President H.W. Bush Recalls Jews Desert Journey

In honor of the forthcoming gimmel Tammuz on Shabbos, Lubavitch Archives presents to you a correspondence between the Rebbe and George HW Bush, in 1989.

***

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

April 13, 1989

Dear Rebbe:

On the occasion of your forthcoming birthday, April 16, I send my personal greetings to you along with my thanks for your work on behalf of “Education Day, U.S.A.”

In addition, I understand that this past February 10th ushered in the “40th year” since you assumed the position of spiritual guidance and leadership as the Rebbe, world head of the Lubavitch movement.

Over fifty volumes of your teachings and over 700 active institutions of Lubavitch in all corners of the world are testimony to your efforts.

Historically, according to the Bible, it was forty years from the time the Israelites were delivered out of the bondage of Egypt and guided to the point of entering the Promised Land. This past forty years, too, have been indeed critical in the history of the Jewish people, having -survived the Holocaust and reaching the point with the birth of the State of Israel, when once again the light of Jewry’s heritage is flourishing throughout the world.

It is my sincere hope and wish that the Almighty will grant you many more years of health and good life.

George Bush

***

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Lubavitch
770 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11213

By the Grace of G-d
13th of Nissan, 5749
Brooklyn, N.Y.

President George Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Greeting and Blessing!

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for your kind and heartwarming letter of April 13, 1989, on the occasion of my birthday.

I deeply appreciate your warm sentiments and good wishes which I can best reciprocate by quoting the Divine promise to Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee.”

Accordingly, may you, together with the First Lady and all yours, be blessed from on high with all good, both materially and spiritually.

Your kind tribute to the Lubavitch movement, which I am privileged to head, is a message of encouragement to me and to our members in the USA and abroad.

Of course, a large measure of whatever has been achieved is due to the happy circumstances that when my predecessor, my father-in-law the Rebbe of saintly memory, transplanted the movement’s headquarters on these blessed shores (in 1940), it found fertile soil and a conducive climate to thrive and grow consistently, from strength to strength.

Your personal and Presidential support to “Education Day USA,” reflects your awareness that education is the first and foremost vehicle of fostering the most basic and inexhaustible national resource. This, as mentioned earlier, is truly a source of encouragement to all who work for the betterment of life at home and for humankind at large.

With prayerful wishes for your continued success in carrying out the awesome responsibilities of your exalted office, in the best and fullest measure, in good health and happy circumstances.

With esteem and blessing,

M. Schneerson