It’s not easy, it’s not convenient, and it’s not always understood by the outside world, but it’s how we roll
Some of the greatest men of all time wrote personal letters that were essentially messages to the public too, people like the Ramban, the Vilna Gaon, the Baal HaTanya, and Rav Yisrael Salanter. (For a great contemporary example, see “A Pesach Letter to My Son” by Rav Ahron Lopiansky.)
If you’re a gadol, it works, but if you’re not, it comes across as somewhere between presumptuousness and cheap literary gimmickry.
I’m trying anyway, because I somehow feel that this conversation is not unique to our family.
When we recite the brachos on the menorah, we say, “she’asa nissim la’avoseinu bayamim haheim bazman hazeh, in those days, in this season.” The sifrei chassidus tell us that “bazman hazeh” doesn’t only mean this season, but right now: the “he’aros,” the special radiance that shone into the world at the time of the original neis, flows again each year anew.
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