Weekly Letter: A Lesson We Learn From the Month of Spring
In this week’s letter, the Rebbe discusses the question of how we can liberate ourselves and our actions (from bondage to freedom) if we are created beings that are set in physical limits and boundaries by the Laws of Nature? Lessons we learn from the month of spring.
By the Grace of G-d
11 Nissan, 5731
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Greeting and Blessing:
(excerpt of a letter)
Human life in general is divided into two spheres: the personal life of the individual and his accomplishments and contributions to the world. In both of these there is the spiritual life and the physical life.
The Jew’s task is to liberate everything in the said spheres from bondage to freedom, that is to say, to take all things out of their limitations and elevated them to spirituality (and more spirituality), until every detail of the daily life is made into an instrument of service to G-d.
Even such things which apparently cannot change – as for example, the fact that G-d had so created him that he must depend on food and drink, etc., for survival – he nevertheless has the power to transform the physical necessity into a new and incomparably higher thing: he eats for the purpose of being able to do good, to learn Torah and fulfill mitzvos, thus transforming the food into energy to serve G-d . moreover, in the very act of eating he serves G-d, for it gives him and opportunity to make a brocho before and after, and so forth.
Something akin to the above we find in regard to the Month of Spring: at first glance, there is nothing man can do about it. After all, the laws of nature were established by G-d ever since He created heaven and earth, and subsequently ordained that so long as the earth exists, the seasons of cold and heat, and summer and winter, shall not cease. Nevertheless, a Jew observes and watches for the spring month in order to make Pesach to your G-d. in other words, in the phenomenon of spring he perceives and discerns G-d’s immutable laws off nature. And more penetratingly: that it was in the month of spring, precisely when nature reveals its greatest powers, that G-d your G-d, brought you out of Egypt, in a most supernatural way.
In all spheres of daily life a person encounters conditions or situations that are Mitzrayim – in the sense of restraints and hindrances – which tend to inhibit and restrain the Jew form developing in the fullest measure his true Jewish nature, as a Torah Jew. The hindrances and limitations are both internal – inborn traits and acquired habits, as well as external – the influences of the environment. A Jew ust free himself from these chains and direct his efforts towards serving G-d.
With blessing,
