The Rebbeim are talking to us 1

The Rebbe says:

… He [the Frierdiker Rebbe] continued to publicize this announcement, and instructed that it be published so that it would remain for following generations, and the matter is in print even now. However, one must take the sefer down from the shelf and read it again—but not in a way that one reviews outdated matters, for if the words of Tzaddikim in general stand forever, this applies all the more to something so fundamental that he himself instructed be printed.

Hisva’aduyos 5747, Vol. 2, pp. 619-620 (emphases added).

This is, I believe, a large part of the problem. We may read the words of the Rebbeim and understand them, but we often treat them as theoretical, if only subconsciously. We feel as if they are speaking about and directed to some rarefied ben aliyah, some spectacular oived and maskil from a storybook, when in fact they’re speaking to lil’ ol’ us.

Of course, there is essentially nothing new in this message, it just needs to be said again.

But what we don’t realize is that it takes a conscious effort, a Hisbonenus, to really feel that the Rebbeim are talking to us. (That’s one of the things that a chassidishe farbrengen is for, I believe.) But if we don’t do the Avodah necessary to feel that way, then naturally we don’t take the next step to then think about how to apply the words of the Rebbeim to ourselves and our real lives, and then actually do it. So no wonder we won’t progress much in our Avodah. If you don’t even think that the medicine is for you, you certainly won’t take it.