By the Grace of G-d14th of Kislev, 5717Brooklyn, New York

Blessing and Greeting:

I am pleased to receive periodic reports of the activities of the Women's Group for the strengthening of Yiddishkeit in your community. As in all things, where the sign of life is to be found in growth and development. I trust that your group is likewise growing, both in membership and in the scope of work.

Approaching the historic Liberation Day of the Founder of Chabad (Yud Tes – 19 – Kislev), it is well to bear in mind that the lives of our great and saintly Rabbis of each generation are "sign-posts" guiding us in our own lives. While we cannot attain their lofty heights, we can nevertheless emulate them by trying to do our very best, as they did theirs.

The great and saintly Founder of Chabad exemplified the three loves which are the foundations of our way of Jewish life: Ahavas Yisroel (love of fellow-Jew), Ahavas haTorah (love of the Torah) and Ahavas haShem (love of G-d). He showed us how all three are so interlocked as to form one harmonious whole.¹ For from the love of G-d must necessarily follow love of the Torah which He has given us, as well as love of fellow-Jew who are His children. There can be no true love for fellow-Jew, nor for fellow-man in general, if it is not derived from love of G-d and the loving fulfillment of His laws and precepts in the Torah, which must form the weft and woof of our daily life. Scientific and technical progress will not, in themselves generate even basic love for humanity, as has been amply demonstrated in our own generation, when precisely the nation that boasted of the highest degree of scientific and technical attainment showed itself to be the most inhuman and depraved, using such "progress" for the perfection of implements of destruction and wholesale murder.

Only real faith in the Creator and Master of the world, expressed in daily living through the fulfillment of His precepts can qualify a human being to become a member of the human society and enable one to contribute, constructively and in the fullest measure, to the welfare of one’s environment and society as a whole.

The ”Old Rabbi," the Founder of Chabad, of whose inspiration we partake on Yud-Tes Kislev, not only showed us how to live a useful and harmonious life, but he has placed within the reach of every Jew and Jewess the greatest spiritual treasure of our sacred heritage, from some of the profoundest thoughts of the Torah to their implementation in the simplest details of our dally life, thus purifying our whole being in thought, word and, most important of all, in deed.

The special privileges and responsibilities of the Jewish woman are obvious, since it is the Jewish house-wife that determines the general atmosphere of the Jewish home and its very character to a substantial degree, and it is the Jewish woman also who largely determines the upbringing of the children, not only in childhood but in adolescence as well.

I am sure that you are particularly conscious of them, since you are as yet, the few out of many in your community, who are actively aware of them.

Please convey to every one of the entire group my prayerful wishes for the success of each one of you in your work to strengthen Yiddishkeit in your community; to illuminate and vitalize your homes with the light and warmth of Chassidus, to make every home into what our Sages called "Bais Mikdosh Me'at" – a sanctuary and abode for the Divine Presence,² a model and inspiration for the entire community.

With blessing for the material and spiritual welfare of everyone of you and your families,

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