We Are the Generation That Will Bring the Geulah - The Month of Tammuz in Light of Chassidus

00:00 What is so special about our time? About our generation? Our generation is the most special generation. This is one of the things the Rebbe spoke about from the day he accepted the leadership, on Yud Shvat 5711, the day of the first yahrzeit of his father-in-law, the previous Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Rebbe always spoke about this point: our generation is the generation of the Geulah. In the first maamar the Rebbe delivered when he accepted the leadership, on the verse “I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride,” he spoke about how our generation is the generation of “I have come into My garden.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is returning to His garden—this world—and it is we, in our generation, who will bring the Geulah. And the question is: What is so special about our generation? On the face of it, the opposite seems true. Our generation is at the lowest point. The Gemara already says this, in the well-known saying of our Sages: “If the earlier generations were like angels, we are like human beings; if the earlier generations were like human beings, we are like donkeys—and not like the donkey of Pinchas ben Yair.” In other words, the Gemara tells us: When we think about the earlier generations, when we look at them, we see angels—great tzaddikim, the holy Patriarchs, the leaders of the Jewish people, who were on the level of ministering angels. Compared with them, we are like human beings compared with angels. “And if the earlier generations were like human beings, we are like donkeys.” If we think of the earlier generations as the true human beings, then compared with them we are like donkeys—and not like the donkey of Pinchas ben Yair. As is well known, the Gemara tells of a remarkable donkey belonging to Pinchas ben Yair that could sense whether the grass, straw, or whatever else it was given to eat was kosher, whether the tithes had been taken, and so on. So that donkey, too, was on a certain level. We are donkeys, but not—not like the donkey of Pinchas ben Yair. If so, the question is: How can it be? How can it be

02:07 that our generation, of all generations, will bring the Geulah? What is so special about our generation, about our time? Everyone understands this; it doesn’t take much philosophy to see that our generation is at a low point. There is an expression in the Gemara that the Rebbe often quoted: “Akhshar dara”—has the generation improved? Has our generation become more worthy, more capable, more elevated? On the contrary, we know that from generation to generation things have been deteriorating, going lower, and yet—here we are saying just the opposite: this generation is the most elevated of all. We also merited to hear the Rebbe say of our time that we are now at the highest point. In the last period, in some of the final sichos we merited to hear from the Rebbe in 5752, the Rebbe said several times that we are now at the highest point, at the most elevated time. In Yiddish, the Rebbe called it “di hechste tzeit”—the highest time. Our time, specifically. And this raises the question: How is our time the most elevated time? There have been much better times—times far more beautiful than ours. If we go back in history, there was the time of the Beis Hamikdash, the time when the Temple stood, the times of the Tannaim and Amoraim—exceedingly elevated times. And even if we don’t go so far back, even one generation ago, the times were surely much more elevated, people were more refined, and those were more wonderful periods for the Jewish people. Right now, of all times, we are at a low point. And yet one of the wonderful things the Rebbe taught us is to turn our perspective around and understand that our generation, specifically, is the most profound, the most elevated generation. Our time is the highest point. What is so special about our time? That is what we will explore today. I want to share with you a farbrengen that I merited to attend with the Rebbe in years past. One of them was a farbrengen on Shabbos Parshas Korach,

04:23 which fell on Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, just as it does this year. It was a very special farbrengen, at which the Rebbe explained a very interesting point about the time we find ourselves in now, connecting it to Rosh Chodesh Tammuz. This Shabbos, we celebrate the first day of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz: 30 Sivan, the first day of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz. The Rebbe delivered a wonderful sicha about this point in time: 30 Sivan on the one hand, and the first day of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz on the other. Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, is a day that joins two months which, when we look at them, could hardly be more different from each other. And on that point we build our understanding of the extraordinary greatness and importance of our time, our generation, and the people of our generation—and how it is specifically through our work in our time that our generation will bring the Geulah. That is the special task entrusted to us. So let’s look at the time, as we said: the month of Sivan and the month of Tammuz. Sivan is an exceptionally wonderful month. Sivan is the third month. The Torah says of Sivan: “In the third month” after the Jewish people left Egypt, “on this day they came to the Sinai Desert.” What happened in the third month? The giving of the Torah. A wonderful month. The most wonderful things happened in the third month, Sivan. Then comes the fourth month, the complete opposite. What do we know about the fourth month? Even in the Torah itself, if we continue the story, what happened forty days after the giving of the Torah, on the seventeenth of Tammuz? Moshe Rabbeinu came down from the mountain with the Tablets and found the Jewish people committing the sin, the greatest transgression in history: the sin of the Golden Calf. Only forty days had passed since the giving of the Torah, and look what happened—the sin of the Golden Calf. Moshe took the Tablets and broke them. The breaking of the Tablets was the beginning of destruction,

06:45 the beginning of exile, the beginning of what later made the seventeenth of Tammuz the day on which the walls were breached, leading to the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash and the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash. It all began in the fourth month. That is also what the prophet Zechariah says: the fourth month, the fast—the fourth fast, which is the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz. So when we look at this, we see the difference, the contrast between the two months. Sivan is a month of light, a month of Torah, a month of the most historic, wonderful, and momentous Divine revelation: the giving of the Torah. Tammuz is a month of darkness, a month of destruction, a month of breaking—the complete opposite of the preceding month. There is something interesting about their numbers: the third month and the fourth month. What do “third” and “fourth” mean? If we look at the numbers as letters, they are gimmel and daled. Three is the letter gimmel; four is the letter daled. The Gemara in Shabbos, on page 104, discusses the meaning of the letters—Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer explained the meaning of the letters—and the Gemara explains that gimmel and daled stand for “gomel dalim,” giving to the poor. An act of kindness: giving to the poor. The gimmel is the giver, and the daled is the poor person. There is giving here, a giver and a recipient, giving and receiving. Gimmel is a letter of giving; that is the meaning of the letter gimmel, and it is reflected in its shape as well. After all, the letters are holy letters, the letters of the alef-beis—holy letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world. Every letter has a very deep meaning. So if we look at the shape of the letter gimmel, it is formed like a vav with a kind of extension at the bottom. There is a leg projecting outward at the bottom, symbolizing giving. There is, so to speak, a person here, if you were to draw it as though there were

09:11 Here, the vav depicts the form of the giver—the one who bestows, who gives. It is giving outward. The projection from the gimel represents the giving of the one who bestows to the recipient. The dalet means dal: it has nothing. Poor and needy, poor and destitute. And it has a point at the back. The shape of the dalet has a point at the back. That point at the back means, so to speak, that there is nothing inside. The house is empty. That is the difference between the dalet and the hei. As explained in Kabbalah, the dalet is the poor person in his poverty, before he has received what is given to him. The hei is when the poor person becomes rich: he has received it inside. So the hei has a short line on the inside. In the dalet, that short line is, so to speak, at the back. In other words, he does not have it yet; right now he only wants to receive it. In a sense, it is still behind him—it has not yet become part of him, he has not yet received it, and that is why he is poor. So gimel-dalet is about giving and receiving, giving to the poor. And that is precisely the difference between the third month and the fourth month. The third month is a month of giving, of bestowing. The fourth month is dalet, a month of poverty, a month of destitution, a month of darkness. But when we speak of giving to the poor, there is a connection between the third and fourth months. The third month bestows upon the fourth. When we have the giving of the Torah in the third month, it gives us the ability—the influence of the Torah we received in the third month—to give to the poor, to transform the fourth month so that the recipient, this month that has no light or anything special of its own, becomes something most wonderful. Transforming the poor is the deepest purpose—transforming the poor person by giving to him. And precisely through the poor person’s receiving, through the recipient’s receiving, he reaches a place

11:36 far higher, far deeper. When darkness is transformed into light, when the recipient becomes a giver, we reach something much deeper, something much more wonderful. This tells us that although we now look at the fourth month as a month of breaking, a month of destruction, it is precisely through this that we reach the deepest place. That is what happened in history, too. If we look at the fourth month and see what happened then, there was the sin of the Golden Calf—the breaking within the Jewish people, their fall and the sin of the Golden Calf. Yet it was precisely through the sin of the Golden Calf in the fourth month that the Jewish people later reached something much higher. As explained to us, as the Midrash says, it was precisely through the breaking of the first Tablets that “He would tell you the secrets of wisdom, for wisdom has two sides.” From that darkness, from that breaking, the Jewish people later came to the power of teshuvah, reached a higher place, and received the second Tablets. Later, on Yom Kippur, when Moshe Rabbeinu came down with the second Tablets, we received—as the Gemara says, or rather, the Midrash says, that precisely through the breaking of the Tablets the Jewish people received Scripture, Mishnah, halachos, aggados, an abundance of Torah. All the richness of the Torah came precisely because they went through that process. And this gives us a new perspective on the recipient: on the fourth month, the poor one, who despite being poor reaches a higher place. There is a teaching from the Maggid of Mezritch, a wonderful maamar in which the Maggid of Mezritch explains: On Shabbos, in our prayers, we say Nishmas. One of the most wonderful prayers of Shabbos is Nishmas Kol Chai. It speaks about the song of all created beings, how the whole world gives thanks, praises, and extols. Among other things, we say there, “Were our mouths as full of song as the sea,

13:59 and our tongues of joyous song as the roar of its waves, and our lips of praise as the breadth of the sky, and our eyes shining like the sun and the moon.” We say that even if we had all these wonderful things, we still could not thank, praise, and extol Hakadosh Boruch Hu enough for all the goodness and kindness He does for us. The Maggid of Mezritch asks about the words “our eyes shining like the sun and the moon.” It is a simple question: If our eyes shine like the sun, what do we need the moon for? Everyone understands that the sun’s light is much stronger. The sun has its own light; the light belongs to the sun itself. The moon only receives light from the sun. It has no light of its own; it merely reflects the sunlight. And when does it reflect it? At night, when it is dark, and it is not such a natural light. Yet what do we say? “Like the sun and the moon.” If they are already like the sun, we no longer need the moon. A simple question. The Maggid of Mezritch says: No. The sun is in the position of a rich person, and the moon is in the position of a poor person. In other words, the sun is a source of light. It has the light, as we said; it is its own, and it gives that light. The moon has no light of its own. It only receives it from the sun, and that is why, as we see, there are different times during the month. There are days when the moon is dark and empty. Then Rosh Chodesh arrives and it receives a tiny point of light; then the fifteenth arrives, and there is the whole cycle of the moon. So the Maggid says that this is exactly the point. There is a very great difference between a rich person, full of money and gold and all good things, who does not have the pleasure—the pleasure of receiving something—because he always has it, and a poor person who has nothing. Precisely when the poor person receives something, it awakens in him a most wonderful pleasure.

16:03 In the words of the Baal Shem Tov, this is called, “Constant pleasure is not pleasure.” In other words, if pleasure is constant, there is no special pleasure in it. When is there pleasure? When something is new, something out of the ordinary. So the rich person, the king who gives, is like the sun, because he is the source of abundance. On the one hand, the sun is certainly greater and stronger, but its light is constant. It is precisely the moon, which does not have light of its own but receives it—like a poor person who receives a few coins that he has worked hard for—that experiences boundless pleasure. A most wonderful pleasure. The same is true here when we say, “Our eyes shining like the sun and the moon.” On the one hand, there is the sun’s advantage: giving, bestowing, and light. On the other hand, we ask to have the moon’s advantage as well: that the pleasure should not be a constant pleasure, but that we merit the pleasure of the poor recipient who receives, in which there is tremendous, boundless pleasure. So if we apply this to our service of Hashem, this is essentially the difference between the third month and the fourth month. The third month is a month with light of its own, a month of the giving of the Torah—Torah, holiness, and light. The fourth month, Tammuz, is a month that is dark in its own right, a month that is poor in its own right. And here I also want to add that the name Tammuz, as is known, represents an idol. “Weeping for Tammuz”: Tanach tells of a form of idol worship called Tammuz, associated with the sun, with something hot. Some people believed that Tammuz bestowed blessings. There were women weeping for Tammuz. In other words, this is a matter of idol worship, and this month is called Tammuz. How can that be? But here lies the whole secret: when we succeed in transforming the darkness, when we manage to take the destitution, the poverty, the darkness, and there

18:11 To turn it into light, to bring it to the point where it can receive the light—then the delight is unlimited. That is precisely what reaches the deepest place. The same is true of Tammuz. This is the point we made: it was precisely the breaking of the Luchos, precisely the sin of the Golden Calf, that brought the Jewish people into a much deeper connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the power of teshuvah: “In the place where baalei teshuvah stand, even the completely righteous cannot stand.” The same is true of the generations as a whole. If we look across the generations, our generation, in a certain sense, is an impoverished generation, as we said. The earlier generations were generations of holy people, of angels, of pure and holy people. The generation of the Giving of the Torah, the generations of the Beis Hamikdash—those were, so to speak, in the position of a giver. Our generation is a generation of poverty. But as we said, it is precisely in poverty that one reaches the greatest delight, something much more inward, something loftier. And that is the greatest thing. The Zohar says something wonderful about prayer. The Zohar says there are several kinds of prayer. There is “A prayer of Moshe, the man of G-d,” in Psalm 91; there is “A prayer of David,” in Psalm 86; there is a prayer of Chavakuk, the prophet; and there is “A prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his plea before Hashem.” A prayer of the poor man. The Zohar says that Moshe Rabbeinu was on a very high level. His prayer was an extraordinary prayer. So were the prayers of King David and Chavakuk. But, says the Zohar, the poor man does not have all those great and wonderful qualities, and yet it is precisely his prayer that is the deepest. It reaches the highest place and awakens the greatest delight and satisfaction. That prayer is the source of all the prayers. “A prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed”—what does “when he is overwhelmed” mean? The simple meaning is that the poor man is enveloped by his hunger. The poor fellow is hungry; he has nothing.

20:33 He is enveloped by his hunger. But the Zohar says that “a prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed” means that the poor man’s prayer envelops all the prayers. It takes all the prayers and wraps itself around them, and all the prayers wait for the poor man’s prayer, because his is the one that reaches the deepest place—the loftiest place. This point is especially relevant to the generations and times we spoke about. “A prayer of the poor man”: our generation, which on the one hand is, so to speak, a poor generation, an ordinary generation, a generation already at the end of history. A person looks at the world and says: Such lowliness, such darkness—“Darkness will cover the earth, and thick clouds the nations.” In the final moments of exile, the world has reached a time when we do not need explanations. We see the darkness before our eyes. But we need to know that it is precisely this generation, precisely this state, precisely this lowliness, that connects us with what is deepest. A Jew’s prayer, his service, his mitzvah, his Torah study—precisely now, at this moment—the simple mitzvah of a simple Jew: this is what brings about the great transformation, and this is precisely what will bring the great light of the Geulah. The Baal Shem Tov speaks about “A prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his plea before Hashem.” There is a wonderful parable of his that the Rebbe spoke about often. He says there are people who want to go to the king. Everyone wants to come and meet the king. But some people are wealthy. They appreciate grand things, wonderful things; they understand luxury and splendor. When they reach the king’s palace and see the courtyard, the grounds, the entrance, and all the wonderful things on the way in, they stop there. They are already moved and do not want to go any farther. They are happy there. Only the poor man—

22:46 “A prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed.” The poor man, the simple person, is not swept away by all those wonderful things. He wants to reach the king himself. That is the message for our time, for our generation: this is the reality of “a prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed.” We are not great people. We are not talking about great tzaddikim, or holy and pure people, or geniuses, or... But today, it is precisely among simple people that we see this poor man, this simple Jew, who says: “I want to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” They seek the king himself. They are not satisfied with lesser things; they want to reach the deepest point, a deeper, more inward bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “A prayer of the poor man, when he is overwhelmed,” says the Baal Shem Tov. What is the poor man’s prayer? What envelops him? What does he ask for? What does he connect with? “He pours out his plea before Hashem.” That is his prayer. He does not ask for anything. “Don’t give me anything. I want You. I want the king himself. I want to stand before the king and pour out my plea before Hashem.” And so this simple poor man’s prayer reaches the very depths of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is precisely this that creates the deepest connection, through which all the other prayers are fulfilled. That is the remarkable new quality, the extraordinary strength, of our generation. Our generation is a generation of mesirus nefesh—our generation, our era, our time. The Frierdiker Rebbe spoke about this a great deal. He gave an example to help us understand the special strength we see in our generation, and today we see it with our own eyes. Today we do not need explanations, proofs, or evidence. We can look at what is happening. With the difficult situation that has developed in Eretz Yisroel and everything that is going on, we see simple people—precisely people who are not geniuses, not great Torah scholars, not great tzaddikim—soldiers,

24:58 Jews, ordinary people, showing astonishing mesirus nefesh. The power of emunah, the power of mesirus nefesh: they put their lives on the line for Eretz Yisroel in the most extraordinary, precious, and elevated way. The Frierdiker Rebbe spoke about this in his time, when it meant mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit under the Communists. He addressed this point: how we see that, precisely in the later generations, in our generations, there is more mesirus nefesh than in earlier generations, and that among simple people we see even more mesirus nefesh than in earlier generations. He gave the example of putting your head into hot water versus putting your foot into hot water. When a person wants to put his head into hot water, it is harder for him. It is easier to put his foot into boiling water. The reason is the foot’s special strength. The foot, the simplest part of the body, the least sensitive part, does not have all the extraordinary, elevated faculties of the brain, the mind, the eyes, and the ears. Its whole purpose is simply to walk. The moment the soul wants the foot to go into hot water, the foot obeys. It obeys the will of the soul. This is also a parable for the generations. As is known, the Jewish people are like the structure of a body. There were generations corresponding to the head, generations corresponding to the heart, generations corresponding to the hands. And there is the final generation, ikvesa deMeshicha in the language of the Gemara, the generation of the heel. On the face of it, the heel is the least sensitive part, the lowest part. It just walks—walking, simplicity. A Jew who can barely keep going and tries to observe Torah and mitzvos, to walk in Hashem’s ways, even though he does not have all the depth of comprehension and understanding, and does not have the profound feeling of love and awe of Hashem,

27:03 But he observes mitzvos with simplicity and sincerity. Precisely in the footsteps of Moshiach, they have the strength of mesirus nefesh. We can see it plainly: it is precisely the simple Jew, and precisely in the lowly time in which we find ourselves, who is stirred with the power of mesirus nefesh to devote himself to the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the deepest and most wonderful way. We see this in our generation. And of course, as we’ve discussed many times, mesirus nefesh doesn’t necessarily mean going through fire and water in the literal sense. A Jew is ready for that too, but we don’t need to reach that point. Mesirus nefesh means surrendering one’s own will. It means that a Jew is ready to give of himself, to sacrifice for another Jew, to give up things that matter to me, to give up all kinds of things to do a favor for another Jew—and to do it with all his warmth, all his love, all his passion. This simplicity is precisely where the greatest depth lies, the most wonderful thing. And that is really the point of the fourth month in relation to the third month. This is the strength of our generation, the generation of dalus, of poverty: the dalet in relation to the gimmel. And that is why the dalet, in particular, contains the depth of the Geulah. The Rebbe said something wonderful. I’ll take a few things I heard from the Rebbe at that time, at that farbrengen, which we can see in relation to the generations. In our generation, we see that Tammuz—a month that had always been a month of exile—begins, in this last generation, to show glimmers of Geulah. In connection with the Frierdiker Rebbe: as is known, the Frierdiker Rebbe was imprisoned for spreading Torah in Russia. When did the great miracle of his liberation take place? His imprisonment began in the month of Sivan, of all times. His liberation took place in Tammuz, of all times—the opposite of what we’ve been discussing. In other words, when we reach the last generation, the generation of Geulah, we begin to see that the month of Tammuz, too, already contains glimmers of Geulah. Gimmel Tammuz is

29:16 the day the Frierdiker Rebbe left prison. The imprisonment posed an actual danger to his life. In prison, at every moment, the Rebbe was in real mortal danger. That was the aim, as is known, and he managed to be released from prison. Then came 12 Tammuz, as is known. On Gimmel Tammuz he left prison, but was sent into exile in a distant city for three years. In the end, through great miracles, the decree was canceled within a week, and on 12 Tammuz, which was also his birthday, he was able to go free. That is the day celebrated as the festival of liberation. From there, after 12 Tammuz, he left Russia and eventually reached America. And that led to what we see today: the spreading of Judaism and the wellsprings, which began precisely because of that period. When did all of this begin? In the month of Tammuz. So this tells us the point: the fourth month, with its aspect of poverty, its aspect of darkness, its aspect of exile—precisely this month becomes the month from which the great light, the light of Geulah, emerges. To transform darkness into light. This strength to transform a month of darkness into light is the special strength given to our generation. It is the special strength we have specifically in our time, in our generation, in our era. And this is the wonderful thing written in the Midrash: “And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” This refers to the last generation, the generation of exile. The Rebbe Rashab spoke about it. The Frierdiker Rebbe spoke about it. The Rebbe spoke about this point often at farbrengens. “And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” Moshe Rabbeinu was humble. But what does it mean here? There is a deeper meaning: “more than any person on the face of the earth.” What does “any person on the face of the earth” mean? The explanation is that Moshe Rabbeinu saw all the generations.

31:34 After all, the Midrash says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed Moshe Rabbeinu every generation and its leaders. He saw all the generations and all the times, especially as it says at the end of the book of Devarim, “And Hashem showed him as far as the last sea.” And Rashi says, “as far as the last day.” He saw all the generations, right up to our generation. He saw everything that happens, the whole situation we are living through now, in our time, with all this darkness. He saw the entire Jewish people throughout all the generations. When he saw “the person on the face of the earth”—the very depths of lowliness, the very depths of poverty, the fourth month—he saw the reality of the last generation on the face of the earth. And he saw that despite all this darkness, Jews stand with such wonderful mesirus nefesh in their daily lives, in their service of Hashem. Moshe Rabbeinu fell on his face. Moshe Rabbeinu felt humble; he felt, who am I compared with this generation? If I were living in such a time, I don’t know whether I could withstand these challenges. This is what is written in Chassidus. And it tells us about the special strength we have in our era, in our generation, in our time. This is true specifically at this time and in this generation, and the same applies to place as well as time and the soul. When the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America—and the Rebbe as well: in these days we celebrate 28 Sivan, the day the Rebbe was saved, through great miracles, from the clutches of the Nazis, may their names be erased, and managed to reach America on 28 Sivan—a wonderful period of spreading the wellsprings began, as the Rebbe spoke about many times. America, of all places, was the darkest place in Jewish terms at that time. If we go back eighty years, ninety years, we know that America was a barren desert in terms of Jewish life. A Jew who arrived in America knew that maintaining Jewish observance there was almost impossible. And it was precisely there that the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived,

33:37 and the Rebbe arrived, and they laid the foundations, the foundations for spreading the wellsprings throughout the world. This tells us that the darkest place, the darkest situation, the darkest era—precisely that becomes a beacon, a source of light, transforming the deepest darkness into the greatest light. And that is “our eyes shine like the sun and the moon”: specifically in our time, we will merit to see the light of the Geulah. Our generation is the generation of Geulah. Every single person in this generation, living in this era, needs to know the importance, the strength, the power we have, and to make use of these last moments when “darkness covers the earth.” Precisely now, we must stand firm in observing the Torah and mitzvos, in learning Torah, in holding Torah classes everywhere, and in spreading the wellsprings of Torah and Chassidus in every place. Then we will truly merit to see this transformation: the fast of the fourth month, in Tammuz, will become a day of joy and gladness and a festival in the true and complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach. Amen, may it be His will.