This letter was sent to R. Mordechai Cohen, an active Jewish communal leader.

ב"ה,
1 Iyar, 5711,
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greetings and blessings,

I received [the text of] your lecture on the state of Jewish education in Tunisia. Thank you. I would be pleased to hear periodically about your positive activities in the field of educating Jewish boys and girls there.

In response to your request, I have directed the offices of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch to send a package of books to the address of R. Bambrun, Shlita.1 Surely, they will be duly received and you will acknowledge their receipt.

Regarding the holiday of Pesach that we have just cele­brated and the days of spring that are blossoming in full glory: Scripture associates the Pesach holiday with the month of spring.2 By nature, when spring arrives, the powers of nature that were hidden during the winter [blossom forth]. During the winter, it appears to the eyes of an observer that the powers of creativity, growth, and development have ceased. Then, sud­denly, in the month of spring, it becomes evident that the entire duration of [winter] was nothing more than a gathering of en­ergy so that afterwards, budding trees and fields clothed with green would appear. As our Sages state:3 “One who goes out in the month of Nissan and sees trees that produce flowers must recite the blessing….”

This contains a lesson for each of us. Even in our lives, when there is a period in which it is possible to err and think that it is not a time of creativity, growth, and development, it is almost an absolute certainty that this is merely an error in perception. The intermission will be used to gather strength that will lead — to borrow the wording of the analogy — to produce flowers and grow fruit.

An allusion to such [a process] can be found regarding the Pesach holiday. After the bitter era of Egyptian exile — an exile that involved both the body and the soul to the extent that the archangel of Egypt argued: “What is the difference between these (the Egyptians) and these (the Jews)?”4 — nevertheless, in a very short amount of time, the refinement achieved through the Egyptian exile was revealed within them. In 50 days, they ascended from the 49 Gates of Impurity to the level where they could receive the Torah from the Holy One, blessed be He, alone in His glory.

With blessings for success in your work to draw Jewish boys and girls close to our Father in heaven,