The Haftorah of Acharon Shel Pesach

00:00 Once, on a Shabbos, the Rebbe spoke at length at a farbrengen about Moshiach. It was the Shabbos after the last day of Pesach. Throughout that period, at the farbrengen on the last day of Pesach and then on the following Shabbos, the Rebbe spoke in his sichos with great emphasis about Geulah and Moshiach, and about the fact that we are living in the time of the Geulah. People were talking about the Geulah, and there was a great sense of anticipation: Moshiach would be here any moment. After the farbrengen, several older chassidim stood near the door of 770, discussing what the Rebbe had said about Moshiach’s coming. One of them remarked: We are told that before Moshiach comes, all sorts of things will happen, with hardships and bitter times—but perhaps all that has already passed. Perhaps all those long years of exile and suffering count as the hardships we have already endured, and we will not have to go through the bitter difficulties described in the verses. Instead, it will happen suddenly. Everyone will be busy with their own affairs: the merchant with his trade and sales, the shepherd with his [unclear], the tailor and the shoemaker. Everyone will be

01:31 in their place. Yes. “And suddenly he will come to his sanctuary.” Suddenly, the moment of Geulah will arrive. That was what the chassidim were discussing. The story goes that suddenly the door opened and the Rebbe came out of his room. The chassidim standing there were startled; they had not expected the Rebbe to come out so suddenly. The Rebbe came out of his room and headed home, while the chassidim stood there. Knowing what they had been discussing, the Rebbe said with a smile, “There you have it—that is exactly how Moshiach will come.” There is a quotation that says [unclear]: That is exactly how Moshiach will come—the crowd will be standing and talking, and suddenly the door will open: “And suddenly he will come to his sanctuary.” Here come the Geulah and Moshiach. At the farbrengen on the last day of Pesach in 5742, the Rebbe gave a very interesting sicha on this subject, in connection with the haftarah of the last day of Pesach. Outside the Land of Israel, the haftarah read on the last day of Pesach is about Moshiach. It speaks of the great things concerning King Moshiach: “A shoot shall come forth from the stem of Yishai, and a branch shall grow from his roots. The spirit of Hashem shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and fear of Hashem,” and all the other wondrous things. It speaks about King Moshiach and about

03:01 what will happen in the world—everything, including war and [unclear], and so on. It describes all that Moshiach will accomplish, both among people and among animals. As the verse says, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” The entire world will be filled with G-dliness, and so on. It is a very rich and profound haftarah, describing the revelations of the future. But when you look at the haftarah, you see that its beginning—“This very day he will halt at Nov; he will shake his hand at the mountain of the daughter of Tziyon, the hill of Jerusalem”—seemingly has nothing at all to do with Moshiach. What, then, is it about? What does “This very day he will halt at Nov” mean? As the commentators explain, this refers to King Chizkiyahu and Sancheriv, king of Assyria. There was a war at the time. Chizkiyahu was king in the days of Sancheriv, king of Assyria, and that was when the war took place. Sancheriv came intending to conquer the entire world, and by then he had already exiled the Ten Tribes to various places. He came to fight against Jerusalem, because Yehudah still remained, and Jerusalem still remained. He said, “I will conquer you.” He came to wage war, though he was told he would not conquer Jerusalem. And when he reached—

04:30 As it says in Sanhedrin, when he arrived with a hundred thousand soldiers, what could they do? Surely no one would be left in Jerusalem. But when he climbed the mountain and saw that it was a small city, he said, “[unclear],” and gave up on the whole matter. Then the great miracles of the story of Sancheriv took place. Yes, there was victory in the war, as briefly recounted in Tanach; the Gemara in Berachos gives the full story, with the great miracles that occurred there. The question here is: How does this fit in? Why do we read about it? What? Not yet... What do we read in the haftarah? According to the Midrash, the episode of Sancheriv and Chizkiyahu took place almost on the night of Pesach itself. But when exactly? It was on the first day of Pesach. In other words, the story of Sancheriv happened on the first day of Pesach. So one could say that this passage was designated for reading on the last day of Pesach to recall the miracle of Sancheriv, which happened on the first day. But what connection does it have to the last day of Pesach itself? After all, the Baal Shem Tov revealed that the last day of Pesach is connected with the revelation of Moshiach’s light. What do we find at Moshiach’s seudah, which the Baal Shem Tov instituted,

05:55 directing that a Moshiach’s seudah be held on the last day of Pesach? At that meal, matzos are eaten on the third day of the last day of Pesach, and as [unclear], there will be a clean world, a beautiful world, a good world. There will be no subjugation by foreign kingdoms; “there will be neither famine nor war, neither jealousy nor hatred nor competition.” It will be a world without bad character traits, a world without wars, a world of peace and tranquility, a world of love, a world in which “nation will not raise sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” It will be a pleasant world to live in, where G-dliness will shine and there will be peace and tranquility. That is the world of the Geulah. But I [unclear] the world itself; as we said, the world itself will be a good world. And here a question arises that troubles people. We live with “I await him every day”: I must expect Moshiach to come today, each and every day. I must believe it, and the Rambam rules that a person must not only believe in his coming but also await his coming. I must always be waiting and waiting, expecting the Geulah to come immediately, right now, this very moment. And the question is: If Moshiach comes and there is a world of peace and tranquility, of rest and all these things, and—

09:34 And if it happens within this very world, within the nature of the world. It does not mean taking this world and having the Rebbe make it happen somewhere else, in a new world—but in this very world. That is not so simple. When you look around at the world and see its condition, not only is the world not becoming better and more beautiful, but quite the opposite. You see a world full of wars, jealousy, hatred and competition, wars between brothers and wars of every kind, all sorts of things. On the contrary, these things happen every day. And [unclear]. There are so many undesirable things, among the nations of the world, among the Jewish people, and within each person as well. In practice, the situation is not improving; it is almost the opposite, as we can see. So the question arises: You tell me that Moshiach will come and the world will become more beautiful, a world of Geulah. A person will come—“a king will arise from the House of David,” as the Rambam writes—and he will fight the wars of Hashem and be victorious. Yes, and suddenly the world will change from one extreme to the other and become a more beautiful world. How can that happen? We need to understand this. But the answer lies in the story of what happened with Sancheriv—the story recounted

10:58 in the Gemara, Sanhedrin 95. What do the words “This very day he will halt at Nov” mean? Sancheriv came with hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight against Jerusalem. As he stood there “this very day” and saw Jerusalem, he said, “Why did we come here with so many soldiers?” He was certain he could destroy Jerusalem in a moment. King Chizkiyahu, [unclear]. The members of the Sanhedrin were terribly frightened. They came to Chizkiyahu and asked him to make peace. Chizkiyahu said, “I will not make peace, and I will not go out to war. I will sleep in my bed.” I am going to sleep, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will conduct the war. And that is what happened: “An angel of Hashem went out,” yes, at midnight, “and struck the Assyrian camp.” In the middle of the night, an angel of Hashem came, and in an instant everything was turned around: almost no one remained of the entire Assyrian camp. The Gemara says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu caused them to hear the song of the angels, and they all died from it. And so may there be a complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, and may we merit the fulfillment of all the prophecies in today’s haftarah: “The spirit of Hashem shall rest upon him,” down to every detail; “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea”; and then, “On that day you will say: Give thanks to Hashem, call upon His name,” and “I will thank You, Hashem.”

16:30 “For You were angry with me”—for this entire exile—and may there be the true and complete Geulah, immediately, on this very day.