By the Grace of G-d 7th of Tammuz, 5746 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Blessing and Greeting:

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter requesting a blessing for your mother. As requested, I will remember her in prayer when visiting the holy resting place of my father-in-law, the Rebbe of saintly memory. May Hashem grant that just as you wrote the request on her behalf, so you should be able to report good news in this matter.

With reference to your beginning your letter with a remark that you are a “secular” Jew - permit me to say that this is a contradiction in terms. I trust you know that ever since the Revelation at Mount Sinai, when the Jewish people received the holy Torah, our Jewish people was designated by Hashem as a “Holy Nation.”¹ Of course, a person has been given freedom of action and a Jew may or may not, live up to the said designation in terms of adherence to the holy Torah and all its holy precepts - for various reasons, mostly depending on the upbringing and Torah education one received in one’s childhood and adolescent years. But, this does not change the fact that the very essence of every Jew is being a member of the Holy Nation.

Since this is our first exchange of correspondence, I will not elaborate on the above, but I trust an elaboration is not really necessary.

I must add, however, that the channel for a Jew to receive G-d’s blessings is through the Torah and mitzvos practiced in the everyday life and conduct and that every additional effort in this direction, though the Torah and mitzvos are a “must” for their own sake, widens these channels.

May you have good news to report in all above.

With blessing,