The Bond with Hashem That Grows Stronger Precisely in Difficult Times

00:00 We are all thirsty for a word of encouragement, of reassurance, of faith amid all this darkness, this concealment of Hashem’s face that we are going through in these days. Of course, each of us has complete trust and simple faith that this darkness will end in the great light, the light we are all waiting for. “For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the nations; but upon you Hashem will shine.” We are all waiting with longing for the moment of the great light of the true and complete Geulah, a Geulah after which there will be no exile. None of us wants a small consolation. We do not want a small salvation. We are waiting for the great salvation, and for it to come with kindness and mercy: the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach. But in the meantime, each of us is looking for a ray of light, a word of encouragement, words of hope that will give us the strength to hold on through these moments. There is an extraordinary phenomenon that we are all witnessing these days, and I want to focus on it. I think that from this very phenomenon we can draw tremendous strength, tremendous encouragement for every one of us. It is the phenomenon everyone is talking about—the whole world is talking about it, really. What we are seeing among the Jewish people is something extraordinary. In this period, in these days, when we are seemingly facing a concealment of Hashem’s face unlike any other—what happened on Simchas Torah, on the most wonderful day of the year, the day of the deepest connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu? How have the mighty fallen? How have Jews fallen? What happened was a great darkness. Jews were killed al kiddush Hashem, and hundreds of Jews are missing. Every moment, we wait with longing for their return, safe in body and soul. And seemingly, how could such a thing happen? Yet amid all this darkness and all this turmoil, we are witnessing a tremendous awakening across the entire Jewish people, from one end to the other. Strong faith, strong trust,

02:37 tremendous strength in “one person helping another.” Every single person is giving their all. They are putting aside all the calculations, all the disagreements, and all the things that, just the day before, had reached such extremes—we will not bring them up, and we do not want to remember them. And suddenly you see the entire people, in every segment, on every side and in every corner, united and bound together in genuine love and brotherhood. Everyone is giving their all to help another Jew, each in their own way, wherever they are. And here the question arises: How does this work? Everyone is asking the same question. People around the world are asking: What is it about the Jewish people? What is this? Precisely in the hardest, darkest times, at moments when it seems we cannot see the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s countenance, precisely then their faith burns more fiercely than ever. Jews from every walk of life are strengthening themselves in faith, in words of faith, in mitzvos. One puts on tefillin, another lights candles, and each in one way or another expresses their pure faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. How do these two things go together? We will take a point from the weekly parsha, a wonderful Midrash that will open our eyes and give us some understanding of this extraordinary phenomenon among the Jewish people. Along with that, it will give us a direction, a path, a way of thinking—some sense of how a Jew should truly live in these days. But first I want to tell you the background to the explanation we are about to discuss. The story took place in Tishrei 5740. There was a Jew named Rabbi Dovid Okunov. He was a Jew who had come out of Russia, from the Soviet Union. He was among the chassidim who literally risked their lives

04:59 to observe Torah and mitzvos and spread Judaism in Soviet Russia. When nearly all the families of chassidim left Russia in the famous mass departure after World War II, in 1946 and 1947, most of the chassidic Jews managed to leave. A few families remained, keeping the flame alive under extremely difficult conditions. They had no way to observe many of the mitzvos, yet they stood firm with self-sacrifice and kept the flame of Judaism alive throughout those hard years. Rabbi Dovid Okunov was one of them. Only more than twenty years later, in the 1960s, was he able to move to Eretz Yisroel. In Tishrei 5740, 1979, he was with the Rebbe. On Thursday, 4 Cheshvan, after Simchas Torah, after a full Tishrei packed with joyous events and Yom Tov with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, this Jew was walking early in the morning through the streets of Brooklyn, of Crown Heights, carrying his tallis and tefillin on his way to daven Shacharis. Then, rachmana litzlan, a wicked, cruel man took his life. It was terribly difficult, and everyone was broken and despondent over what had happened. That Motzaei Shabbos, after Shabbos Parshas Noach, on 6 or 7 Cheshvan, the Rebbe held a farbrengen. The farbrengen began with a maamar of Chassidus. The Rebbe opened with great fervor, speaking about a verse in the weekly parsha. The maamar centered on that verse and a Midrash, which we will discuss. It opens our eyes, gives us strength and a perspective, and helps us understand the weekly parsha as well. It offers a wonderful, distinctive explanation of the story of Noach and the Flood, which we will now discuss. And from there, we will also gain an understanding, a way of looking at things, that will help us grasp the secret—the wonderful secret

07:44 within the Jewish people that we are witnessing in these days. How do we explain it? How do we understand this wonderful quality of a Jew: that precisely in the hardest moments of darkness, precisely when things seem most impenetrable and Hashem’s face is so deeply concealed, it is then that a Jew’s tremendous strength awakens—the burning, pure faith within every Jew? The verse says, “And Hashem smelled the pleasing aroma.” We all know that after the Flood, the Torah tells us, Noach took some of the kosher animals he had brought into the ark and offered sacrifices. Noach offered sacrifices on the altar, and then the Torah says, “And Hashem smelled the pleasing aroma.” On the simple level, this means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu smelled the aroma of the sacrifices Noach offered after leaving the ark. As we know, sacrifices have a very, very powerful effect: they bring pleasure to Hashem, as Rashi teaches us in Parshas Vayikra: “It is gratifying to Me that I spoke and My will was done.” This aroused great pleasure, and then Hakadosh Boruch Hu made His promise, established the covenant—the sign of the covenant. He made a covenant with Noach that He would never again bring a flood to destroy the earth. It was a firm covenant, an oath that Hakadosh Boruch Hu swore, promising that there would never again be a Flood. The world would never again reach such a state. That is how the parsha we are studying continues. Now, there is a wonderful Midrash in Midrash Rabbah on this verse, and it says as follows: “And Hashem smelled the pleasing aroma.” What exactly did Hakadosh Boruch Hu smell? As we said, the simple meaning is that He smelled the aroma of the sacrifices. But the Midrash says no—there was something else entirely. What did He smell? He smelled the aroma of Avraham Avinu rising from the fiery furnace. And the Midrash goes on to say that He smelled the aroma of Chananya, Mishael

10:04 and Azaryah emerge from the fiery furnace. Then the Midrash continues and says: He smelled the scent of a generation facing religious persecution—the generations that endured the hardest trials of exile. That is what He smelled. Three things. As the commentators explain, since the word “scent” appears three times in the verse, we learn that there were three kinds of scent here: Avraham Avinu; Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah; and the generation facing persecution. In other words, each represents a distinct kind of mesirus nefesh. Avraham Avinu stood firm in his faith against the entire world. That brought him to the fiery furnace, and he emerged from it strengthened. That is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu smelled: Avraham Avinu’s mesirus nefesh. Then there was the mesirus nefesh of Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah, whose story we know. After the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash, in Babylonia, they faced the test of bowing to an idol. They stood firm and did not bow to it. That was their mesirus nefesh. And then there is the mesirus nefesh of all the generations of this long, dreadful, difficult exile in which we now find ourselves. We are witnessing some of that mesirus nefesh in these very days. That is the generation facing persecution. The question is a very simple one, seemingly: Why do we need this explanation? The sacrifices themselves are a “pleasing aroma.” We all know that the Torah tells us many times that when a Jew brought an animal sacrifice to the altar, it brought pleasure to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So when Noach brought sacrifices to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that itself brought Him pleasure. Why isn’t the pleasing aroma of the sacrifices enough? Why must we say that there was something entirely different—a special pleasure that came from the mesirus nefesh

12:07 of Avraham Avinu and of Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah? And even that is not enough: also the mesirus nefesh of the generation facing persecution. Interestingly, the Midrash ends its explanation with the words, “This is what the verse says: ‘This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, Yaakov, forever.’” That verse is said about the generations of mesirus nefesh, especially the generation facing persecution. Despite the terrible trials they face in every area, they still seek Your face. They are not shaken or weakened by any of the trials confronting them. On the contrary, they “seek Your face”: all they ask is to stand face-to-face before You, so they can observe Torah and mitzvos and serve Hashem forever, with enduring strength. They are not shaken by all the changes; they stand firm. Why do we need this? What is the connection? Why not simply say it was the sacrifices? Why do we need mesirus nefesh to be the scent that Hakadosh Boruch Hu smelled here? And what resulted from it? The result was a promise and a covenant that Hakadosh Boruch Hu made: there would never again be a flood. What would happen instead? From then on, “summer and winter, cold and heat, day and night shall not cease.” It was a covenant for the world’s continued existence. The world stands and continues; there is summer and winter, cold and heat, and the natural order. Creation functions in a healthy, orderly way. That was the covenant: these things “shall not cease” because of this. So we need to understand the connection. After all, we are talking about the world continuing to exist, with no more flood. Of course, that is tremendously important and wonderful, but it is only about the natural order continuing—summer and winter, day and night, without chaos. All right, but did that require mesirus nefesh and all these extraordinary things? Mesirus nefesh

14:11 is what accomplished it. What is the explanation? The central point of the explanation here is very profound. When we speak about the world’s continued existence, which Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised Noach, we are not speaking only about the outward continuation of nature. There is something much deeper here. Consider the very first Rashi in Bereishis, at the beginning of the Torah. Rashi immediately explains the word “Bereishis.” What does it mean? On the plain level, it is difficult to understand how to read the verse, “Bereishis, G-d created.” Rashi says the verse teaches us something beyond its plain meaning. There is a Midrash here, a hint, a wonderful teaching. It is interesting: Rashi’s commentary explains the plain meaning and always tries to give the simplest interpretation. Yet here Rashi begins with a Midrashic explanation. It must be included in the plain meaning, because otherwise the words do not quite fit grammatically. Grammatically, “bereishis” is a word that should be followed by something else: “at the beginning of” something. At the beginning of creation, at the beginning of... But it does not say what it is the beginning of. It says “bereishis” and immediately continues, “G-d created.” Some words seem to be missing. That is Rashi’s question. So Rashi tells us: “Bereishis” refers to two things called “reishis,” or “first.” The Jewish people are called “reishis”—Rashi cites a verse for this—and the Torah is called “reishis” in Tanach. “Bereishis, G-d created the heavens and the earth” means that the entire creation of the world, and all of created and natural existence, was for the sake of the Torah and the Jewish people. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world so that the Jewish people, His chosen nation, could observe Torah and mitzvos. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu made His covenant after the flood, it was not merely a covenant that the world would return

16:26 to normal. There was something much deeper here. It was a covenant that the world would serve its purpose: that the existence of creation, and every detail that occurs within it at every moment and in every circumstance, would be for that purpose—for the Torah and the Jewish people. That is the deeper meaning of the covenant with Noach. Based on this, we can understand something remarkable that people ask about. We recently had Rosh Hashanah. In its prayers, we see something interesting. One of the most important prayers is Musaf. On Rosh Hashanah, in Musaf, we recite verses of Malchiyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros. The Talmud explains that this is among the most important parts of Rosh Hashanah: reciting verses through which we crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. “Recite before Me verses of kingship so that you may crown Me as King over you.” A Jew crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King on Rosh Hashanah, for the entire year and over all creation. Then come Zichronos: “so that your remembrance may rise before Me for good.” And after that come Shofaros. These are verses. When we reach the verses of Zichronos in Musaf, there is an entire passage of the prayer devoted to Noach’s ark: “You also remembered Noach with love and took note of him,” and the words about the covenant... There is a lengthy passage about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu remembered Noach, and several of the Zichronos verses speak about Noach. The question is: We are praying here, making requests in the Rosh Hashanah prayers. These prayers concern the Jewish people. We ask for ourselves, for our people, and for all kinds of things—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu protect the Jewish people wherever they are. Are there not enough verses of Malchiyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros that speak about the Jewish people? Why do we need to pray and make requests by recounting how Hakadosh Boruch Hu remembered Noach? “And G-d remembered”

18:35 Noach and those who were with him in the ark—and they bring verses from Parshas Noach. What are those verses doing in the Rosh Hashanah prayers? The Rebbe Rashab, Rabbi Sholom Dovber, the fifth Rebbe of Chabad, explains that the words “with love” in “You also remembered Noach with love” mean that, through Noach, Hakadosh Boruch Hu saw His love for the Jewish people. Noach was the ancestor of the Jewish people. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s love is a single, unique love: His love for the Jewish people. “My dove, my perfect one, is but one”—the dove is the Jewish people. The one love Hakadosh Boruch Hu has is for the Jewish people, and that includes Noach. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu came to save Noach and his whole family, all the animals, and everyone in the ark after the Flood—the whole story of Noach’s ark—the “love” was the love Hakadosh Boruch Hu has for His people, Israel. Hakadosh Boruch Hu saw that the Jewish people would come from him, and that love was what brought about the covenant. “And G-d remembered”—that remembrance. That is why, on Rosh Hashanah, the day the covenant between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is renewed, when we blow the shofar to strengthen our bond and connect ourselves with Hakadosh Boruch Hu once again, we say, “He will choose our inheritance for us, the pride of Yaakov whom He loves, selah.” That connection comes about through... It began with Noach’s ark, with the remembrance of Noach. So we return to this story and understand it on a wonderfully deep level. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised and said that something tremendous would happen here—that they “shall not cease,” that creation would continue without change, without change. Now, when we... Let’s consider this for a moment. After all, the reality of nature

20:44 is, in itself, something that changes. All of creation is essentially change, because our world is a world entirely full of change. Suddenly it’s cold, suddenly it’s hot; things change, things don’t stand still. Everything in our world is constantly changing and constantly passing away. Things come and go, and suddenly... So change is the nature of creation in itself. And here Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes and says, “They shall not cease”—there will be no change. There is a way creation conducts itself, a pattern within creation: you look at nature and see things that have gone on in the world for more than five thousand years, 5,784 years, in the same form and the same way. Day and night, summer and winter, light and darkness. On the one hand, we’re used to it, but when you think about it, it’s tremendous. Where does this constancy come from? It comes from the fact that a Jew does not change. It comes from the power of mesirus nefesh that a Jew possesses. A Jew has this quality of not changing. Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not change. Of Him it says, “I, Hashem, have not changed.” That is clear. One of the foundations of our faith is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not change. A Jew has a soul that is “literally a part of G-d above.” The yechidah of the soul, the part of the soul that is “the one that unites with You,” as we also say in the Hoshaanos prayers on Sukkos: “Embraced by You and attached to You, bearing Your yoke.” The soul is one with Him, embraced by You and attached to You, bearing Your yoke. A Jew bears the yoke of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: he puts on tefillin, wears tzitzis, believes in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and follows Him even in the hardest moments. “The one that unites with You.” The yechidah of the soul is united with Him, joined as one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not change and is beyond all change,

22:53 “I, Hashem, have not changed,” as the prophet says, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not changed by anything in the world. He is always there; He is eternal. He is above it all, beyond any kind of change. The soul, which is a part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “literally a part of G-d above,” has within it that strength, that bond that does not change. Where does that show itself? In mesirus nefesh. Precisely when there are moments when Hashem’s face is hidden, moments of difficulty, when there is a kind of darkness and we cannot see, when there are questions and things I don’t understand—suddenly you see: no, a Jew is not changed by anything. At that very moment, it becomes apparent that a Jew is always with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in every situation, connected and bound to Him. On the contrary, amid all that darkness, the power of faith rises even higher within the Jew. He becomes even stronger, even more connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the darkness itself not only fails to contradict or conceal that connection; on the contrary, it reveals something deeper and connects the Jew more deeply with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This was precisely what happened with Avraham Avinu. Amid the trials he faced in his time, at the beginning of the Jewish people’s history, he stood alone against all of creation, the whole world, all the nations, and he stood firm. He was not daunted, not even by the fiery furnace. Then came the time of Chananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah. The Jewish people had lived through wonderful periods; we had already had the Beis Hamikdash, we had had everything—and once again, trials; once again, darkness. Yet Jews were not daunted by it and stood firm, refusing to bow to the idol. Then came a third period: this long and terrible exile. And together with that, despite all the darkness and the long exile, we see

24:55 this wonderful thing: “This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, Yaakov, selah.” That endurance, that strength—a Jew is not shaken by all the changes and everything that happens, but stands firm with mesirus nefesh. On the contrary, the darkness strengthens his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu even more. He becomes even more connected. And when that becomes apparent, something wonderful happens: within creation, within the darkness, the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu begins to shine. That is what the story of Parshas Noach comes to tell each of us. We should know that when we do this—and at these moments, Jews are doing it everywhere in the world, especially our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel, each and every one of them, the soldiers standing on the front lines, and every person wherever they stand and wherever they are, standing with mesirus nefesh and with faith and trust in Hakadosh Boruch Hu—when we stand firm through this trial and strengthen ourselves with trust and faith, and it bursts forth with great force, then at that very moment the trial melts away, dissipates; nothing remains of it. Then the infinite light is revealed within creation. Within nature, the blessing is revealed: the entire existence of the world is for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of the Jewish people. It is like the story of Avraham Avinu, the story we all know. Avraham Avinu... The Midrash tells us that he was on his way to the Binding of Yitzchak, the last and hardest trial Hashem gave him, the first Jew. The Torah tells us about many trials, but the greatest was the trial of the Binding. As he went on his way, a river appeared, and he could not continue. The water reached his neck. And Avraham Avinu said, “I’m not daunted. Hakadosh Boruch Hu told me to go, so I’m going.” He kept walking, and at a certain point the river vanished. There was nothing there, because it then became clear that the whole river had never been something real. It was something

27:02 That he expressed came only to awaken pure, uncompromising faith in Avraham Avinu. The moment Avraham Avinu revealed that enduring strength, that resolve, that mesirus nefesh, the test was over. Because the test is not something real in itself. As Chassidus explains, the word for “test,” nisayon, is related to raising a banner on the mountains. A nes is a ship’s mast; in Tanach it means a banner—something raised high. A test is really meant to lift up the soul, to reveal the wondrous, boundless depth, the most precious and powerful thing in the depths of a Jew’s soul. And that is revealed at the moment of a test. When a Jew summons those inner strengths and stands with complete trust and faith, certain that through the power of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, He will prevail and we will make it through—that itself turns darkness into light, and the whole test dissolves. Then we see that the world not only does not stand in our way; rather, “Bereishis”—for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Yisroel. All of creation, the whole world, and all the nations of the world are here to help the Jewish people and bring about victory in the most wondrous way. All the darkness becomes nothing, and the true reality of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed down here in the world. That is the wonderful message the Rebbe spoke to us about in those days. He explained it, and as he came to the story of what had happened then, he returned to that story and said: “We had a wonderful month of Tishrei. From Rosh Hashanah onward, a Jew stood in prayer and said, ‘This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, Yaakov, Selah.’ We say this on Rosh Hashanah night, at the beginning of the prayer. In Maariv on Rosh Hashanah night, we said this chapter, chapter 24 of Tehillim. On Rosh Hashanah a Jew says, ‘He will choose our inheritance for us, the pride of Yaakov whom He loves, Selah.’ At the sounding of the shofar, a Jew gives himself over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu

29:05 and says: ‘I don’t want anything else; nothing else matters to me. I am with You.’ ‘Those who seek Your face’—a Jew seeks what is innermost. He wants to stand face to face with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that was the process throughout the month of Tishrei, until we came to the joy of Sukkos: the wonderful embrace with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu embraced us in the sukkah. Then came Simchas Torah, the dancing with our heels—those heels that danced on Simchas Torah, dancing and rejoicing in Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s joy, in the bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. During Tishrei we resolved to be strong Jews, to strengthen our Torah study, to strengthen our observance of mitzvos, and to strengthen our connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And then, suddenly, what happened happened. Something so terrible happened! You could fall; you could weaken. You could say, ‘That’s it. What is going on?’ But the opposite is true. Not only does a Jew not fall—he rises and charges forward with even greater strength. Here we see something wonderful: precisely after such a fall, such darkness, not only are we not weakened by it; on the contrary, our strength and endurance are revealed, that quality of ‘I have not changed.’ How does the verse go? How does the prophet say it? ‘I, Hashem, have not changed, and you, the children of Yaakov, have not ceased to be.’ Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not changed, so too the children of Yaakov have not ceased to be. Hakadosh Boruch Hu protects us: one sheep among seventy wolves, and it survives. The same is true of our spiritual strength. All the darkness and all the hardships the Jewish people have endured throughout the generations and in our own time—not only do they not weaken us, they strengthen our faith even more. The moment that faith is revealed and bursts forth, all this darkness will dissolve. Very soon we will see the great light of the complete Geulah, especially

31:06 now that we are entering the month of Cheshvan, the month in which, the Midrash says, Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised that the third Beis Hamikdash would be built and dedicated. May we truly merit this. Yes, we will stand strong. We will strengthen one another with words of faith and trust, knowing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with us. With Hashem’s help, we will win this war and emerge whole, with kindness and mercy. From this war we will go straight to the great light of the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, “and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.”