What role can a Jew in the diaspora play in improving the situation in the Holy Land?
By the Grace of G-d
17th of Adar II, 5733
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mr. L. Stern
CH-8021
Zurich
Greeting and Blessing:
This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of March the 15th. I am pleased to note your sincere concern about all that is happening in Eretz Yisroel, the Land which even non-Jews regard as “the Holy Land”. This gives me the confident hope that you are doing your utmost to the end that the daily life of all our brethren living in the Holy Land would be in keeping with the Holiness of the Land. Of course, one does not have to wait to do this until one is actually there, but a great deal can be done also before. Indeed, there are matters which carry more weight and influence if expressed by a Jew living outside of Eretz Yisroel, more so than coming from a Jew living there.
It is surely also unnecessary to emphasize to you that very often even a small action in the right direction may have unexpected good results. Besides, who can truly evaluate what is a “small” action or a “big” action. But certainly if such action is undertaken by a person who occupies a prominent position, for in that case even one single action has a chance of becoming the beginning of a chain reaction. This further underscores the tremendous responsibility of every Jew. No Jew should therefore entertain any idea that whatever he does or says is a matter of his personal affair, especially in view of the principle that “all Jews are responsible for each other.”
At the same time it is also a great Zechus to express one’s voice, clear and loud, on the true values of our Torah, Tores Emes, the very basis of the existence of our people. And one of its basic principles is that this Torah will never be substituted or changed.
May G-d grant you Hatzlocho in all above.
With blessing,
M. Schneerson
Source: Photocopy of the original (courtesy of Rabbi Moshe Rappoport).
Sanhedrin 27b.
Ninth of the Thirteen Principles of Faith as codified by the Rambam. See Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, 9:1.
