Letter from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to General Arik Sharon, November 11, 1973

By the Grace of G-d
16 Cheshvan, 5734 [November 11, 1973]
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Greeting and blessing:

...Here I wish to refer to one point in your latest letter, where you wrote about the difference between the Six Day War and the so-called Yom Kippur War, in that 

G-d’s miracles were more obvious in the Six Day War, etc.

As a matter of fact, there were ample miracles, and quite obvious ones, in the last war. The overall miracle, which has now been revealed although not overly publicized, is the survival after the first few days of the war, when even Washington was seriously concerned whether the Israeli army could halt the tremendous onslaught of the first attack. Slowly details are now being revealed also in the Israeli press as to how serious was the danger in those early days of the war.

The greatest miracle was that the Egyptians stopped their invasion for no good reason only a few miles east of the Canal. The obvious military strategy would have been to leave a few fortified positions in the rear, and with the huge army of 100,000 men armed to the teeth, to march forward into Sinai, where at that point in time there was no organized defense of any military consequence. This is something that cannot be explained in the natural order of things, except as it is written, “The dread of the Jews fell upon them,” in the face of their intelligence reports about the complete unpreparedness of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael at that time.

There are also scores of reported miracles in various sectors of both fronts. The essential point of this whole tragic war is that it could have been prevented and, as in the case of medicine, prevention is more desirable than cure.

With blessing,