The Season of Our Liberation in a Nation of Freedom
letter from Lubavicher Rebbe Honor Passover
By the Grace of G‑d
Isru-Chag HaMatzos [Day Following Passover]
Zman Cheiruseinu [Festival of our Liberation], 5743 [1983]
Brooklyn, NY
To All Participants in The Annual Banquet
of the Lubavitch Yeshivah "Achei Tmimim"
Brookline, Mass.
Greeting and Blessing:
I am pleased to be informed of the forthcoming Annual Banquet to take place on 11 Iyar. May it be blessed with Hatzlocho [success] and exceed all expectations, in keeping with the spirit and teachings of Zman Cheiruseinu which we have just celebrated.
As has often been emphasized, the Festival of Pesach, [Passover] the Season of Our Liberation, comes around every year not merely to remind us of the Liberation of our ancestors from Egyptian bondage, but also to inspire us to strive for a greater measure of self-liberation from all limitations and distractions which impede a Jew from his free exercise of Yiddishkeit in the everyday life. This is the meaning of the highly significant passage in the Haggadah:
"In every generation a Jew should see himself as though he personally has been liberated from Mitzrayim [Egypt]."
In this blessed country of freedom and opportunity, such total identification with the spirit of the "Season of Our Liberation" pertains more to the inner self than to outside factors which are often beyond one's control. Here, thank G‑d, there are no external constraints or limitations to getting involved with Jewish causes, especially the most vital cause of Torah education. It is only a matter of setting one's goals high enough to meet the challenges and opportunities of these times. Given the will and determination, the opportunities are limitless.
The vital importance of Torah education for the preservation of every Jewish community, indeed for the preservation of our Jewish people as a whole, needs no elaboration. But these days linking the Festival of Pesach with the Festival of Shovuos particularly emphasize this eternal truth. For, so our Sages point out, it is only because the Jewish children in Egypt received the proper Jewish education (under the most adverse conditions!), that our whole Jewish people, strong and numerous, was liberated from Egyptian slavery; and it is only because these very children (and Jewish children of every generation) had been made the guarantors of the Torah and Mitzvos - the Torah was entrusted to our Jewish People.
In this spirit, I pray and trust that every one of you will rise to the occasion, to enable the Lubavitch Yeshivah to continue and expand likewise from a position of liberation from financial burdens and limitations. And since G‑d rewards in kind, but most generously, He will surely grant everyone of you and yours, in the midst of all our people, true liberation from anxiety and want, both materially and spiritually.
With esteem and blessing of Hatzlocho,
M. Schneerson
