3039 —עידוד לגבאי ולמתפללים של בית הכנסת חב"ד בפתח תקוה

B"H, 20 MarCheshvan, 5715.

Brooklyn.

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

Greetings and blessing!

With pleasure I received your letter of Sunday of Parshas Vayeira, in which you write in relative detail about the state of the Chabad synagogue in Petach Tikvah. Although some details still need correction, as you write, we know the promise of G‑d: "Open for Me as the point of a needle and I will open for you as the opening of a hall." If the gabbai and the congregants make an effort on their part, G‑d will surely give success, especially since of every Jew it has been said, "The second soul in a Jew is truly a part of G‑d above." The wording of the verse (Iyov 31:2) is "a part of G‑d above," and the Alter Rebbe adds the word "truly," so that this should come down into actual deed, not only in thought and speech but in action, in daily life, and in all the matters you write of in abbreviated form. As it is in the sefarim, and the Alter Rebbe set it in the Siddur, the preface to prayer is "ואהבת לרעך כמוך" ("Love your fellow as yourself"). When the gabbai looks at the congregants with this preface and the congregants look at the gabbai according to this preface, this is a sure way that there will be "ברכנו אבינו" ("Bless us, our Father"), (because) "כולנו כאחד" ("all of us as one"), as alluded to in Tanya, ch. 32, and it will be, specifically, as he concludes there, "באור פניך" ("in the light of Your countenance"). The meaning of this too is that one person demands a shining face from another, for "as water reflects face to face, so is the heart of man to man."

To add at least as a note on the affairs of the Chabad synagogue: I have asked that they be given as a gift from Kehot some books of Chassidus, and Tehillim printed under the name Ohel Yosef Yitzchak, named for my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe.

For the coming month of Kislev, the month of redemption, may it come upon us and upon all Israel for good and for blessing: as gabbai, convey to all the congregants, their households and all that is theirs, that may it be G‑d's will that there be "פדה בשלום נפשי" ("He redeemed my soul in peace"), and as the reason is given, "כי ברבים היו עמדי" ("for the many were with me" — Tehillim 55:19), that even when they quarrel outwardly, inwardly and in truth "they were with me" (as alluded to in Yerushalmi, Sotah 1:8), all whole in one mind, for one Torah and one G‑d, as explained in the teachings of Chassidus in many places.

Publisher's notes

Printed in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 12, p. 262, and completed from the secretariat's copy.

R. A. Sh. (מוהרא"ש): R. A. Shklovsky. Further letter to him: above, vol. 9, 2707.