneliness weigh you down. He then says, "If you wanna see more about this, take a look in the Sefer Yud Gimel Tammuz of Tuf Shin Tes, which is now published in the Kuntres Yud Beis Tammuz of Tuf Shin Yud." Uh, You'll pull inspiration from that sefer. You'll see from that sefer that even in mortal thought, there's no room for the idea that you are truly lonely, God forbid, or truly alone or abandoned, God forbid. There's no reason for you to have a weakness in your avoda, to not be doing your work as well because you're worried about your loneliness. If only other Anash, specifically Primim, would look in the words of the Friediker Rebbe specifically in these sefarim I, I, I want to read this last line to you just because it's maybe something for us to look into. I think everybody in the month of Kislev thinks about achlas, what Chassidus to learn this year. The Rebbe says, "Halavai people would look at the sefarim of the Friediker Rebbe more in

09:59 general, and halavai specifically they would begin looking at the sefarim of the Friediker Rebbe from the year Tuf Shin Yud-- T-Tuf Shin Tes and Tuf Shin Yud." These are, uh, these are years that matter particularly to our generation. The Rebbe wants us to read those years of the Friediker Rebbe sefarim. So maybe we should. Just throwing that out there. Anyway, continuing. One more of these kinds of letters, I think. Yes. Okay. This letter was written in The letter is labeled And there's an introduction, but really what we need is the PS. So the PS down here. You wrote to me, this is a woman writing to the Rebbe, a teacher. She writes to the Rebbe that she feels very lonely. The Rebbe says, "I'm very surprised that you say you feel lonely." Certainly, you know the expression of the Friediker Rebbe. By now, everybody here knows it too, that Chassidus creates a situation where there's no possibility of loneliness. Since the Rebbe said this regarding the fact that Chassidus creates a situation where a Rebbe is always close to a Chassid, certainly this creates a situation where normal people are close to other normal people, certainly ones who are in your area. It's impossible that you are involved in Chassidus, which I know you are, and that you also are lonely. Cutting down here to this paragraph. But regarding you specifically. So in general, there's no such thing as a lonely Hasid. A lonely Hasid is missing something. They're misunderstanding because Hasidism creates the situation

11:29 where a person doesn't feel lonely. But when it comes to you specifically, says the Rebbe, I'm even more surprised. Because your your great merit was that you were given a lot in this life, that you were involved in of the Jewish people. That is the children of Hashem, the children of the Jewish people. Every good thing that they do and everything that she affected them, every area in which she affected them. This creates a connection between you and them. That is, you impacted them, and they're continuing to live under your model because you were their teacher, and therefore, there's an eternal connection between you and them. This is a, this is a spiritual thing, and it's a holy thing, and it has an effect even down here. Nothing gets in the way when it comes to spirituality. There cannot be divisions at that level because such things are eternal. In other words, says the Rebbe, and now he gives a practical example. If you're sitting in your room right now, and you're feeling lonely, and you're a former teacher. Meanwhile, you're sitting in your room alone thinking that you're all by yourself, when meanwhile, somewhere else, somewhere in the world, one of your students is saying over something that you taught them. Or they're saying a berakhah, and you taught them how to say that berakhah. And because they are doing something that you taught them how to do, that's opening up a connection between you and them that transcends time and space, which means

12:54 you are with them right now. So if you ever had a positive effect on anybody, then you're not lonely anymore by definition. And certainly, a teacher who has positive effects on many, many students, they can never really be said to be alone. Their loneliness is a, uh, is a, is a, is apparent loneliness. In fact, they are connected in a way that transcends time and space. These people, these students are with them right now because they were influenced by them so deeply. This creates an additional life force and a light in the connection between them. It's impossible that the nefesh elokis doesn't feel that. It doesn't, it doesn't at least feel that. Certainly, he says, at least says the Rebbe, your soul feels this. I understand you might not feel it, but your soul understands that it's not alone. And the truth is, what is the main you, the real you? The real you, the most important part of you is your nefesh elokis, and that part of you does not feel, uh, loneliness. And the thing that gives your nefesh chayyim life is your nefesh elokis, which does not feel lonely. The Rebbe then says, I do happen to know. That not everybody feels this. Not everybody feels the nefesh elokis. You can't touch it with your hands. This doesn't change the truth of the matter, the Rebbe says, is that the truth is if you just think about it a little bit, if you just think about this idea a little bit, think

14:12 about the fact that you're not really alone because you have students all over the place that are doing things that you taught them to do, and therefore you are all spiritually connected, and therefore your nefesh elokis is not lonely. If you think about that for a few moments, this will open up an opening between your nefesh elokis and your and even to your nefesh chayyim/ and then it will actually have a feel-- it will result in a feeling, and you won't feel lonely anymore. So we have here some very specific advice from the Rebbe that if a person meditates on the people who they have positively impacted, they will discover, uh, that it makes only logical sense that they're still connected to those people and connected to them right now because these positive spiritual impacts transcend time and space. And since there is that positive connection between them, that's felt by the nefesh elokis, and thinking about it allows the nefesh elokis to talk to the and talk to the nefesh chayyim, so you also feel it. It is a practical cure for loneliness. There was another letter that I wanted to show you, and I don't know where it went on my screen. Let me see if I can find it, and if I can't find it quickly, we'll just go on to the next thing. Ah, we didn't read this one down here. Let's read this one. One more. This is from the year, this is from the year Taf Shin Yud Tes.

15:18 It's from Yud Tes Elul, and, uh, this letter is also printed in the Eitz Igues Kodesh under the section of loneliness. This is another one that we read in the Shabi Taf Shin share. Um, I'm not going to read it inside. I'll just tell you what it says and point to some interesting lines because we don't have so much time. In this letter, uh, somebody else writes to the Rebbe saying that she's very lonely, and that not only is she lonely, she also has a certain kind of social anxiety. She doesn't wanna be outside with other people. She has trouble socializing with other pe- with other people, and it's bothering her. She wants help. So the Rebbe says to her that, uh, that a person cannot learn how to swim by standing on the side of the river and imagining what it might be like to swim. They need to jump into the river. And then the Rebbe says, I'm asking for your apology. This is exactly what's happening with you. You have all these ideas in your head about why you should or should not interact with other people. You're having that entire mental discussion over how and when and h- how and when and why to interact with other people while sitting in your room within your own dalet amah surrounded by nobody. The Rebbe says, you need to throw yourself into social scenes if you want to be less lonely. So one possible cure for loneliness is to throw yourself into it

16:24 even though you don't initially want to. And the Rebbe says that since people are naturally social beings, that after only a short amount of time, it is my hope you won't have to force yourself anymore to interact with other people. You'll begin to see the importance of being around other people. You'll see that you affect other people positively and that it helps you too, and you'll begin to want to socialize, um, you'll begin to want to socialize, uh, willingly. Because Hashem did not for no reason create people as social beings. The Rebbe says to this girl, um, "You think you don't like being around people. The fact is you have to force yourself. You can't ex-- you can't learn how to be around people and less lonely by staying in your room. You're gonna have to get yourself out there. You'll force yourself a little bit initially, but after a while, you're going to see that, uh, that you are fundamentally a social being and that you're enjoying or getting benefit from being around people." So what we have here is five, five letters where the Rebbe explains how to help with loneliness. The first one that we saw, as a quick review, had said, "Try keeping Halakha," because anytime our soul is not feeling the way that it should, if our soul ever feels down, the first thing we should check is, are we keeping Halakha? Because the soul is not healthy when the Yid is not keeping Shulchan Aruch. The next piece of

17:30 advice we saw Is to a yeshiva student, but really to anybody who's already around other people, and the answer is make friends with people your age and help other people because when you help other people, this reminds you of the connection you have with other people, and, uh, this brings the unity that you have to the forefront. And although that might be a slow process, eventually it takes away loneliness. And the Rebbe added here that if you are connected to Hasidus, to reconnect to Hasidus, because Hasidus itself has a in-- has an implanted guarantee that Hasidus creates a situation where a person cannot be lonely. So a person who connects to Hasidus and is a Hasid will never really feel alone. We had a, um... Hold on. That was this letter. We had a third letter. The third letter , 'cause I'm all out of order with my notes 'cause I put the letters out of order. We had a third letter over here about a-- to a Shliach in Morocco, the Rebbe-- who has told the Rebbe that he felt lonely, and the Rebbe said, "This is your yetser hara. You've gotta not listen to your yetser hara. It's trying to get in the way of you doing your work." And, uh, the, your yetser hara has figured out that the best way to make you not be a good Shliach is to tell you're too lonely and sad to be a good Shliach, and that, uh, you need to ignore it because the

18:31 only way that you're going to get what you want, which is to see the Rebbe again, is to bring Mashiach. And the only way to bring Mashiach is to focus on your Shlichus. And then the Rebbe had also suggested that he learn certain sichas from the Friediker Rebbe that we discussed a moment ago. We have a another letter over here. This is the one from the year Tav Shin Chaf Hei that had been labeled Ches Tav Kuf Samech Dalet. And in this letter, the Rebbe said that a, a teacher can never really feel alone. It doesn't make any sense because the truth is their Nefesh HaKes knows that they are still connected to their students, and therefore, their students are with them right now in a way that transcends time and space. And that if they have these funnels in this and they think about it carefully, they will be able to, uh, turn on their Nefesh HaKes and have the Nefesh HaKes talk to their Sechel. And even the Nefesh Abbas will begin to understand that they are not, in fact, lonely. And the last letter that we saw on this topic was a letter to a girl who said that she was having a degree of social anxiety and wasn't able to go out and meet other people. And the Rebbe said to her, "You're gonna have to throw yourself into it. And if you force yourself into it, you're going to eventually discover that all people are fundamentally social beings and that

19:24 you get something out of it and maybe even enjoy it." Now, I wanna end off with two letters that are a little different than the previous ones, because in these last two letters, the Rebbe has advice on how to use loneliness. In all of our letters up until now, he's essentially told people to get rid of their loneliness and given them ideas for how to get, for how to get rid of it. Uh, learn Shulchan Aruch, invest in Hasidus, um, meet other people, uh, jump right into the situation, meditate on the fact that you're not really alone. In, in these last two letters, the Rebbe talks to people who are lonely and tells them, "Great, use that loneliness." There's-- loneliness has a positive use to it. So this letter is, uh, is from the year Tav Shin Lamed Zayin. It's Yud Ches Tammuz in Tav Shin Lamed Zayin. The letter is Yud Beis Kuf Samech Vav. And here the Rebbe writes, "That when a person finds themselves in certain unique situations, especially if those situations are not, at least in a revealed way, a good situation, so as you call it, the loneliness of a person finds themselves in a, a negative situation or one that appears negative and they are lonely, don't forget what's God's nature to be good. Therefore, God ga-- clearly gave you the strengths to overcome those sorts of challenges. That you still have the, uh, and that now you have the capability to use your loneliness to fulfill your Shlichus

20:43 in this world. And you should be able to do this with joy and with a good heart and with a relaxed soul and a relaxed body." The Rebbe doesn't say how here. He just says to note it, note well that if you are lonely, this is a tool that can be used for your Shlichus. In this last letter we're gonna look at, the Rebbe gives practical advice for what exactly that means. This is a long letter. We're not gonna even kind of read most of it, but, uh, you'll find it's not printed in Igris yet because it's a letter from the memes, and they haven't gotten to them yet. That is in the Sefer that is called Merod Hader Navuch, uh, Chei Gimel. You'll find it printed there, the letters from Tav Shin Mem Gimel, and it's written to, uh, somebody in Johannesburg, South Africa. And she writes to the Rebbe that, uh, that she's lonely all day, that I guess her, her husband and her kids are not around. Maybe they're out of the house, I don't know. Uh, whatever it is, she's lonely all day, and from seven thirty in the morning until six thirty in the evening, she has, she has this whole day where she's completely alone. And the Rebbe writes to her something very interesting. He says, Given that everybody is supposed to serve God with the abilities that they have and the time that they have, it should not, it should not be a problem for you at all

21:52 that from seven thirty in the morning until six thirty at night you have this whole long day of loneliness, which is the words that she used in the letter. to use your words. says the Rebbe. Says the Rebbe, "Most people, if you ask them what's their biggest problem, they'll say, 'The day is too short. I don't have enough time in my day to fulfill what God wants me to do in this world. I'm unable to do things that matter, things that matter in an eternal sense because I just don't have enough time.'" Specifically, when you consider the Klal Gadol of the Torah, which is loving your neighbor as yourself, when you think about the fact that your main job here is to help other Yidden and to bring them close to Hashem, when a person thinks about the fact that their main job is hafatzas, is spreading faith and spreading, uh, and spreading the laws that are the basis of all justice, when you think about what our job is in this world, uh, it, it takes up a lot of time. And if you are alone, you're going to have-- If you're lonely, you're going to have an easier time getting it done. So in this letter, what the Rebbe says to her is, "You're lonely for twelve hours every day or eleven hours every day? That means that you have a solution to a problem that many people have." Everybody understands that their real job in this world is to be spreading light,

23:03 and most people don't have time for it. You have eleven hours every day to do it. Use your loneliness. The reason why I found this last one so interesting is it actually is almost exactly what it says in Shaarei Teshuvah. In Shaarei Teshuvah in the fourth chapter, uh, Rebbe Nachae ben Bakhorah says there that people who are lonely do have an advantage in that they can spend more time learning Torah and doing mitzvahs than everybody else. And the Rebbe is very much saying that in this letter, if you find yourself completely alone, don't wallow in your loneliness. Use those spare hours where you're not with other people to go out and make the world a better place. The being with other people is healthy and it, uh, and people, as the Rebbe says in a prior letter, are naturally social beings. But at the same time, if you find yourself in a situation where you're completely alone, that means you don't have the burden of people either. And if you don't have the burden of people, you can use that for Torah and tefillah. I wanna end off just with a something I saw while doing the research for this, is that there's a sicha from the Friediker Rebbe, very short. It's one line long, where the, not the whole sicha, this idea is just a line long, where the Friediker Rebbe says, you might remember from the Haggadah. In the Haggadah, it says that, um, that I didn't, I didn't merit to understand how

24:01 to darshan a certain pasuk until Ben Zoma came by and darshaned it. So Ben Zoma was able to unlock the Torah in a way that nobody had unlocked it before. Says the Friediker Rebbe, "Why was Ben Zoma able to unlock the Torah in a way that no one had before?" Well, the-- one of the only things we know about Ben Zoma is that he was never married. That's a Gemara in Masechet Sota twice, that Ben Zoma was never married, uh, and he never had a family. And because Ben Zoma never had a family, says the Friediker Rebbe, his isbadus, his loneliness gave him an extra level of chachmah. Uh, what that means practically, he didn't have the burden of having people around him, and therefore he had more time to think. And because he had more time to think and learn and do good in the world, drashas and secrets of the Torah were open to him that were open to nobody else. So the last section here This letter and the previous letter shows us a different dimension of loneliness. We have four or five letters where the Rebbe gives us strategies to overcome loneliness and to get out of that situation, saying that it's healthy for people to have people, and so you should try to find your way out of it. But obviously, some people will not find a way out of it for whatever reason. Perhaps they're stuck in it. Perhaps they're in, perhaps they're in solitary confinement. Perhaps they're locked

24:54 in a closet somewhere. I don't know why they are stuck lonely, but if somebody is stuck lonely and unable to get themselves out of it, the Rebbe does have ways for us to use it. The Rebbe says that, uh, that if you find yourself in a situation like loneliness, you're supposed to be using it for your shlichus. How specifically? Well, now you have spare hours that are not spent on other people. Spend it on chapatzat hamayanot, chapatzat hadinim, that are, that, that, um, spreading laws and spreading tzedakah and spreading, uh, and spreading closeness to Hashem. Bring people close to Hashem with the extra hours you have. And as we saw, that is actually also the advice of the Sha'ar HaBitachon, and also the reason that the Alter Rebbe says that certain people, even in the times of the Mishnah and the times of the Gemara, you could tell who was a little sharper than who else by who had the most loneliness in their lives, that a little bit of loneliness can also seriously expand a person's mind. Okay. Thank you all very much.