The importance of proudly publicizing one's Lubavitch connection

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The Rebbe Rayatz as a continuous source of blessing; the establishment of local committees for Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch and Machneh Israel

No. 652

This letter was sent to a youth — and afterwards to several others — who reached the age of bar mitzvah at that time.

B"H, 28Tammuz, 5710

Greetings and blessings,

Your father wrote that on 11 Tammuz, you became bar mitzvah and requested a blessing. I am granting my blessing — echoing the blessing that would be given by my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, hk"m — that you become a G-d-fearing person, a chassid, and a scholar. May your parents derive much satisfaction — chassidic satisfaction — from you and their other children amidst prosperity .

My revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, hk"m, related that the maamarim recited in association with a bar mitzvah (by the Nesiim) would begin Naaseh Adam ("Let us make man").[630] (At times, when they would give the maamarim to be copied, they would delete the opening.)

Implied is that a bar mitzvah [boy] must know that it is incumbent upon him to attain the distinction of adam, which is the most elevated of the four names for man: adam, ish, gever, and enosh (see HaYom Yom, the entry for 4 Elul, 5703; and sec. 2 of the maamar entitled VaYavo Amalek, 5709, Kuntres 62 [631]). One must begin working toward this [objective] immediately rather than leaving it for a later date. [If one applies himself in this manner,] he is granted help [from Above] that he will become an adam. (See Sefer HaToldos, [Admur HaMaharash], p. 64.)[632]

Certainly you reviewed a chassidic discourse on the day of your bar mitzvah and you recite the Rebbe's kapitle in Tehillim, which is now kapitle 71 every day, and will continue doing so — without committing yourself to a vow — at least until Rosh HaShanah, 5711.

Signing with blessing,

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson

   

Notes:

630. (Back to text) [Bereishis 1:20. See Sefer HaMaamarim 5640, Vol. I, p. 89; see Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XV, p. 289ff.]

631. (Back to text) [Sefer HaMaamarim 5709, p. 34.]

632. (Back to text) [In that source, the Rebbe quotes from the Rebbe Rayatz's description of the preparations his father, the Rebbe Rashab, made for his bar mitzvah. When the Rebbe Rashab was twelve and a half, at yechidus, his father, the Rebbe Maharash, delivered a teaching that motivated the Rebbe Rashab to train his body to follow Shulchan Aruch as a reflex action. In this manner, he became an ish. At his bar mitzvah, the Rebbe Maharash blessed him to become an adam.]

The importance of proudly publicizing one's Lubavitch connection

Table of contents

Search this book:

The Rebbe Rayatz as a continuous source of blessing; the establishment of local committees for Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch and Machneh Israel