One day in the 1770s, when the classical Torah underpinnings of the fledgling chassidic movement were not yet widely known, the Alter Rebbe, with self-effacing dignity, ascended the tall pulpit in the cold synagogue of Shklov, a major bastion of Lithuanian erudition.

As he stood there, facing the town's scholastic elite, his humorless detractors sat up straight, ready to assail him zealously with hostile queries and legalistic objections.

How might one expect an intellectual giant of his caliber to react? Should he not proceed to analyze and answer their queries one by one, here resolving a logical paradox, there supplying a learned source for a problematic postulate?

The Alter Rebbe did none of these.

Instead, he quietly sang a haunting chassidic melody, and in it they heard the intense yearning of a lofty soul.

As its sweet and mellow warmth stole into their frigid hearts, he elevated his listeners to an unaccustomed spiritual vantage point.

From this new perspective they were now able to perceive harmony in place of dissonance, to appreciate brotherliness in place of dissension, to see the varied facets of the Torah as complementary hues of a single rainbow, rather than an excuse for sterile cerebral fisticuffs.

In much the same way, when addressing the sensitive issues confronting Jewish women today, the Rebbe does not follow the common path of engaging in polemics and apologetics.

Instead, by unveiling and illuminating the human and cosmic repercussions of each of the major mitzvos of women, the Rebbe elevates us to an intellectual and spiritual perspective from which we behold a refreshingly broad world-picture.