What the Rav said:
A person suffers from despair. He sees that his learning isn’t going well. He’s already fallen into despair.
But, the Tzadik is telling you: In a short time, the redemption will come! In a short time, your mind will open up. In a short time, you’ll understand all the Gemarah, everything!
If a person would believe in himself, that his soul is very, very high…
There’s no such thing as a lowly soul. There’s no such reality! A Jew cannot have a lowly soul!
It’s just that it’s hard for a person to toil.
Because a person has a lot of wickedness in him. He’s got a lot of impurity from previous lifetimes. So, it’s hard for him to hear with simplicity what the Tzadik is telling him.
The fact that things aren’t working for him, that comes from his previous lifetimes, because he needs to clean a lot of impurity, a lot of blemishes.
But, in truth, each and every person has a very, very high soul!
My thoughts:
We need to make a distinction between our struggles in this world and who we really are.
According to my struggles, I’m a very low, occasionally heartless and often sinning person.
Not a very good picture.
But, that is not the real me.
Inside, the real me – my neshamah - is holy and pure. It’s a very, very lofty soul.
On the outside, I’m a bit of a loser. Nothing's really working. I’m not holy, I’m not learning and I’m certainly no Tzadik.
But, that doesn’t really matter. That’s just the struggle and the battle which Hashem wants me to fight in this world (to clean up my past).
So long as I’m struggling, so long as I keep fighting, then I’m doing my job. What it looks like from the outside is not necessarily the real me.