One Reason the Rebbe Gave Why Moshiach Isn’t Coming Yet

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

This program is the second part of last week's program, where somebody asked the Rebbe why we are in galus so long. I think it's worth watching last week's episode in order to understand this week's, because this is the same question, but it was another letter and another person asked why we are in galus so long.

So this program is based on some sichos and English letters that the Rebbe said and wrote. This was in the early years. And these letters were — I think the Rebbe answered — well, I'm not sure of the year. Anyway.

So the Rebbe mentions that the Frierdiker Rebbe always spoke and looked always positive. Whatever he spoke was always a "safe" approach. It did happen that sometimes you have to speak a little bit more, as we say, sur mei'ra — that's not the derech Chabad. The Rebbe says in a place that sometimes you also have to say sur mei'ra.

So what I'm going to tell you today is a combination of a sicha and a letter. The sicha is from erev Shavuos, Tav Shin Lamed Vav — the sicha [unclear] — and also an English letter.

We are now in the middle of the Three Weeks. And Yisroel is in golus — when are we going to go out of golus? When are people going to do teshuvah to bring it?

So the person asked, "When are we going out of galus? When?" So the Rebbe answers here, and this is what I want to say. There is sibas ha'golus — the cause of exile — and then there is arichas ha'golus — the length. Why are we in golus so long?

So the Rebbe says in this letter the cause is sinas chinam, jealousy, coveting, loshon hora, gaiva. It says in the Aseres HaDibros, "lo sachmod beis re'echa, lo sachmod eishes re'echa" — don't desire somebody's home, don't desire somebody's wife. So golus — I mean, the first golus we also know was an aveira d'oraysa, and there was an end. So that's the sibas ha'golus.

And now, this golus — there's a lot of, as the Rebbe mentions here — I guess the Rebbe didn't want to stay negative. So the Rebbe was saying here, baruch Hashem, Yidden are rachmanim bnei rachmanim. Yidden worry about other Yidden. Yidden give a lot of tzedakah. Yidden help out others. You'd never miss it. So why are we still in golus? I know there are certain things, but still — look what you've gone through. There shouldn't be golus. But that's why we are in golus.

But why is the golus so long? What's the reason the Rebbe gives? So the Rebbe says here — I never heard this before, too many times — the Rebbe is speaking: we are not careful with our eyes. We're not cautious with sexual desires. There is a lot of impurity involved in this sin. It's called the sin of the youth. And that's why the golus is so long. People do not speak about it. People should be cautious with their eyes and not look where they're not supposed to. "Ayin ro'ah, lev chomed" — the eye sees and the heart desires. And this is the galus.

Now, this reminds me — Rabbi Dr. Twerski, all of us know him, everybody heard of him. He once said to Rabbi Mendel — they were close — he says, years ago, if somebody put a television in a shul, they would probably throw them out of the shul. How do you put a television in a shul? Now, he says, every person has a television in their pocket. And with one button, you don't have to go out and see whatever you shouldn't see — you can see it on your telephone, G-d forbid. This is something which people don't talk about.

This is what he mentioned there, and the same thing the Rebbe says here. How careful one has to be — this is how it goes. And the Rebbe brings down here that Yitzchak Avinu was sagi nahor — he was blind. Why was he blind? He made himself blind, because the yetzer hara shouldn't be involved — he shouldn't see something [that would arouse desire]. As it states.

There was a person by the name of the Chozeh of Lublin. Chozeh means "seer" — he was a big tzaddik, and he was also blind, or half-blind. He used to sit in the dark so that his eyes would not see well, because one has to be so careful.

I remember there was a Reb Yitzchok [?] — I knew he was a tzaddik. He lived in Russia. He was a good friend of Reb Mendel Futerfas, alav hashalom. I heard from Reb Mendel Futerfas — I heard it from somebody else also — that he used to go to the mikveh, this Reb Yitzchok, all the time. He used to even take off his glasses — he couldn't see to read. As Reb Mendel Futerfas said, in the morning he went to the mikveh — it was freezing in Russia, there was no mikveh, so they had to break the ice of the river and go into the mikveh. He had to go to the mikveh every day.

So the attendant was there. Reb Yitzchok went into the mikveh and toiveled 300 times in freezing water. Then he says to the man there, "Come, come in." The man came in once — he couldn't take it, he had to leave, had to go out. It was terrible — he only did it three times.

After he got dressed, he went up on top of a hill, and the man there says he saw something — he saw, in the distance, a woman, by mistake. So he went back down again. He wasn't able to do 300 again, but he went down to toivel at least once more in the mikveh.

So this is "ayin ro'ah" — this is very important, the Rebbe has a point.

Now I want to say something — this is my own, not the Rebbe's — this is my own za [thought]. The Rebbe said, and everybody heard it, "You've done everything you could, and Moshiach is still not here — do, do what you can." So everyone was wondering, what does the Rebbe mean? What should we do? He said we've done teshuvah, we've done this, we've done that, and Moshiach is still not here — "ad masai" — what more is needed to bring Moshiach?

So people had different opinions. Some people said you should be careful with kashrus, because kashrus has to do with the neshama — not eating treif material affects the neshama. Some people say you should speak lashon hatov — as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, the last perek, about speaking lashon hatov, the world should speak lashon hatov. Some people said we have to learn more Rambam — the "chok" that has been made. Some people said learn more nigleh. And everyone is right — everything is important. You have to eat kosher, you have to speak properly.

So why isn't Moshiach here now, if people are trying their best? So I think the Rebbe can do everything except one thing that the Rebbe cannot do. The Rebbe can help you with kashrus, the Rebbe can help you understand what proper speech means, learning Rambam — but one thing the Rebbe cannot do for you is teshuvah. The Rebbe cannot do teshuvah for you. Teshuvah — a person themselves has to do. The Rebbe cannot do the teshuvah for you.

So this — in my own opinion — is connected to the sicha I just told you. This is the teshuvah the world needs. It says, "it's for you." People who have issues — they should look specifically at the sin of wasteful seed. And all it takes is the proper rectification, how you do it, and that will take us out of golus.

Then the Rebbe writes — some people think it's not easy to rectify such a terrible sin, but the Rebbe says we can do it. And through rectifying the sin, it becomes light. And this is the way it goes. It's not usual that we should speak about it, but to rectify the sin, the Rebbe writes, people should go to the mikveh. People should also go to the mikveh, and also watch in shmiras halacha — instead of shmiras einayim, also shmiras halacha, watch your tongue, you shouldn't speak what's not right. And that will bring light — but not through depression, only through simcha. Then, says the Rebbe, Moshiach will come b'karov.

Now — I don't know why — I hear lecturers, speakers, we have a lot of speakers, a lot of lectures, and to me, this is the main point.

The Rebbe also says that two people are called "Tzaddik" — Yosef HaTzaddik and Mordechai HaTzaddik. These two we usually call tzaddik — and more or less also Shimon HaTzaddik — but I think it's specifically these two. Why? Because by them it says the word "yom yom" — daily. Take Eishes Potifar, the wife of Potifar — the mesirus nefesh that Yosef had to overcome, the whole maaseh, as you've learned, what the wife of Potifar did, and Yosef — that's why he's called tzaddik, because this is the most important thing.

Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah — the Rebbe says — they went through mesirus nefesh, but by them it was not "yom yom." If it would happen every day, we don't know if they would be able to overcome it. But Yosef did — "yom yom."

And the Rebbe was speaking then about the Yosef of our generation, which is the Frierdiker Rebbe — his mesirus nefesh in Russia, which was not one day, he went through mesirus nefesh "yom yom," every single day. So one of the things that saved Yosef was that he visualized the face of his father, Yaakov. And this is what the Rebbe said — I don't know, maybe it would be a good idea — who am I to say — that it's a good thing to carry around a picture of a tzaddik, to carry around the Rebbe's picture, the Frierdiker Rebbe's picture. So whenever a negative machshava comes up, always look at the picture, and that will prevent a lot of negative and not-good things.

Now I want to end with this. I want to say it, because I said it once already, but since this letter is in the Three Weeks, and I think this letter is dated tomorrow's date, I thought I would mention it today.

This letter the Rebbe wrote — this was after [unclear, "Beis Tuvia"?], before Tisha B'Av. The Rebbe was supposed to go to be menachem someone, and the Rebbe couldn't go, so he wrote a letter — this was in the early years, I don't know if it was the Rebbe then, or maybe it was before — so he wrote a letter to those people. The letter has to do with kibud av va'em, how important it is to have kibud av va'em. Apparently those people needed to hear that.

So the Rebbe said it like this: there was a man standing in front of the ocean, and he needed to meditate — it was very quiet, and the person wanted to meditate. So he closed his eyes and thought. Then he opened his eyes and looked on the right side, far away, and he saw hundreds of people eating, drinking, saying l'chaim, celebrating a simcha gedola b'Yisrael. What was the simcha? A new ship was built that day, and the ship was going overseas for the first time, for a long journey.

Then he closes his eyes and looks on the other side, and he sees an old ship — an old ship coming back with good merchandise, to its final destination. Who is there to be mekabel panim, to greet it? A few people — six, seven, eight people.

So the person says to himself — the Rebbe writes — look, here is a ship going out for the first time. We don't know whether the ship is going to sink. We don't know whether the ship will overcome all the storms, all the wars, all the winds. We don't know — we hope — we say l'chaim. Nevertheless, we're happy. Here is a ship, on the other side, coming back with good merchandise, to its final destination — who is there to greet it? A few people.

What is the nimshal? The Aibishter brings a human being into this world — a child is born. We have to be happy, say l'chaim, make a shalom zachor, make a bris, have a seudah. We give brachos, we hope the person will grow up the way he's supposed to — we don't know. What about a person who already lived for many years, and went through everything — through the yom tovim, had mazel, and baruch Hashem is coming to the end — who cares?

If a person is older [this is honored less] — so this was a bit of mussar to that family, that family that was supposed to appreciate more the importance of kibud av va'em.

So since I'm mentioning kibud av va'em, I want to say another very short story — also a letter, another letter, also from the early years. Somebody writes to the Rebbe, saying, "You say that everything in this world is for a purpose, a reason" — that's what the Rebbe always says, that's what he writes to the Rebbe — "My mother is in a nursing home, and she's a vegetable. The doctor says she's not going to live long. What's the purpose of her living?" This man wrote to the Rebbe that his children and grandchildren don't take their eyes off the mother — 24 hours a day they take turns — but the mother doesn't even know they're there. "What's the purpose of her living?" he asked the Rebbe.

So the Rebbe answered: You're saying she's in a nursing home — people go there, a lot of people come and go, people visit other people, and they see the kibud av va'em, the derech eretz, that your children and grandchildren have for their mother. They learn from this. This is her purpose in life. Everything has a purpose in life.

And I'm mentioning this because we can learn from it how a person should behave, and when a person behaves in that derech, then Hashem should help them in everything — Hashem should help us that we should go out of golus.

And as I mentioned once, when Moshiach comes, Tisha B'Av will be Yom Tov. This [unclear] will be among the last days of galus, and bikarov mamash.

Thank you. Next week we will continue our weekly program.