Yud Shvat - The Rebbe of Lubavitch Defines Your Mission and the Mission of Every Jew in Our Generation

00:00 Who wouldn’t want to receive a clear message telling them: What exactly is my purpose in life? What is my role in this world? What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from me at this time, in this period, in this place? How do I do it, and how do I overcome the difficulties along the way? Questions like these are the broadest and most basic questions each of us asks ourselves. Of course, as believing Jews, we know that we have Torah and mitzvos, and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given us the daily task of keeping the Shulchan Aruch. But each of us also knows that every period has its own task. There is a specific goal for this period, for this generation. Within the overall purpose of a Jew—to keep Torah and mitzvos—every generation, every time and every period has something particular that is its task. What exactly is incumbent upon us? That is something each of us wants to know, and that is what we’ll talk about today: the wonderful news and the clear message we received from the Rebbe of Lubavitch on Yud Shvat, the day he accepted the responsibility of leading Chabad Chassidus. This Shabbos we mark Yud Shvat, the day of the passing, the yahrzeit and the hilula of the previous Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, who passed away in 1950. It was on Shabbos Parshas Bo in 5710. A year later, on the first yahrzeit, the first hilula, in 1951, 5711, on Yud Shvat, the eve of 11 Shvat, we were privileged that the Rebbe accepted the leadership of Chabad Chassidus for our generation. There was tremendous joy and tremendous excitement. But what not everyone

02:22 knows is what it means to say that this was the day the Rebbe accepted the responsibility of leading Chassidus. There was no special celebration, no special party, no coronation of a Rebbe—none of that. As we said, during the first year after his father-in-law, the Frierdiker Rebbe, passed away, the Rebbe did not want to hear anything about taking on the leadership of Chassidus. Letters arrived from all over the world, with pleas and requests from chassidim everywhere, from every walk of life. The Rebbe would not hear of it under any circumstances. To him, it was completely out of the question: “This is not for me.” Being a Rebbe is something extraordinarily lofty, holy and exalted, and it seemed there was nothing to discuss. It was absolutely out of the question. When Yud Shvat arrived, chassidim gathered at 770 in New York, Chabad’s world headquarters, for a farbrengen, as chassidim do. It was a modest farbrengen: a table, a little l’chaim, some mezonos and cookies, and the Rebbe came down to farbreng. The farbrengen began as usual, with words of Torah and niggunim, as is the way of chassidim. The shul was packed. It was the first hilula of the Frierdiker Rebbe, so people came from all over New York and the surrounding cities to be together and draw strength. Then, in the middle of the farbrengen, this wonderful thing happened. The acceptance of the leadership—what chassidim call the coronation, among Chabad chassidim—is the maamar of Chassidus that the Rebbe says. A maamar of Chassidus is, in a sense, a kind of Torah teaching. As we said, the Rebbe had already delivered one sicha and then another. But a maamar of Chassidus is something special and distinct. A maamar is delivered in a particular melody, in a particular manner. The Rebbe’s holy face would be paler than usual, his eyes closed. The melody of the maamar made you feel that something was happening here—something more spiritual, more heavenly, something G-dly. A message from somewhere else, somewhere higher. All year long, the chassidim had waited

05:00 for that moment to come, and it happened on that Yud Shvat 5711, when the Rebbe opened the maamar of Chassidus with a verse. That is how it is: a maamar always begins with a verse from Tanach. The verse was from Shir Hashirim: “I have come to My garden, My sister, My bride.” In this maamar, which the Rebbe delivered at length, there is a very clear message, a wonderful message with wonderful news. What exactly is the goal of our generation, and what is our task? That is what we’ll discuss today. We’ll divide it into several points. First, what is the wonderful news the Rebbe gave our generation? How do we achieve that goal? What task is incumbent on our generation? In what ways are we meant to carry it out? And what about the difficulties that pile up along the way—how should we regard them? This will give us a very clear message that will give us strength, tools and an understanding of what Hakadosh Boruch Hu expects of us at this special time, in this special generation, in this particular period we are discussing. The first point the Rebbe began with is the Midrash on the verse, “I have come to My garden, My sister, My bride.” We all know that Shir Hashirim uses the metaphor of a man and woman, a groom and bride, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people. Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “I have come to My garden,” where He meets “My sister, My bride.” Who is “My sister, My bride”? The Jewish people. Where is “My garden”? Here comes the first point, the first wonderful thing the Midrash teaches us: its location. Where exactly is the place that is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden? The Midrash says it is down here, in this lowest world. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world at the beginning of Creation, He created countless worlds, a chain of worlds stretching from the very highest to the very lowest,

07:15 and it is specifically the lowest, most physical world—the world we know down here—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu calls “My garden.” This is the primary place I chose. This is where I want to be. What happened was that sins were committed right at the beginning of Creation. We all know about the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam, Cain killing Abel. We know the story of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion. The Midrash lists seven sins that caused the Shechinah to withdraw from the earth, rising through seven heavens to above the seventh heaven. This withdrawal of the Shechinah caused G-dliness to become disconnected from the reality of our physical world, and the world became increasingly material. Then Avraham Avinu came, followed by seven generations of tzaddikim, and they brought the Shechinah back down. All of this is from the Midrash on Shir Hashirim. They brought the Shechinah back down, beginning with Avraham Avinu, the first Jew, who brought Hakadosh Boruch Hu into the world through his extraordinary service. Then, generation after generation, they continued until Moshe Rabbeinu came—the seventh generation. Moshe Rabbeinu brought the Shechinah back down to earth: “Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai” at the Giving of the Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu was revealed not in heaven but down here, on the physical earth. That happened at the Giving of the Torah. Then came the building of the Mishkan. When the Mishkan was built, the Shechinah was revealed on a permanent basis: “Make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” The Beis Hamikdash and the Mishkan were places where the Shechinah dwelt permanently. That, in essence, is our history. From here, the Rebbe goes on to explain the message for us. We are in a very similar period, and here the Rebbe drew a wonderful parallel between the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu—the seventh generation, who brought the Shechinah back down into this world after the Exodus from Egypt through the Giving of the Torah and the building of the Mishkan—and our generation, our time.

09:36 in which we stand. And here came the wonderful news: our generation, too, is the seventh generation. The Rebbe spoke about the seventh generation in Chabad Chassidus. The Alter Rebbe founded Chabad Chassidus. He wrote the Tanya. He took on the mission of the Baal Shem Tov. We all know that the Baal Shem Tov received a message from Moshiach: our mission is “Your wellsprings shall spread outward.” We must bring the wellsprings of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings out into the world, and that is, in fact, the preparation for the revelation of Moshiach. The one who began carrying out this mission of spreading the wellsprings outward in a tangible way was the author of the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe, founder of Chabad Chassidus. Through the Tanya and the maamarim he delivered to hundreds and thousands, he brought the inner dimension of Torah, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, into words of explanation and presented it in the most wonderful way, so that every Jew could come close to it, connect with it, and serve Hashem according to the foundations and ways of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings—the inner dimension of Torah, Chassidus. There are seven generations of Chabad Rebbes, beginning with the Alter Rebbe, and now we are in the seventh generation. So here the Rebbe first told us what the news is: our generation is the seventh generation. Just as Moshe Rabbeinu was charged with bringing the Shechinah down to earth—to the ground, to Mount Sinai, to the Mishkan, to this physical world—through Torah and physical mitzvos, since the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos takes place through physical actions, so too, as we reach the end of exile and are now in the final stages of preparing the world and ourselves for this wonderful event in history, for this wonderful moment we all long for—the true and complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach—there are seven generations in which we prepare ourselves for that long-awaited moment of Geulah. From the

11:50 Alter Rebbe to our generation, ours is the seventh generation. So in terms of place, we are here in this physical world. That is the place. In terms of time, our generation is the generation of Geulah. And in terms of the people involved, the Rebbe says something wonderful. The Midrash says, “All seventh ones are cherished.” This is something we see in the Torah. The number seven is a special number. Seventh ones are cherished. The seventh day is Shabbos. The seventh year is the Shemitah year. In the Torah, the number seven is always a cherished number. In the seventh generation, Moshe Rabbeinu was the cherished one, and the same is true of our generation, the seventh generation. “All seventh ones are cherished.” “All seventh ones are cherished.” That is not just a nice phrase—as if to say, “How lovely, how sweet.” “All seventh ones are cherished,” says the Rebbe. It is actually a granting of strength. It explains the wonderful strengths we have. This special affection means that we have strengths no one in the previous generations had. This seventh generation has been given the most decisive, most essential, and perhaps also the most difficult mission: to bring the Shechinah, to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu down here into this physical world. That is the revelation of the Geulah of Moshiach for which we are all waiting. This mission requires special strengths, and that is what this special affection means. It is the wonderful strength Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives our generation so that we can carry out this special mission. But what, exactly, is this mission? And here we come to the most important point: hearing exactly what our generation’s mission is. The Rebbe then said something wonderful: the whole significance of the seventh is that it is seventh from the first. In other words, the mission of the seventh generation, our generation, is to bring the first one’s plan into action. So let’s look at the Torah, let’s look at history, and consider what the first one did. Let’s go back to Avraham Avinu, the first Jew. “Avraham was one.” Avraham Avinu came into a world where,

14:10 as we said, the Shechinah was in another world. The Shechinah was disconnected from the physical world. People worshipped idols. Everyone knows what the world was like in Avraham Avinu’s time. People were completely disconnected from awareness of the Divine, from faith in G-d. They were very materialistic, concerned only with material things—with money, honor, and physical comforts. That was all that interested them, not to mention all the other kinds of sins and transgressions the Torah tells us were taking place then. And then Avraham Avinu arrived. What does the Torah tell us? There is a verse that is fundamental, one we take with us on our journey. It says of Avraham Avinu: “He planted an eishel in Be’er Sheva, and there he called in the name of Hashem, G-d of the world.” This verse contains the mission of the first Jew. “He planted an eishel in Be’er Sheva.” Rashi says Avraham Avinu established an inn—or an orchard; there are two interpretations. An eishel was a kind of lodging, a place for guests. Be’er Sheva was a place through which people passed as they traveled between the desert and the Land of Israel. It was a very strategic location where people gathered and arrived. Avraham Avinu opened his door and welcomed guests. “He planted an eishel in Be’er Sheva.” What was his purpose? “And there he called in the name of Hashem, G-d of the world.” Avraham Avinu’s purpose was to make Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s name known in the mouths of all who passed by. As the Midrash tells us in detail, Avraham Avinu opened his door, gave his guests food and drink, offered them a place to rest, and accompanied them on their way. His inner purpose in all of this was to make G-d of the world known to everyone. What does “G-d of the world” mean? The Ramban says it means not only the eternal G-d, but G-d of the world—G-d of our world. And he says something wonderful. It does not say “G-d of the world” with the definite article; it says “G-d, world,” teaching creation that the world and the Divine are not two

16:28 separate things. It is not that there is some G-d in heaven, up there in the seventh firmament, while down here is a different reality. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not in some lofty palace in heaven with the holy angels. No—the Divine and the world are one reality. Avraham Avinu devoted himself and his life to this purpose. This was his life’s mission: to put Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s name in the mouths of everyone in the world, to spread faith so that another person would not only believe, but also proclaim it. The Midrash says: Don’t read it as “he called”; read it as “he caused others to call.” He did not just call in Hashem’s name; he caused them to call. He convinced them so deeply and brought them to genuine faith. As the Midrash says, he brought everyone—even the Arabs, even the simplest and lowliest people—to an awareness of and faith in G-d of the world. And not only would they believe; they would also call out and publicize it. They themselves would become people who brought this message to the entire world. The Rebbe says in the maamar: This is our generation’s mission. The seventh is the one who carries out what the first began. He is the one who brings the first one’s mission, the first one’s dream, into practice. So what does that mean? What is our mission? This is precisely our mission today, in the world as it is now. Today, boruch Hashem, the Jewish people are found everywhere in the world, and we live in a world where we see the materialism, the darkness, and the focus on physical things right before our eyes. And this is the mission of every single Jew. As the Rebbe said, it is not a mission for certain people alone. There are distinguished rabbis, there are tzaddikim, there are leaders. But the Rebbe emphasized this, and emphasized it again: this is the mission of every man and woman of our generation. Every man and woman, young and old—everyone living in our generation is part of this seventh generation. Every

18:41 Each one of us has this wonderful task, this purpose: to bring the essence of the Shechinah into this lowest world, to draw down Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to reveal Him, to bring Him here below. How do we do that? Through “Do not read it as ‘and he called,’ but as ‘and he caused others to call.’” We go out into the world, go to different places, bring one more Jew and then another closer, and tell them about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bringing them to recognize the G-d of the world. And not only should each person recognize Him, but they should also spread that recognition throughout their surroundings. That is the task. But here there is another very, very important point: there is the task, and there is how we carry it out—the character of our actions. On this, too, the Rebbe said something novel, something wonderful. There are several ways a person can act. Here is another distinctive point. Usually, when you want to do something, you have a task, a goal. There are many approaches. Some people plan and think and reflect and examine every detail, then look at what the goal is and how to achieve it, and then ask, “What will I gain from it, and how will I gain it?” That is one way to work. The Rebbe spoke about something wonderful in the way we need to act in our generation. It is a way of acting that the Rebbe called conduct beyond reason and understanding. In other words, he called it “holy folly.” What does holy folly mean? Let me explain it a little so we won’t be alarmed. What is meant by it? There is a story in the Gemara, in Tractate Kesubos. The Gemara tells of one of the Amoraim who danced at a wedding. He danced in a way that made it seem as though he was lowering his own dignity. He danced and danced and danced. The way he danced looked a little like madness. One of his colleagues was standing there,

20:44 himself also one of the great Amoraim. He watched and said, “He is disgracing us. The way he dances disgraces Torah scholars.” That is what he said. Some years passed, and that Amora who had danced that way passed away. At his funeral, as the Gemara relates, a pillar of fire descended from heaven—something extraordinary, something utterly heavenly. As the Gemara says, only one person in a generation merits such a revelation, such a light, a special light that descended from heaven. And the Amora who had said years earlier that he was disgracing them saw it and said, “Wow, apparently it was because of that dancing, that madness, that he merited what he did.” In other words, only then did he take it in and understand his mistake: sometimes it is precisely through serving in this way, by stepping beyond our boundaries and limitations, beyond all our fixed, limited calculations and fears—“Maybe yes, maybe no; what will happen; what will people say?” There are moments when a person needs to make a leap beyond himself, to step outside his boundaries. In the language of our Sages, this is called folly, but folly on the side of holiness. As the Rebbe explained, there is the folly of the yetzer hara. After all, the entire basis of the yetzer hara is foolish, irrational behavior. Tumah, kelipah, the sitra achra—none of it makes sense. The Gemara says in Tractate Sotah: “A person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly enters him.” Every transgression begins with folly. So we need to take that folly and turn it into folly on the side of holiness—folly in serving Hashem, serving Hashem beyond reason and understanding. Here the Rebbe gave some very interesting examples, several stories about the Chabad Rebbeim through the generations—as we said, seven generations. The Rebbe told various stories about the earlier Rebbeim

23:02 from which we can learn what this means. They are specific examples that help us understand what it means to serve Hashem in this way, with holy folly—to go beyond our boundaries in serving Hashem. For example, I won’t tell all the stories. I’ll perhaps take one or two. The Rebbe told one story about the Alter Rebbe, the author of Tanya and the founder of Chabad Chassidus. It is a well-known story. The Alter Rebbe was in the middle of davening on Yom Kippur, the holiest day. The entire congregation was immersed in davening. Just imagine the Rebbe himself on Yom Kippur, the holiest day, this holiest of Jews, standing in the deepest devotion we can imagine. Then, suddenly, he learned somehow—whether spiritually or in some other way, I don’t know those details—that there was a woman at the edge of town. She had given birth to a baby and was alone at home. No one was there. The Alter Rebbe sensed the woman’s distress and the danger she was in. She had given birth; she was alone, hungry, and had not eaten. She had nothing to eat. The house was empty. So in the middle of Yom Kippur, the Rebbe took off his tallis, went out and chopped wood, then went to the house, cooked soup, and fed the new mother. Only then did he return to the Yom Kippur davening. It is a wonderful story. Of course, this was about saving a life, about pikuach nefesh, with all the halachic considerations involved. But what does the story tell us? It shows a kind of Ahavas Yisroel expressed through folly—Ahavas Yisroel that goes beyond boundaries. The Alter Rebbe could have sent someone else; he could have handled it differently. She could wait a little longer; the day would soon be over. He could have looked for all

25:07 sorts of excuses, approaches, and explanations. No. He felt that this woman needed this, now, at that very moment. He put all calculations aside and went with mesirus nefesh to help her. Another story we’ll tell is similar. On the one hand, it is quite simple; on the other, these stories express this idea. The Tzemach Tzedek was on his way to daven. It was Sunday, an ordinary weekday. He was walking from home to shul and passed through the market on his way. There, the town butcher stopped him and said, “I need a loan of a few coins so I can buy a calf for meat and earn a living.” The Tzemach Tzedek told him, “I’ll gladly lend it to you. Come to me after davening and I’ll give it to you.” The Rebbe continued toward shul, but when he arrived, he said, “Wait. I told him to come to me after davening, but perhaps he needs it now, before davening.” Without a second thought, the Rebbe himself got up, left the shul, went back to the market, found that Jew, and gave him the money he needed to make his purchase. So, as I said, what is the point? What do we learn? Once again, there is the task, and there are the ways we carry it out. We, in our generation, have a task. Our task is to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu everywhere. “Do not read it as ‘and he called,’ but as ‘and he caused others to call.’” We need to bring the G-d of the world to everyone’s awareness, so that the entire world comes to recognize that this world has an Owner, to know Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and to make this world a place where Hakadosh Boruch Hu can

27:19 be revealed through the coming of Moshiach. But how do we do it? Through holy folly. In later years, the Rebbe more often called it “Ufaratzta”—“you shall break through.” That is the slogan of Chabad Chassidus: Ufaratzta. Not always being constrained by all sorts of calculations and limits—what to do and what not to do, what will happen, what people will say. We break through our own boundaries, the boundaries of nature, and sometimes the boundaries of logic. Precisely with this holy folly, we transform the darkness that is founded on folly, on the madness of kelipah and the sitra achra, and make from it a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And here we come to the final point: the difficulties, the tests. We live in a generation in which the darkness keeps growing, with extraordinarily difficult tests.

28:15 No, we don’t need to dwell on this. Everyone knows; everyone sees. We are in the midst of extremely difficult days, with darkness prevailing in the world, and especially in Eretz Yisroel. And a person asks himself: Where will I find the strength? What can I do? How am I supposed to look at all this? Here the Rebbe comes to a point he explains at the end of the maamar, one of the foundations of Chassidus. We can put it in a few words: the descent is for the sake of the ascent. When a person encounters a challenge, a difficulty, darkness, something that gets in the way, the Jewish way to look at it is this: nothing happens on its own. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sometimes brings us to difficult moments, moments when we cannot see the light. Moments of darkness. Moments that raise questions and leave us bewildered. What should a Jew’s response be? Not to start looking for justifications and explanations—why Hashem does this and what its purpose is—and get caught up in arguments and interpretations. Rather, we must know that all this is meant to give us the strength to overcome that darkness. When a Jew decides not to be shaken by the darkness, and understands that right here he can overcome it and reveal greater strengths—hidden, deeper strengths within him—they burst forth. Then the very deepest darkness becomes a far greater light. To reach the greatest ascent that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to bring us to, we have to go through this descent we are experiencing, in all its different forms. The Rebbe explains this, but the message is very clear: our task and our purpose. So what is the message of the maamar the Rebbe gave us? We are the seventh generation. The Geulah is already at the threshold; Moshiach Tzidkeinu is ready and about to be revealed and bring the Geulah to the world. The world is ready for the moment of the great revelation of the Shechinah

30:35 down here, in this physical world. Where do we bring the Shechinah down here? When? In our generation, at this time. Who does it? Each and every person of our generation. How do we do it? By learning from Avraham Avinu, the first Jew: not to be daunted by our surroundings, but to reach the whole world, each and every person—to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Torah and mitzvos, to every Jew. Our way of serving Hashem must be to go against our nature, against our logic; to rise above nature, to rise above logic, with holy folly. With that, we will break the folly, the darkness, the heat of the other side, of kelipah and the sitra achra. Then we will merit the fulfillment of the verses we all await and long to see—the revelation of G-dliness down here: “Hashem will reign forever and ever,” and “Hashem will be King over all the earth; on that day Hashem will be one and His name one.” May we merit, very soon, to see each other together with the Rebbe, and may he take each and every one of us to the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.