The piece opens with a Talmudic adage that AZR turns into a principle: "By a man's blessings one may tell whether he is a scholar." That is, blessings testify to the one who blesses no less than to the one blessed.
AZR refuses to take pride. He explicitly belittles his own worth, and turns the attention from the man to the community and its aspirations:
"In truth it matters little whether there is anything in me of the praises lavished on me with a generous hand, out of a love that bends the rule... For I am but a small particle, a grain from the heap. What matters is to know what the community aspires to, and above all the community of workers, for it is the vision of their own hearts that they attribute to me." AZR, "On the Blessings," "Kuntres," Adar 5684 (1924).
Reading the greetings, above all those of the young people and the Hebrew worker, AZR recognizes the very synthesis he had labored over all his life. This is perhaps the most concise formulation of his teaching:
"They seek great things: complete harmony between the sanctity of tradition and the moral demands of our generation, the ideal of prophecy and social justice — in short: all that is beautiful and sublime in Israel and in humanity." Ibid.
And from this he draws an encouraging moral conclusion: the aspiration itself is already the beginning of its fulfillment.
"It is clear to me that whoever has such an aspiration, such a vision of the heart, already carries within himself, buried in the soil of his soul, the seed of blessing of all the good he aspires to. And that is a great and gladdening moral advance." Ibid.
AZR draws a sharp contrast between the Diaspora youth of the past, who spent their strength on a Russian matriculation certificate in order to "earn a comfortable living," and the youth of his own generation building the Land through labor. This is the heart of his optimism.
"Those young men crammed with all their might the meager textbooks of the Slavic tongue... in the hope of afterwards earning a comfortable living... and those young men never sensed or felt that they were preparing themselves to become parasites, eaters of other men's toil." Ibid.
"We now see the aspiration of our people's youth of today, who come to build the Land of Israel through creative labor, and to prepare for their people a foundation of moral existence in brotherhood, in equality, in mutual aid, in a Hebrew and human culture." Ibid.
In closing, AZR answers the young people in the language of mutual giving, and summons a precious piece of firsthand testimony: words spoken by Albert Einstein during his visit to the Land (1923), in his address to the workers in Tel Aviv.
"From the sheaves of light streaming out of your young souls... the small spark within my own heart was kindled, and I repeat to you the words spoken to you by the genius of science of our generation, Prof. Einstein, at the workers' assembly in Tel Aviv: 'I have received from you more than I have given you.'" Ibid. (Einstein visited the Land in February 1923.)
And he closes with an inverted blessing, in which the old man asks to become like the young, and not the other way around:
"Ascend, friends, higher and higher — and I, with your help, will climb after you, until we merit to see Zion rebuilt in its economic and ideal wholeness. Bound to you in bonds of everlasting love." Ibid.