ג׳ כסלו ה׳תשפ״ז | November 13, 2026
‘I Have Found It Helpful in My Own Life’
When a young Yakov Hanoka told the Rebbe about his struggles with maintaining a daily schedule, the Rebbe offered him practical advice, then added an unusual personal remark about his own daily habits.
Yakov Hanoka was a twenty-six-year-old student studying physics at Penn State University who had developed an intrigue and thirst for Yiddishkeit. With the Rebbe’s guidance, he spent a year learning in yeshiva before the Rebbe instructed him during a yechidus to return to university and complete his PhD in physics.
“At that time, I had a lot of problems keeping an order to my day,” Hanoka recalled. “I would stay up very late learning and reading, and the next day my meals would be irregular.”
During a yechidus, the Rebbe emphasized how important it is to maintain a regular daily schedule, to eat at the same time every day and to do everything at its proper time.
“Then the Rebbe added something special, a bit of a personal touch,” Hanoka relates. “He told me, ‘I have found this to be very helpful in my own personal life.'”
(A Chassidisher Derher, Issue 48, p. 52.)
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