5734
Mrs. . . .
Blessing and Greeting:
Just received your letter, enclosing invitation in connection with luncheon tomorrow, on the occasion of your establishing a new home in Jerusalem.
I send you my prayerful wishes for hatzlacha in your new home — in the Holy City — which is called Sha’ar Hashamayim, the Gate to Heaven, through which, as our Sages declare in our holy Torah, the daily prayers of all Jews, wherever they are, ascend to G-d.
The meaning of prayer is that by praying to G-d for his daily needs, the Jew recognizes and reaffirms that G-d is the Provider and Source of all blessings, while human endeavor is the channel and vessel through which His blessings for all needs are received.
Similarly, Jerusalem is, first and foremost, the Holy City and Sha’ar Hashamayim, by virtue of its embodying the holiness that must permeate its daily life — this holiness being the channel through which its material aspects are also blessed with success.
Thus, your new home in Jerusalem will offer you the opportunity to give even greater expression to the sacred traditions of your family. And in this connection, allow me to cite the ruling of our Sages that “Holiness does not depart from its place.” This means that where holiness has found an abode, in terms of holy deeds and activities, the spirit of holiness remains hovering there, even after those who performed these deeds and activities have moved to another place.
In concrete terms, as applied in your case: Though you are establishing a new home in Jerusalem, I am confident that you will maintain your ties in Detroit and the USA, and continue with all your activities for the spreading of Yiddishkeit in your former haunts, though now on an even greater scale. For Jewish hearts, particularly the hearts of our younger generation are open and yearning for Torah and mitzvot, and the challenges and opportunities have never been greater.
Please convey my felicitations to all your family and all participants in the auspicious gathering, together with my sincere wish that through their association with you and your good work they too will partake of the holy spirit of the Holy City, the Gate to Heaven, as above.
With esteem and with blessing for happy tidings in all the above,
Notes and sources
Published: The Letter and the Spirit, Vol 1 (Nissan Mindel Publications, 1998), 284.
Note: Letters printed in "The Letters and the Spirit" are from the Archives of Rabbi Nissan Mindel A"H, the Rebbe's personal secretary entrusted with writing up the Rebbe's orally dictated responses. The “Nissan Mindel Archives” are comprised of secretarial copies, including first drafts, and may have subsequently been published with editorial changes. Therefore the letters as they appear in the book may not be the final signed version.