By the Grace of G-d20th of Menachem Av, 5718 Brooklyn, N. Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

This is to acknowledge your letter of July 3rd.

I was very gratified to read of the great strides that have been made in your community towards strengthening true Torah Yiddishkeit. At all times, efforts to strengthen our traditional faith had a priority claim on public-minded individuals; in our times such efforts are simply a vital necessity, especially in communities where there is an inadequacy of Torah institutions.

Moreover, efforts in the field of Kosher education are truly rewarding, because the accomplishments are lasting and cumulative. For every influence during the receptive and formative years of growing children and youths has a decisive effect on adulthood, as in the example of a seed or seedling, where even a slight defect, if not corrected, might irreparably damage the grown tree and its fruit for generations.

I would also like to emphasize, what is indeed self-evident, that inasmuch as the Torah and Mitzvoth are the Truth, as the Torah is called "Torah Emeth,” and as our Rabbis have also said ”There is no truth but the Torah (Jerusalmi Rosh Hashanah, ch.3, Hal. 8), there can be no room here for compromise and half-truths. For compromise and truth are absolutely contradictory.

Moreover, experience has long disproved the fallacy, perhaps well-meant, but quite misguided, that if you tell youths and adolescents the whole truth about the Torah and Mitzvoth, they will be frightened away from Yiddishkeit. The contrary is true, for, give a lad or girl the whole truth about Yiddishkeit, they will accept it enthusiastically; dilute it - and you arouse their mistrust and antagonism. Similarly, in the case of adults who, for one reason or another, are as yet not straightened out on the question of the Torah and Mitzvoth, they, too, will be impressed only by the feeling of awareness of the whole truth, while they will view with suspicion and derision any effort to dish the truth out to them in ”palatable” pills which they could swallow in the estimation of those who would be presumptuous to think for them and judge their capacities.

In education, above all, gaining the child's confidence is the teacher's primary objective. The child is quick to detect the teacher's sincerity, and sooner or later he will also find out whether or not he has been deceived by his teacher, no matter what the motivation was. Should the child lose confidence in the teacher for teaching him only half-truths, he will reject the whole.

On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the New Year, may it bring true happiness to all our people, when we all pray "For Thou, O G-d art Truth, and Thy Word, O our King is Truth and endureth forever,”¹ may every one of us resolve to spread the Truth, through the dissemination of Torath-Emeth, and make it a living truth in every-day life.

In the merit of this the Almighty will surely inscribe each and every one of the workers for Torah-true Yiddishkeit, in the midst of all our people, to a truly happy and prosperous New Year, materially and spiritually.

With blessing,