Igrot Kodesh · Letter 2963 — Health

B"H

Days of Selichos* 5714,
Brooklyn, New York.

To our brothers and sisters, the sons and daughters of Israel, wherever they may be,

May Hashem grant them long life,

Extensive greetings and blessing,

Life, and principally its moral dimension, requires, when one year ends and another begins, the drawing up of an account and a balance of the year that has passed, in order to determine how to direct the one that begins.

From the standpoint of the balance relating to Jewish practice, one of the most important events of this year 5714 has been the still more stark evidence of the waywardness of certain ideals and certain hopes upon which Jews can in no way rely.

The ideals, all those terms ending in "isms," as well as the groups seeking to promote them, have provoked a cruel disappointment among all those who placed their hope in them.

The year 5714 has strengthened the conviction, including among those who have distanced themselves, that the continuity of Israel can be guaranteed only when one firmly adheres to the practice of the Torah, to the adoption of the way of life it advocates.

The year that has just passed has once again proven that the compromising position according to which Jews must adhere to two or three fundamental principles, one of them being the Torah, is a means of diverting them from right to left, of distancing them from a complete and integral Judaism — a Judaism of the practice of mitzvos* in daily existence.

It is in this way that Jews have maintained themselves since they became a people, when they received the Torah near Mount Sinai.

It is a naive and even condemnable error to imagine that one can fulfill one's obligation with beautiful words and fine speeches while adopting the same behavior as non-Jews, or that it suffices to receive a few "injunctions" of Judaism on certain days of the year or at a few moments of life.

The Judaism of Torah and mitzvos* is a way of life that one must adopt and put into practice throughout the entire day. Just as a healthy man maintains his condition permanently and not only from time to time, a few days a year, a Jew is in good moral health when he applies the Torah and the mitzvos* daily, throughout the year, permanently.

In his material situation, a man refuses all compromise. He will not accept being only half healthy, which Hashem should spare us. Now, it is the same in the moral dimension. One cannot live one's Judaism halfway.

A healthy man must move in a favorable environment, do everything in his power to ensure that it is wholesome. It is the same in the spiritual domain. Each person receives a mission toward his family and his surroundings, among whom he must spread the clarity and the warmth of the Torah and the mitzvos*, thereby diffusing health around him.

May Hashem cause that the balance drawn up during this period lead to a firm decision, to an awareness of the truth, to an understanding that the Torah of life, concretely applied in daily existence, is the only path open to Jews, individually and as a community, not only in the World to Come but also in this world, in order to know happiness therein.

May this decision and its concrete application permit, and it surely will, that each man and each woman be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet year.

Menachem Schneerson,