This letter was addressed to R. Yechiel Ziskind.

B”H, 5 Shvat, 5711,
Brooklyn

Greetings and blessings,

I took pleasure in reading your letter [stating] that you were able to influence the student ... with regard to studying Chassidus. Surely, you will not be satisfied with [influencing] only one or two [students], but will multiply study companions. In general, you should emphasize how without such [study], it is impossible to study Torah with the fear of Heaven. And if one does not [study with the fear of Heaven], our Sages warned (Shabbos 31a): “It would have been preferable that you had not brought it up.”1

With regard to your note that the Alter Rebbe’s ruling in his Siddur — permitting an interruption to recite Barchu [and similar matters] between putting on the head tefillin and putting on the arm [tefillin] — differs from his ruling in his Shulchan Aruch, sec. 25[:21]:

This is one of the matters in which the Alter Rebbe’s ruling in his Siddur is at variance with that of his Shulchan Aruch. The halachah follows the later [rulings] which are the rulings of the Siddur. All of the points of variance have been collected in the text Piskei HaSiddur, by R. Chayim Naeh (Jerusalem, 5697).

The pan will be read at the holy gravesite.2

Awaiting good news, and there is no good other than the Torah3 and its mitzvos.

With blessing,

Menachem Schneerson