By the Grace of G-d24th of Adar I, 5733Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

I was pleased to be informed that the Annual Dinner will take place on the 9th of Adar II -- the historic day when my father-in-law of saintly memory arrived in the U.S.A. thirty three years ago.

As is known, my father-in-law, the Rebbe, declared immediately upon arrival, that it was not for his own sake that he came to America, but that Divine Providence had led him to these shores "in order to make America, with G-d’s help, a center of Torah with Yiras Shomayim in the spirit of Tomchei-Tmimim Lubavitch."

After all these years that elapsed since that day, it is surely appropriate to take stock of the accomplishments, and there is certainly reason to be gratified .

However, with all that has been achieved, if we look into what is happening around us, and how many Jewish children and youths are still groping in the dark, waiting for someone to extend a helping hand to them and guide them out of the darkness into the light of the Torah and Mitzvoth -- one cannot help feeling regretful at the thought that, after all that has been accomplished, much more should have been done. But here there is the danger of shrugging it off with an unseemly thought: "It's no use crying about the past; it’s too late to do anything about it. Let’s, at any rate, see to it that we do a good day’s work each day in the future.״

The fact is that for Jews there is no such thing as "too late." And this is what we are especially reminded about in the current Leap Year, especially in the present intercalated month of Adar.

The purpose of the Leap Year in our Hebrew Calendar is to make good the deficiency between the Lunar Year (the basis of our calendar) in relation to the Solar Year, in order that our festivals should occur in their due season (Pesach in the spring, etc.). But this also conveys the teaching that a Jew must always strive to make good any deficiency in the past .

Moreover, just as in the case of the Leap Year, the added month does not merely make up the deficiency of past years, but also exceeds it with an "advance" on the future, so must a Jew endeavor not only to make up for the past deficiency, no matter what the reasons were, or how justified they were --but do so with an "advance” on the future.

I confidently hope that the response of all participants, especially of the honored Governors and active friends of the Yeshiva, will this year be particularly generous, so as together with the Yeshiva truly carry out in a tangible way the aforementioned message of the Leap Year.

Congratulation to you all, and may each and all of you be blessed by G-d with much Hatzlocho, in this undertaking and in general, both materially and spiritually.

With esteem and blessing for

Hatzlocho and good tidings

/Signed: Menachem Schneerson/