Since its release on Gimmel Tammuz 5784, Letters for Life has been increasingly recognized by prominent voices in the frum world and beyond, including leaders in the mental-health community, as a valued source of Torah-based guidance for cultivating a healthy emotional life.

In connection with Hei Teves, we present the words of two leading experts in the Jewish world.

Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox, a leading authority on psychology within the frum community — serving as Director of Trauma Response and Bereavement for Chai Lifeline, a dayan on the Rabbinical Courts of Jerusalem, and a board member of Nefesh — shared: Letters for Life is an extremely well-researched compendium of profound insights and clear guidance. Reb Levi Shmotkin demonstrates a mastery of the wealth of letters sent by the Rebbe of Lubavitch, cataloging them into themes and concepts that allow the reader to be immersed in the perceptive wisdom of Toras HaNefesh through the lens of Chabad Chassidus. The volume includes much pure, pragmatic instruction for improving one’s personal and interpersonal functioning, as well as boosting one’s Avodas HaShem. I found Letters for Life inspiring and illuminating.

Similarly, Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb, Executive Vice President Emeritus of the Orthodox Union, Editor-in-Chief of the Koren Talmud Bavli, PhD, and world expert in psychology, shared the following:

We live in troubled times, and we all feel the need for guidance in many aspects of our daily lives. To whom can we turn for guidance—wise guidance, practical guidance, effective guidance?

In his new book, Letters for Life, Levi Y. Shmotkin enables us to consult an immensely valuable source of the guidance we seek. He presents us with the sage advice and helpful encouragement of someone who understood the modern world and had phenomenal insight into the soul and psyche of humanity. That person was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.

The author has creatively assembled the actual words of the Rebbe from his thousands of written communications to those who sought his direct assistance as they coped with the challenges of their lives.

Some of these challenges match the problems that we all face at one time or another in our lifetimes. Other challenges were the kind that confront us in unusually dire circumstances. Some of those who sought him out were “ordinary” men and women, while others were individuals of great fame and political power. He responded to all with equal compassion and respect, understanding and reassurance, empathy, and uncanny relevance.

This is a book for our times and for all people who seriously seek to achieve spiritual clarity, emotional benefit, and improved interpersonal relationships. I recommend the book heartily and guarantee that the reader will agree with my assessment that, as its title suggests, these are “letters for life.”