The dates between March 30 and April 5, 2026, are celebrated as Library Week. Throughout the week, various events are organized in our country and in many parts of the world to encourage the habit of reading books and to create social awareness.

Because libraries are special spaces that develop and heal the human being. Health is not sought solely in hospitals; sometimes it is also found between the pages of books lined up on library shelves. One of the silentest and deepest companions for a human being to listen to themselves, to journey toward their own inside, and to find the way leading to themselves is the serene reading and study halls of libraries.

A life without books remains incomplete and passive. One of the fundamental purposes of a healthy and meaningful life is to be able to transform life into an area of learning through the medium of the book. Both for ourselves and for others; in short, for everyone…

Cultural weakness is not merely a deficiency in a certain field; it means the weakening of the entirety of the human being's world of thought, emotion, and behavior. This weakness, which further strengthens the negative impact of conditioned reality, leads to blindness of the self and an eclipse of reason.

The ability of material wealth to grant peace to the meaning and mind world of the human being depends on the relationship established with books that nourish cultural wealth. For no matter how high the mountain of materialism, carnality, and selfishness may be; the path of knowledge and culture, sooner or later, passes over those mountains.

For when learning, which grows cultural awareness, is neglected, the heart darkens and hardens. Trying to build development upon a hardened heart is like sowing seeds on a rock. Just as a fertile soil is needed for the seed to sprout, un-darkened, un-hardened hearts and lively cultural exchanges are needed for cultural development.

Therefore, on the path of learning, the book is the provision of the way, the light of the mind, and the oil lamp of the heart.

Being able to do this by opening our wings to love carries great importance for social development. For the light lit on the path of learning illuminates not only today, but also the path of the future.

With these feelings and thoughts, on Thursday, April 2, 2026, I visited Mr. Yusuf Başı, the Director of the Midyat Altunkaya Public Library. In his valuable person, I expressed my feelings of gratitude and appreciation to everyone who labors to popularize the habit of reading. Furthermore, on the occasion of this meaningful week, I presented my four separate published works on Syriac culture as a gift to the library.

Thanks to this visit, within a mutual intellectual interaction, I saw once again that: what is important and true is not to lose the spirit of being compassionate amidst the difficulties of life, to multiply empathy, and to enable human beings to look at human beings with understanding.

This is the path that must be walked by exalting and sanctifying human dignity.

This is also the path that connects the secondary roads of the inner world to the main road of the divine system—that is, of truth.

Even if it be rugged, this is the beautiful path that must be walked. This path is the path of inner enlightenment. This path is the path of decency and morality. This path is the path of being "like oneself," not "like everyone else"; it is the path of remaining authentic.

The greatest success of a human being walking on this path is to know themselves and to be able to cope with themselves.

The word of the Ancient Age philosopher Seneca expresses this truth in a profound manner: "The road that misleads a human being the most is the one that is worn down because everyone passes through it."

With my respects…

Yusuf Beğtaş