6562 —חשיבות הכוונת הנוער בארץ ישראל ומסירות נשיאי חב"ד לחינוך

B"H, 22nd of Marcheshvan, 5719

Brooklyn, N.Y.

To the honorable Judge, Mr. Shalom Kasan, may he live

Shalom u'Vrachah!

After the longest interruption, I was pleased to receive your letter of the 5th of Cheshvan, and especially to read in it of your impression of the gratifying phenomenon, namely the participation of young people in the Chabad synagogues during the Days of Awe and on Simchas Torah, where you prayed.

Understandably, I agree with you that the most important problem in every community and country, and especially in our Holy Land, is the direction in which the youth are going. And it is well known that the Nesi'im of Chabad in all generations and in all places, though burdened with many concerns and problems in their work for the good of the community and of the individual, devoted a large part of their work to the education of the youth and to drawing them close, for this problem was given precedence over many other problems.

Certainly to someone like you, whose heart is alert to the sacred values of our nation, and whose position as a judge gives you a special ability to look into a person's inner self and state of mind, etc., it is superfluous to elaborate that in the present situation in our Holy Land this problem has many times greater importance, because of the additional factor that the immigrants have been uprooted from the places where they lived for hundreds of years, and from established ways of life of many generations; and it is understood that most, if not all, of the immigrants saw a new world when they came up to the Holy Land, may it be rebuilt and established. And this is said not only of those who immigrated in recent years; rather, to a significant degree, all the above holds true also of the second generation in Eretz Yisrael.

Fortunately, the solution to the problem is at its side (cf. Megillah 13b), for in the inner soul of every Jewish man and woman, as children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, there is rooted the love of G‑d and the love of His Torah, and good character traits in general, as explained at length in the books of Chassidus, among them the fundamental book of the teaching of Chassidus, the Tanya (Tanya, ch. 18; ch. 1). Therefore we are assured that with the appropriate effort, success is to be found in influencing the youth and directing them בדרך הטוב והישר "in the good and upright path" (cf. I Shmuel 12:23). And this recognition adds encouragement to all who engage in this holy work.

With respect and with blessing.

Enclosed herewith is a copy of my general letter for Rosh Hashanah (Igros Kodesh vol. 17, letter 6499), in which I also touched on the above point.

Summary

This letter agrees that the direction of the youth is the foremost problem, a problem the Chabad Rebbeim always put first, and all the more pressing in Eretz Yisrael, where immigrants and their children have been torn from generations-old ways of life. Since love of G‑d, of Torah and of good traits is rooted in every Jewish soul, as the Tanya explains, proper effort in guiding the youth is assured of success.