By the Grace of G-d Erev Shabbos Kodesh Mevorchim Sivan, 5725 Brooklyn, N. Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

The Annual Dinner takes place this year in the week of Shovuoth, the Festival of the Giving of Our Torah - the ultimate purpose of Yetzias Mitzraim.

The said festivals, Pesach and Shovuoth, mark two closely linked historical events which created our eternal Jewish people. The inner and always timely significance of these festivals is to be found in the fact that they instill the experiences and inspirations, which are associated with the said festivals - into the personal day-to-day life of every Jew, in every place, and at all times.

The essential point of it is this: "Yetzias Mitzraim," the liberation from bondage - both from the internal subservience to one’s own human nature, as well as liberation from the external bondage, i.e. subservience to the environment - can be achieved only by means of the Torah and Mitzvoth, which illuminate the daily path of the individual and of the community.

This year there is an added significance in the fact that it is a Leap Year. The purpose of a Leap Year is to ensure that the festivals should occur in their proper season; first and foremost, the festival of Pesach, and as a matter of course also the festival of Shovuoth (the "50th day of Sefira"), and all the other festivals.

However, as all matters of Torah, which have countless explanations and instructions, because the holy Torah is endless as the Giver of the Torah, the En Sof, blessed be He, so is also the matter of the Leap Year. One of the teachings of the Leap Year is that a Jew should be master over his time, and should regulate his time to conform to Torah. Also the worldly matters such as sowing and reaping (Pesach is the time of the barley harvest; Shovuoth - of the wheat harvest) and so forth, have to be related to "Yetzias Mitzraim" - not to be a slave to the world and to nature, but on the contrary, to be master over them - by virtue of the Torah and Mitzvoth which G-d has given to the Jew.

Moreover, if anything was left undone in the past, it is possible not only to make it up, but even to prepare for the future, as this is indicated in the matter of the Leap Year (the additional month of Adar).¹

May G-d grant that this year's Annual Dinner should give expression to the above mentioned matters, in the daily life of every one of the participants, man and woman, and their families; to fortify the foundations of the Torah and Mitzvoth in their own homes, as well as in the environment at large, particularly through the strengthening and expanding of the Yeshiva Achei Tmimim in your community.

I congratulate all the honored guests and participants, and wish you all Hatzlocho, and may you have happy tidings to report.

With blessing

/Signed/ Menachem M. Schneerson