Since childhood, I've always loved learning - especially reading books. I never imagined I would not only complete a PhD but also teach at a university. Even less did I imagine that one day I would voluntarily walk away from a tenured academic position.
Looking back, I see more clearly what has truly drawn me all along: not knowledge, but wisdom. Yet as a child, I didn't know that wisdom could even be learned - much less how.
One of the most life-changing realizations that came to me through spiritual awakening was that knowledge and wisdom are fundamentally different. Once I saw that, it didn't take long to realize that academia was not the place to acquire the kind of wisdom I had always been seeking: not conceptual, theoretical wisdom, but life wisdom - practical, lived, and applicable to all aspects of being.
Through an incredible chain of "chance" encounters, I discovered Chabad Chassidus. I was deeply fortunate to spend three years studying its profound teachings - especially its unique psychology - at a special school in Jerusalem. I still remember those years as the most meaningful period in my life, in terms of both the quantity and quality of wisdom I absorbed like a sponge.
But this was not the end of the journey - only its incubation. I now see that those years prepared me to begin sharing these teachings with people who would otherwise have no access to them. Since I left academia five years ago, I've taken on a life mission: to transform darkness into light by spreading this life wisdom among a particular group of people - those who, in my view, are deeply entrenched in "darkness", and do not even realize it.
For the first time in my life, I feel that my professional activities are fully aligned with my life mission. And that gives me immense joy and gratitude.
Of course, I'm not free from challenges. Perhaps the greatest is this: the people who could benefit most from what I offer often don't know what they don't know. How can I reach them?
But I try to see this, and all my other challenges, as part of a perfect Divine choreography - tailor-made opportunities for internalizing the faith that everything is good, and the confidence that the Universe will give me the strength to discover that everything is good. These obstacles are also the perfect means for cultivating patience and compassion, which, I've come to see, are my life purpose in this lifetime.