THE MISSION OF THE BAIS YAAKOV SCHOOLS

I think that by now everyone knows that the sole mission of the Bais Yaakov schools is to educate Jewish girls so that, with all their strength and with every breath, they will serve the Creator and fulfil the commandments of the Torah with seriousness and passion. They will learn that they are children of a people whose existence relies not on dwelling in their own land, in the way that other nations are closely connected to their land, but rather on their sole sacred ideal, the Torah, through which and only through which they became a nation. And it is because the sons and daughters of this nation abandoned the Torah and did not observe its commandments that they lost their holy land, the Land of Israel.

What constitutes the power of the Torah, for which we have sacrificed so much throughout the ages? Understand this well! Our Torah is not a religion like other religions, it's not an institution for worshipping God that brings together adherents on a few special holidays, or a guidebook for a few special worshippers. Our Torah is not a system of laws that derives from the human mind. It is a holy fire from the One God that gives sustenance to the Jewish soul, arouses the Jewish heart, and in each moment of life reminds each soul to remain faithful to God's law and to be totally bound up with it.

The Torah is binding on everyone, from the individual to the collective, whether one is a priest or an Israelite, a learned person or an ordinary Jew, a judge or a working man, a prophet or a villager. One must fulfil the commandments at home as in the field, in private or in the business world, in the Temple as in the street, in a store as in a workshop. It opens one's eyes to see the divine power in nature, to recognize Providence in the workings of history. It teaches us to understand our place among the nations.