3012 —על בניית מוסדות תורה והימנעות מפוליטיקה בהנהגת ישיבה

B"H, 11 MarCheshvan, 5715.

Brooklyn.

The veteran Chassid, a G‑d-fearing man, distinguished and honored, engaged in communal needs, R. Mordechai

Greetings and blessing!

I have received your letter, undated, and I was pleased to read in it that you are beginning to take an energetic part in the affairs of the Oholei Yosef Yitzchak Lubavitch yeshivah in Melbourne. I hope that doing this energetically, with the necessary effort, will bring the blessing of G‑d and success. If at all times and in all places it was necessary to have a Torah center bound up with fear of Heaven, how much more so in our time and in such a place, where the Jewish settlement is beginning to grow, must the greatest strength be put into it, engraving well in head and heart the saying of our Sages, "כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא" ("Whoever sustains one soul of Israel, it is as though he sustained an entire world").

Once, a cheder and a yeshivah saved a child from being an ignoramus and made him [a] person who knows how to study a sefer, and a large part of the children into scholars too. But in our time, unfortunately, one must think about saving children so that they remain Jews. In this one cannot rely on the environment, etc.; one must build fortresses for them, a cheder, a yeshivah, which give the guarantee that they will remain Jews. To dwell on this is surely unnecessary.

As to your question from which circles to draw into the finance committee being set up to maintain and expand the yeshivah, this depends on the character and ability of each person concerned individually, and so it is hard to give a general answer. But what is needed is to guard against giving the yeshivah a political color or a party character, because studying Torah is not bound up with politics and party. This has been one of the foundations of the success of the Lubavitcher institutions, that they have always been above party. When one thinks into the deep meaning of this, that the Torah was given at one time to all six hundred thousand Jews, from the greatest of the great to the smallest of the small, and how all at one time heard the commandments "אנכי ה' אלקיך" ("I am the L‑rd your G‑d"), "זכור את יום השבת" ("Remember the Shabbos day") and "לא תחמוד" ("Do not covet"), one grasps that Torah is for all Jews: that from "I am the L‑rd your G‑d" one must arrive not only at "Remember the Shabbos day" but also at "Do not covet," and likewise one cannot guard against "Do not covet" unless it is founded on "I am the L‑rd your G‑d" and all one's strength is put into keeping "Remember the Shabbos day." Therefore no side issues should be mixed in here, for at times people are frightened off by the side issue, whether party or politics, and so lose the opportunity to bind themselves to the Torah of life and its mitzvos.

You surely remember our conversation, and I hope it is unnecessary to repeat my request and urge you to do for the affairs of the Oholei Yosef Yitzchak yeshivah according to all your abilities and to use your influence to the maximum in this. Only in keeping with the saying of our Sages, "אין מזרזין אלא למזורזין" ("Only the energetic are urged on"), do I wish to urge you once more in this, so that it will add to your work.

With blessing for success in all the above and in your private affairs, awaiting good news.

Publisher's notes

R. Mordechai (מוה"ר מרדכי): Ritch, Melbourne.