Igrot Kodesh · Letter 157 — Uncompromising Jewish Education in America: Lesson from the Meraglim

By the grace of Hashem,

Thursday, 24 Sivan 5704,

To the honorable and faithful chassid*, who is Hashem-fearing, Rav Y. Katz,[1]

I greet you and bless you,

I was unable to reply to your letter, dating from before Shavuos, which I did receive in its time. Indeed, I was occupied preparing the printing of the "Chicago booklet," of the second issue of Kovets Lubavitch, and other publications. You will please excuse me.

The booklet on Shavuos has met with much success, and this strongly encourages us to develop this series.

I would like to thank you, in the name of Merkaz L'Inyanei Chinuch*, for the important share you take in the distribution of these booklets.

Three years ago, when my father-in-law, the Rebbe Shlita, founded Merkaz L'Inyanei Chinuch, many said: "In America, such an initiative cannot be lasting. Here, everything is different. One cannot do otherwise than transgress certain prohibitions. Here, this is permitted."

Our action has proven that one can and must have, even in America, an education without compromise; textbooks of study and reading in which heretical ideas do not appear; children born in this country who mobilize themselves for the observance of Shabbos and Yiddishkeit*.

To achieve such a result, we must be aided, for there is much to do and everything is important.

It is for this reason that every attentive friend is particularly precious to us, and we hope that he will, in turn, attract his own friends.

Our sidra recounts the episode of the spies. They were dignitaries of the people of Israel, and they were then virtuous. Then they declared: "It is indeed a country flowing with milk and honey. But the people who reside there are powerful. Amalek is in the south." And all that was true. But they concluded: "We will not be able to vanquish this people, for they are stronger than we are." That was false, and the Gemara Sotah 35b explains what these words mean: "Hashem Himself cannot become master of them"; heretical statements!

It is strictly the same when one says that America is a country flowing with milk and honey, that one knows there all the material pleasures, in which one is mired, that one is surrounded by disciples of Amalek. Then how does one approach someone who is far from Yiddishkeit and ask him to adopt a way of life based on the Torah and the mitzvos? This place does not permit it! Now, such affirmations are the negation of faith.

One must therefore fill oneself with determination and, like Calev, exclaim: "We shall go up there, and consequently we shall be able to receive it."

With my blessing of immediate teshuvah, immediate redemption,

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson,

Director of the Executive Committee[2]

Notes:

(1) Rav Yaakov Katz. See letter no. 77.

(2) Of Merkaz L'Inyanei Chinuch.