By the Grace of G-dLag B’Omer, 5736Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mr.
Greeting and Blessing:
I duly received your letter and was, of course, sorry to note its content.
However, our Torah teaches us that “As water reflects a face, so does one heart respond to another.” I see from your letter that you are willing to do everything that depends on you that there should be Sholom Bayis — peace and harmony in your home. And as a practical businessman, you are surely implementing this in actual practice. I am, therefore, confident that the above quotation from the Torah will be fulfilled also in the present case.
I want to take advantage of this opportunity - since you have written to me — to emphasize again the enormous importance of Sholom Bayis, so much so that our Torah, called Toras Emes because it presents the truth, declares that when a husband and wife are worthy, the Shechinah (Divine Presence) abides among them. Obviously, every effort is worthwhile to ensure G-d’s Presence in the home, with all that it means in terms of His blessings, materially and spiritually.
Hence, even when one thinks that one is 100% right it pays to conciliate for the sake of peace and especially for the sake of the abiding Shechinah, as above.
There is also the assurance of our Sages in such matters; “Try hard and you will succeed.”
With blessings for hatzlocho and good tidings,
Notes and sources
Published: The Letter and the Spirit, Vol 5 (Nissan Mindel Publications, 2019), 92.
Note: Letters printed in "The Letter 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.