Letter & Spirit: Overcoming Difficulty to Achieve Success

In this week’s edition of Letter & Spirit, we present a unique letter written by the Rebbe in 1948 to a supporter of the [Frierdiker] Rebbe and of Chabad during its early years in America who “found the road of his efforts rough and difficult.” The letter was written through the Rebbe’s trusted secretary Rabbi Nissan Mindel, and was made available by his son-in-law Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.

The Rebbe points to Eliezer, faithful servant of Avraham, who carried out his master’s mission with total confidence in his success, because he is acting on behalf of Avraham, not on his own. So too must we have faith in our success when acting on behalf of the Rebbe and his holy work.

The letter was signed by the Rebbe under the title ‘Chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch’ (as the ‘Ramash’ was known before the nessius).

This weekly feature is made possible by a collaboration between CrownHeights.info and Nissan Mindel Publications. Once a week we publish a unique letter of the Rebbe that was written originally in the English language, as dictated by the Rebbe to Rabbi Mindel.

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November 24, 1948

Mr. Joseph Baer

New York, N.Y.

My Dear Mr. Baer:

I want to thank you for your recent letter and for your efforts in creating a new circle of friends for the activities of the Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch. The technical details are being taken care of by the office.

I wish to refer to your letter in which you describe the road as rough and difficult, more so than you envisioned, but that nevertheless you will keep on trying.

As I wrote to you in my last letter, “all beginnings are difficult.” But I am sure that these very difficulties, far from discouraging you, will arouse the latent forces in your good self to overcome them and to go from strength to strength.

The main strength for this task you will draw from the conviction that you are not on your own in this great work, but an agent and channel through which a great purpose is being materialized under the inspiration of our great and dynamic leader, the Lubavitcher Rabbi.

The fact is that often one cannot see at once the influence he is exercising, but nevertheless, the seed he plants takes root and brings far-reaching results.

In this light it will be easier to understand a seemingly difficult commentary by our Sages in connection with Eliezer’s mission, of which we read in this week’s sidrah. Upon meeting Rebeccah at the well for the first time and before knowing that she was the chosen one, Eliezer presented her with “two arm bands, weighing ten golden shekels.” According to our Sages, the gift was symbolic of the Two Tablets with the Ten Commandments!

Although the Ten Commandments were given to Israel some four hundred years later, Abraham, as a prophet, knew of the future destiny of his people (a tradition nurtured until it was fulfilled). In the spirit of this knowledge all his actions were directed.

His trusted servant Eliezer, when on his master’s mission, indicated this to Rebeccah – although a stranger at the moment – by mere “hint,” yet it eventually helped to win her over completely.

Wishing you again every success and confident of it, since according to our Sages, “a person bent on a good deed receives Divine assistance,”

I am,

Very sincerely yours,

Rabbi Mendel Schneerson

Chairman, Executive Committee

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The above letter is from the archives of Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel, a personal secretary to the Previous Rebbe and The Rebbe, whose responsibilities included the Rebbe’s correspondence in English.

Many of the letters are now being published in The Letter and the Sprit, a series of volumes by Nissan Mindel Publications.

We thank Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro, director of Nissan Mindel Publications and the one entrusted by Rabbi Mindel, his father-in-law, with his archives, for making these letters available to the wider public. May the merit of the many stand him in good stead.