Yud Kislev,[742] 5711 [1950]

Brooklyn, N.Y.

To[743] our brethren of the chassidic fraternity[744]
and to all those who love the Torah
wherever you may be:

May G-d's blessings light upon you.

Greetings and blessings!

"This is a day of glad tidings"[745] and it is drawing near -- Tuesday, the nineteenth of Kislev, the day on which the righteous cause of the Alter Rebbe (the author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch) was publicly vindicated, together with the righteous cause of the teachings of Chabad Chassidus and the teachings of Chassidus at large.

In a letter[746] dated Yud Kislev, 5710 [1949], two months before his histalkus, my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz], writes: "Studying the teachings of Chassidus is relevant not only to a particular category of Jews; it is an obligation that relates to the entire Jewish people, and to Torah scholars in particular." Chassidim,744 moreover, have an obligation to actively engage in disseminating the study of Chassidus. This means that such endeavors should be incessant, so that this goal remains central to all one's activities, no matter how peripheral -- "just as a man is engaged in his business[747] all day, and not only during the specific times during which it occupies him directly, because it is so meaningful to him; he is involved in it at all hours and at all times."

Elsewhere[748] the Rebbe [Rayatz] explains at length how the stipulation [made by Mashiach], viz., that "the wellsprings (of the Baal Shem Tov's teachings) be disseminated far afield"[749] -- is a prelude and a preparation and a vessel for the coming of Mashiach.

This stipulation, which obliges each and every one of us to exert himself to the utmost, comprises three elements:

1. To disseminate: This implies teaching Chassidus over so wide a spectrum[750] that it reaches every part of the environment in which one teaches.

2. The wellsprings: The teachings of Chassidus that one disseminates must retain the characteristics of a maayan (lit., "a wellspring"). A wellspring has two main characteristics:[751] (i) its waters are alive, welling forth uninterruptedly from its source; (ii) quantity is not what counts: the wellspring at its source yields a mere trickle. The conditions for the dissemination of these teachings are the same: Quantity is not what counts. What is crucial is that the teaching should be alive with a vitality of the soul and with an inward exuberance, and that it should well forth from its source -- from the innermost core of the soul of the person who is disseminating these teachings, whose heart of hearts is bound with the Nesi'im of the teachings of Chassidus.

3. Far afield:[752] We should not be satisfied with teaching merely in a beis midrash or shul; rather, this should also take place when one is traveling or sitting in his store or whatever. Likewise, one's students should not be restricted to certain ideological categories or particular kinds of people. For the simplest of people is also obliged to study the teachings of Chassidus, just as the greatest of the great is unable to plumb its depths.

As to those who are presently beyond all pales of Jewish commitment, even in places that the Torah itself calls far afield, -- there, too, the wellsprings must be disseminated.

The merit of our endeavors to disseminate the wellsprings widely will precipitate -- and enable us to receive -- the blessings which my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz], gave every one of us in preparation for the last Yud-Tes Kislev before his histalkus, and which he is no doubt giving us now, too, in preparation for this Yud-Tes Kislev. He expressed it in the second person, as follows:[753] "May you be blessed by G-d with a good year in the study and dissemination of Chassidus -- you, your households,[754] your sons and your daughters (May they all live in the ways of Chassidus!). May you and your families and all those who are close to you be blessed with all your needs both material and spiritual."

With blessings for success in avodah and for all manner of good,

Menachem Schneerson

   

Notes:

742. (Back to text) Yud (10) Kislev commemorates the liberation of the Mitteler Rebbe from imprisonment in Vitebsk in 1826. (See Sefer HaMinhagim: The Book of Chabad-Lubavitch Customs, p. 150, and sources listed there.) Yud-Tes (19) Kislev, "the Rosh HaShanah of Chassidus," commemorates the liberation of the Alter Rebbe from imprisonment and capital sentence in Petersburg in 1798. (See op. cit., p. 151ff., and sources listed there.)

743. (Back to text) When the above letter was originally circulated in mimeograph it was introduced by the following note: "Please publish the contents of this letter. Thanks in advance. Machne Israel." (The outreach work of Machne Israel was headed by the Rebbe.) The letter is reproduced in Igros Kodesh (Letters) of the Rebbe, Vol. XXI, p. 114, Letter #7865.

744. (Back to text) In the original Heb., Anash, an acronym for anshei shlomeinu.

     (The remaining footnotes to this letter, apart from those enclosed by square brackets [], were written by the Rebbe.)

745. (Back to text) [In the original, hayom yom b'surah.] This is the name that was given from heaven to Tuesday, the nineteenth of Kislev -- in a reply to a Tosafist by the name of R. Yehudah of Corbeil; see She'elos U'Teshuvos min HaShamayim, sec. 5.

746. (Back to text) It first appeared in Kuntreis Yud-Tes Kislev. [It was later reprinted in: Sefer HaMaamarim 5710 [1950], p. 94; Sefer HaMaamarim 5711 [1951], p. 136; and Igros Kodesh (Letters) of the Rebbe Rayatz, Vol. X, p. 304, Letter # 3636.]

747. (Back to text) This phrase is used by my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz], towards the end of the maamar of 5688 [1928] which opens with the words, Amar R. Yehoshua ben Levi..., Kol HaOsek BeTorah (in Sefer HaMaamarim 5688 [1928], p. 112).

748. (Back to text) See the sichah of Simchas Torah, 5690 [1929], which appears in Likkutei Dibburim [in the Heb./Yid. edition], Vol. II, p. 572 [and in Eng. translation: Vol. II, pp. 227, 266ff., 298].

749. (Back to text) [On the exchange between Mashiach and the Baal Shem Tov, see the sixth footnote to the above letter of the Rebbe dated Rosh Chodesh Kislev.]

750. (Back to text) See Rashi on this verse (Mishlei 5:16): "...teachings in public."

751. (Back to text) It will be noted that a maayan is metaher bezochalin [i.e., one can become purified by immersing in water which flows from a wellspring, though not from a mikveh]; moreover, a maayan is metaher bekol-shehu [i.e., a mere nominal quantity of it can purify, instead of the minimal volume of 40 se'ah required for a regular mikveh]. [See the above letter of the Rebbe dated Rosh Chodesh Kislev and its last footnote.]

752. (Back to text) See: Zohar I, p. 141b; the beg. of Toras Chayim, on the verse chochmos b'chutz; and elsewhere.

753. (Back to text) In the above-quoted letter [of the Rebbe Rayatz] dated Yud Kislev [see footnote 5 above].

754. (Back to text) [In keeping with Rabbinic tradition (Shabbos 118b), this is a politely oblique allusion to the readers' wives.]