It isn’t every day that a shliach and a senior engineer team up to write a book.

After years of conversations with young people about the confusion, comparison and pressure fueled by social media, Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu, a shliach of the Rebbe in Vancouver, British Columbia, decided to put those conversations into a book.

He teamed up with his chavrusa, Daniel Friedmann, a senior engineer and CEO whom he learns with several times a week, to write Your Calling: Moving Forward from Here and Now.

The book explores the search for meaning and purpose, offering readers a Torah-based framework for understanding their unique role in life and taking practical steps toward fulfilling it.

“I see a tremendous search for meaning,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said. “The younger generation wants to know not just what to work on or how to succeed, but why they’re alive, what their unique role is, and how they can leave a real mark on the world.”

He added that alongside real talent and openness, this generation also carries more fragility, shaped by constant comparison on social media and a flood of information and expectations that often leaves people confused and unsure where they belong.

What sets the book apart, Rabbi Yeshayahu said, is that it doesn’t stop at asking what meaning is, but focuses just as much on how to reach it.

“It isn’t just a book of ideas and inspiration,” he said. “It offers practical tools for identifying the talents, circumstances, challenges and opportunities that can reveal a person’s unique shlichus.”

He noted that a person doesn’t need to wait until the whole path is clear, writing in the book that “even if you can’t yet see how it all fits together or how it ends, your step matters.”

Friedman, whose background in business, science and leadership connects him to the challenges people face well beyond the Jewish world, said he sees the same search for purpose among Jews and l’havdil non-Jews. He and Rabbi Yeshayahu wrote the book to make the depth of Torah’s wisdom accessible to readers regardless of their background, so that anyone, Jewish or not, could draw on it to find genuine happiness, meaning and responsibility.

For Friedman, the heart of the book is starting from where you are.

“Use what you’ve already been given, and take the first step,” he said. “Clarity comes from action, and purpose is revealed through clarity.”

He added that imperfection isn’t a flaw but a calling, an open invitation for every person to step in and make things better by improving both themselves and the world around them.

The book was released first in English, with a Hebrew edition expected to follow shortly.