The Maggid of Mezeritch: Give Your Plans a Foundation

When building a home, you must start from the ground. Keeping it in your head has no foundation.

Attribution printed on the image: Maggid of Mezeritch

A reflection on the teaching

A house needs something more solid than an image in the builder's mind. The saying printed here uses that familiar fact to challenge plans that never become practice. We can imagine an ideal routine so vividly that it feels like progress. The foundation is the first action we are willing to repeat. Choose one time, one place and one modest behavior. Then see whether it works in the life we actually have. Adjusting a real beginning teaches us more than endlessly improving a plan we have never tried.

Source note: The attribution above is transcribed from the image. The exact source and English wording have not been independently verified.