Ignorance is Not Bliss
8th of lyar, 5731 [1971]
To the Students of the Girls Division
of the Grammar School
Lubavitch House, Stamford Hill
London, England
Blessing and Greeting:
I was pleased to receive the special Pesach [Passover] edition of your school magazine "Schoolainu." I hope you will send me also the future editions.
On the basis of the teaching of the Alter Rebbe that a Jew has to live in accordance with the times - the times and seasons of the Torah as reflected in our Jewish calendar, the present days of sefira [counting the 49 days between the second night of Passover until Shavuot] have a timely message for each and every one of us.
As you surely know, our Sages tell us that the origin of the counting of these days goes back to Yetziyat Mitzrayim [the Exodus from Egypt], when our ancestors, immediately after leaving Egypt, began to count the days and weeks to the great day of Mattan Torah [the Giving of the Torah, i.e., Shavuot]. For Moshe Rabeinu [Moses] had told them that the whole purpose of their being freed from Egyptian bondage was in order that they should receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, and they eagerly and impatiently looked forward to it, counting each day that brought them nearer to that great moment.
On the basis of this, G-d later made it a mitzva for Jews to count these days of the omer, which connect Pesach, the Festival of Liberation (from physical slavery) with Shavuot, the Festival of Mattan Torah (true spiritual freedom).
If our ancestors were so eager to receive the Torah even though they hardly knew anything about it, how much more so, after Mattan Torah, must Jews appreciate the Torah and mitzvot, especially we, in our generation, who know what the Torah and mitzvot have meant for our people throughout the past generations.
Needless to say, that the appreciation and love of the Torah and mitzvot must express themselves in the daily life, in accordance with the teaching of our Sages that "the essential thing is the deed." By this is meant that the daily conduct should be such that it is clearly seen to be the result of the teaching and instruction of the Torah (Torah-hora'a), including every aspect of the daily life at home and in the school, etc. Where there is a will and determination to this effect, hatzlacha [success] is assured, as our Sages tell us that "nothing stands in the way of the will."
May G-d grant that you should have good news to report in all the above, and that you should go from strength to strength in your advancement.
