The Long Short Road

Many ways serve to promote worship of Hashem, except Chabad's modus operandi is unique for taking the "long, short road". That is, to "get it" quickly, you first must cultivate "it" properly.

Two examples of this technique:

1) Take the case of a thief trying to break into a home to steal. When the owner realizes what is going on, he starts screaming to chase the thief away. But doing so did not solve the problem. On another day, the thief will try again in another way, and one of these days will succeed.

There's a harder way to take to try and thwart the thief; Doing it indirectly. While he's in the house, get him to sit at the table and convince him that stealing is counter-productive. Although this approach calls for ingenuity, this will get to the root of the problem and he will quit.

2) Take the case of someone whose blood vessels suffer integrity and this brings about lesions on his skin of his whole body. An unwise doctor might take some cream formula and treat the wounds as they show up. Although the cream might help, it will not halt new lesions from appearing, nor will any be amenable to cure.

The better way is to treat the problem at its root, by curing the blood vessels. Doing this will likewise cure the dermatitis.

Similarly, many non-chassidic, and even some chassidic, approaches base their ways to bring one closer into God's service by chasing "behavioral symptoms" and trying to cure these. They "put out the fires" as they apply cream to a skin wound, or take a stick to chase away anger, arrogance, jealousy, lust, etc. These are but temporary solutions that do not change the person from within. The Chabad chassidic way to deal with these problems is to influence and change the essence, which will likewise already cure much of everything else.

Without first expending energy and ingenuity with proper inculcation, the shorter road is nothing but an illusion, whereas after taking the long road, any problem thereafter can easily resort to the short road.