By the Grace of G-d 28 Adar I, 5738 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

I was pleased to be informed of the forthcoming Annual Dinner, and may G-d grant that it be with much Hatzlocho in all respects.

Since the event is taking place on the eve of the 7th of Adar II, the date itself underscores a meaningful connection between this important event and the Leap Year in which it is taking place.

The essence of a Leap Year in our Jewish Calendar is that it makes up for the deficiency between the lunar years and the solar years. For, inasmuch as our Jewish Calendar is basically lunar, and the lunar year falls short of the solar year by about eleven days, the deficiency must be made good by the addition of an extra month (two months of Adar, instead of one) every two or three years, in order that our festivals should occur within their due seasons - Pesach in the spring; Succos in the autumn, etc., as required by the Torah.

However, as all matters in Torah ("Torah" meaning "instruction") instruct the Jew how to conduct himself in his daily life in keeping with his duties to G-d and man, so has the institution of the Leap Year an important practical instruction. It is, that if a person has fallen short of fulfilling his duties, or in fulfilling them to perfection, he should not fail to make up for the deficiency in full measure. Besides, it is surely self-evident that even if a person fulfilled his obligations perfectly in the past, that is no longer perfect enough for the present, since everything is relative, and a human being is expected to rise to higher levels of achievement as time progresses. And, needless to say, in implementing the lesson of the Leap Year, one does not depend on the moon and the sun (or any external forces of nature), but it is a matter of one’s own will.

Especially keeping in mind the well-known teaching of my father-in-law of saintly memory that when a Jew firmly resolves to do a good thing - even if at that moment it seems overly ambitious - the Al-mighty opens up for him new channels and opportunities to fulfil it.

If the above is true in all matters of Torah and Mitzvos - how much more so in the area of Torah-true Chinuch, where, however much is accomplished, still more remains to be done. Particularly in the case of the outstanding Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch in Montreal, and considering its specific character - as that of all Lubavitcher Yeshivoth - where the students are imbued with a profound awareness that they have a Divinely given mission in life to disseminate and strengthen Yiddishkeit everywhere, and actually do it with the utmost selflessness.

I am, therefore, fully confident that the Governors and all friends of the Yeshiva, whose support in the past has made everyone truly proud of the Yeshiva's exemplary achievements, will - in the spirit of the Leap Year - increase still more their support, in order to make up also for that which could have been achieved in a still larger measure in recent years - if the Yeshiva had had the extra financial means to do so.

May G-d help - and assuredly He will help - each and all of you to do the above with joy and gladness of heart, especially since the Dinner is taking place in the month of Marbin b’simchah, when "joy should be on the increase." And may each and all of you, in the midst of all our people Israel, see the fulfilment of the words of the Megilah, "for the Jews there was light, joy, gladness, and honor" - in both the plain sense of these words as well as in their inner meaning, namely, "Light - this is Torah," etc.

With esteem and blessing for happy tidings and for a joyous Purim,

/Signed: Menachem Schneerson /