..The survival of our Jewish people, and the impact that this matter has on every Jewish individual, is not something which has as yet to be investigated and experimented with. The Jewish people is one of the oldest in the world, and in its long history as a nation it has gone through various conditions and circumstances, mostly very unfavorable, as mentioned above. If one wishes to know the secret of Jewish survival under circumstances which have obliterated larger and stronger nations, one has but to apply the same scientific method as in other cases. In other words, it is necessary to find the common factor, or factors, in all the various periods of Jewish history, which would then have to be taken as the basis of Jewish survival. Should two or three different factors be found, there would be a question of whether all of them were indispensable to survival, or perhaps only one or two would also have been sufficient. But if only one common factor is found, then there can be no doubt that this is the only basis of the survival. This, as mentioned above, is the scientific approach, and is not a matter of belief or faith. Moreover, as in all fields of science, it does not matter whether one does or does not understand the scientific findings. Indeed, in most exact sciences, the facts and actual phenomena are first ascertained, and then a scientific explanation is sought.
Now, going back to the long history of our Jewish people over a period of some thirty-five hundred years, it will be seen that there has been only one factor which has preserved Jewish identity and survival throughout the various periods of our history. This factor was not language, nor country, nor anything else which is often associated with nationhood and nationalism; for in all these things there have been radical changes from one period to another, as anybody familiar with Jewish history knows. The single factor, and, I emphasize, the one and only factor, which has preserved our Jewish people throughout the ages, under all kinds of circumstances, has been the fulfillment of the mitzvot in day-to-day life, such as the observance of Shabbat, the putting on of tefillin, and the Torah education of our children. These and all other mitzvot are already embodied in the Torah and have been observed by Jews since the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, and they have been observed in the same way throughout the ages, without change.
A further proof that this is the “secret” of Jewish survival, if further proof is necessary, is the fact that there have always been deviationists; the Torah itself relates that immediately after the Torah was given at Sinai, there were the Golden Calf worshippers. Similarly, throughout the period of the Judges, Prophets and Kings, as well as in the post-Biblical period of the Second Beit Hamikdash, and later. These deviationists attempted to steer another course, away from traditional Judaism, but they could never take root within the Jewish people. Either these deviationists eventually realized their mistake and returned to the fold of observance of Torah and mitzvot, or they were completely assimilated among the nations of the world, without having anything further to do with the Jewish people, least of all with Jewish survival.
On the basis of the principle that the essential thing is the deed, as quoted earlier, I want to bring out the practical conclusion of the thoughts expressed in this letter, namely, that regardless of how your daily life expressed itself in the past, it is my duty, inasmuch as we have established contact between us, to point out to you your duty to yourself, to your surroundings and to our Jewish people as a whole, to order your life in fullest accord with the Torah and mitzvot in the daily life and conduct.
