Nissan 13, 1943
My dear Young Friends:
You are surely well acquainted with the Haggadah by now. No doubt you know about the "Four Sons" – the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one unable to ask a question.
Which one do you want to be? Of course the "wise son," or wise daughter.1 But one should be a wise child not merely on the Seder-night, but always.
Do you know how to be and act like a wise Jewish child? It's entirely up to you!
LEARN OUR HOLY TORAH!
ENQUIRE ABOUT THE MITZVOTH GIVEN TO OUR PEOPLE ISRAEL AND DO THEM!
ENQUIRE ABOUT THE CUSTOMS OF OUR PEOPLE AND OBSERVE THEM!
SEE THAT YOUR JEWISH FRIENDS DO THE SAME!
If you do that you will certainly be a wise child, and you will make your dear parents happy and proud of you.
With best wishes for a kosher and happy Pesach.
MERKOS L’INYONEI CHINUCH
Rabbi Mendel Schneerson
Notes and sources
This message for children was published at the end of the Report and Souvenir Album for the Mesibos Shabbos rally of Purim, 5703 (Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Nissan 5703). The letter (with slight variations and dated as "Nisan 5704") was subsequently printed with the "A Word To The Children" in the preface of The Seder: The Simonim of Pesach and Ma Nishtana, a short sixteen-page pamphlet published by Merkos before Pesach of 1944, (In the 1955 edition of The Seder, this letter is dated "Nisan 5705.")
1) “Or wise daughter” was added in the 1955 edition of The Seder.
Source: Photocopy of original.
Published: THE SEDER, (Merkos, 5704).