By the Grace of God
6 Nisan 5711
Brooklyn, NY.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
Brooklyn, NY.
Shalom and Brajá:
With Passover approaching, I wish to send you, and through you the entire group, my best wishes for a kosher and joyful holiday, and a brief message.
He surely heard the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, which was frequently repeated by my late father-in-law, that a Jew should find a lesson for better Divine service* in everything he sees and hears. Certainly, the holidays contain important lessons for us in our daily lives, especially a holiday like Passover.
I draw your attention to one of those teachings:
For a long time, the children of Israel lived in slavery in Egypt, a servitude both physical and intellectual. The danger of total assimilation was very great, as the Torah recounts. They had fallen so low that when Moses brought them the message of salvation from slavery in Egypt, they did not listen because of their lack of spirit and forced labor.
However, after being freed from slavery, they reached, in a truly short time, the highest spiritual level humanly possible, making all of them—men, women, and children—fit for Divine revelation at Mount Sinai, and worthy of the highest knowledge and the inexhaustible source of wisdom and faith for future generations.
This demonstrates that potentially every person has the capacity to rise from the lowest levels to the highest spiritual heights in a relatively short time, provided they have the sincere and wholehearted desire and the will to do so. The children of Israel possessed this desire and will, for as our sages tell us, when they learned the true purpose of their liberation—namely, the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai—they experienced a profound desire to receive Divine knowledge, so they counted each day in eager anticipation of the event. (This is why we also count the Sefirah.) When this will exists, God provides the ability to achieve it by removing all obstacles that arise along the way, so that every Jew can fulfill the mission assigned to their soul in this world, until God sends us complete redemption.
Cordially,
(Signature)
* Divine service is used here in a broad sense, as Maimonides explains (Hiljot Deot, chap. 3) regarding the verse: "serve him in all your ways.".