Open Secret
In the wake of the recent tragedy in in Israel, Jewish vulnerability resurfaces. How do we grapple with the growing battlefield all around us – attacks on our safety, lives, identity? The Avner Institute presents the Rebbe’s encouraging words on the power of the Torah, our strength and rock on which our survival rests; and our special role as a nation to bring light to the world and combat the forces of darkness.
Dedicated in memory of loving memory of Hadassah Lebovic A”h
“A special and sacred duty”
5733
Mr. ————
New York, NY
Greeting and Blessing:
I am in receipt of your letter. Since it is customary to remember one in prayer by one’s full Hebrew name and the mother’s Hebrew name, would you please let me know these names when you write to me next time.
With regard to the subject matter of your letter, specifically in reference to your success in defending your thesis, it is not clear why this has left you with a bitter taste, as you indicate. Surely you know that this is the usual thing for a thesis to be criticized; indeed, this is the purpose of every defense. It is not unusual, also, that precisely when the thesis has strong supporters, it will also have strong critics. Finally, surely it should be a source of satisfaction to you that despite the attacks on the thesis, you were able to overcome and successfully defend your work.
With reference to your general question as to whether you have chosen the right course, etc., I trust that you know the basic principle of our Sages, of blessed memory, that the essential thing is the deed (Avot 1:17), that is to say the practical result. Similarly, in your case, whether you have taken the right course or not will depend upon how you utilize your degree; if you do so in the direction of the good and the holy, and use it to help illuminate your environment – it will prove that it was the right course.
On the other hand, if your qualifications and capacities will not be utilized, as above, or utilized in the opposite direction, the inevitable conclusion, with all due respect, will have to be that it was not the right course. For a person must not be a passive observer in his environment and society, not to mention a negative factor; he has a duty to his society to be a positive and active agent to improve his environment. And everyone has the capacity to do so, at least to some degree.
Problem & Challenge
If the above is true of every human being, there is an additional and very essential aspect in your case, as a Jew. Consider: the Jewish people, hence every member of it, has always found itself in the unique situation of being a small minority among the nations, most of whom were not friendly, and very often quite hostile. In these unfavorable circumstances, Jewish survival has always been a problem and a challenge. Consequently, this situation imposes a special and sacred duty on every Jew, man or woman, to do the maximum to strengthen and ensure Jewish survival. However, a Jew should not view this duty simply as an inevitable obligation, but should see in it his privileged divine mission in this world, through which the Jew attains fulfillment.
Moreover, this is not something which can be left to the Jew’s choice, for his choice lies only in whether he desires, or does not desire, to fulfill his duty; but that this is his sacred duty is not of his choosing, since he was born a Jew. And being born a Jew, he arrives in this world with a rich heritage, which equips him with special capacities, special privileges, and special obligations. There is no point in his arguing that he had not been consulted, etc., for whether this argument is valid or not, it does not change the reality, in the same way as the reality of every man in that inasmuch as one receives from society a variety of positive benefits, one is obligated to the society to compensate it with his best efforts. To argue that these obligations have been imposed on him without his prior consent, etc., cannot serve as an excuse to shirk these responsibilities.
Factors & Secrets
I am impelled to add yet another essential point. The survival of our Jewish people, and the impact that this matter has upon every Jewish individual, is not something that has as yet to be investigated and experimented with. The Jewish people is one of the oldest in the world, and in its long history as a nation it has gone through various conditions and circumstances, mostly very unfavorable, as mentioned above. If one wishes to know the secret of Jewish survival under circumstances that have obliterated larger and stronger nations, one has but to apply the same scientific method as in other cases.
In other words, it is necessary to find the common factor, or factors, in all the various periods of Jewish history, which would then have to be taken as the basis of Jewish survival. Should two or three different factors be found, there would be a question of whether all of them were indispensable to survival, or perhaps only one or two would also have been sufficient. But if only one common factor is found, then there can be no doubt that this is the only basis of the survival. This, as mentioned above, is the scientific approach, and is not a matter of belief or faith. Moreover, as in all fields of science, it does not matter whether one does or does not understand the scientific findings. Indeed, in most exact sciences the facts and actual phenomenon are first ascertained, and then a scientific explanation is sought.
Now, going back to the long history of our Jewish people over a period of some 3500 years, it will be seen that there has been only one factor that has preserved Jewish identity and survival throughout the various periods of our history. This factor was not language, nor country, nor anything else which is often associated with nationhood and nationalism, for in all these things there have been radical changes from one period to another, as anybody familiar with Jewish history knows.
Question of Survival
The single factor and, I emphasize, the one and only factor, which has preserved our Jewish people throughout the ages, under all kinds of circumstances, has been the fulfillment of the mitzvoth in day-to-day life, such as the observance of Shabbat, the putting on of tefillin, and the Torah education of our children. These and all other mitzvoth are already embedded in the Torah and have been observed by Jews since the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai, and they have been observed in the same way throughout the ages without change.
A further proof that this is the “secret” of Jewish survival, if further proof is necessary, is the fact that there have always been deviationists; the Torah relates that immediately after the Torah was given at Sinai there were the worshippers of the golden calf. Similarly, throughout the period of the judges, prophets, and kings, as well as the post-biblical period of the second Beit Hamikdash [Temple], and later. These deviationists attempted to steer another course, away from traditional Judaism, but they could never take root within the Jewish people. Either these deviationists eventually realized their mistake and returned to the fold of observance of Torah and mitzvoth, or they were completely assimilated among the nations of the world, without having anything further to do with the Jewish people, least of all with Jewish survival.
On the basis of the principle that the essential thing is the deed, as quoted earlier, I want to bring out the practical conclusion of the thoughts expressed in this letter, namely, that regardless of how your daily life expressed itself in the past, it is my duty, inasmuch as we have established contact between us, to point out to you your duty to yourself, to your surroundings, and to our Jewish people as a whole, to order your life in fullest accord with the Torah and mitzvoth in the daily life and conduct.
Needless to say, I realize that such a change entails difficulties and the giving up of various things, but surely it is a small sacrifices in relation to the enormous privilege of fulfilling a sacred obligation to our people. In addition to your sacred obligation to the Jewish community in which you live, and to your family.
May G-d grant that you will have good news to report in all of the above.
With blessing,
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