The Great Revolution of the Rebbe of Lubavitch Continues | Gimmel Tammuz

00:00 What makes a Chabad chossid stand on street corners, at booths, in all kinds of places, and say to a Jew, “Come put on tefillin”? What drives a chossid at the airport, on a plane, wherever he goes, to look for a Jew, ask whether he has put on tefillin, and share a word of Torah with him? Why do young couples leave their families and their natural, warm family and community surroundings, travel to faraway places at the ends of the earth, and live there not just for a short time, but for many good years, until the coming of Moshiach? What makes a chossid want to find another Jew and set up a Torah class with him: “Let’s learn a chapter of Tanya, let’s learn a sicha of the Rebbe, let’s learn a maamar of Chassidus”? And no, he is not trying to turn that person into a Chabad chossid. He is not trying to make him part of his community, and he makes that clear to him: “All I want is to learn Chassidus with you.” What is really the secret behind all this activity, this phenomenon we have been witnessing for decades, year after year? That is what we will try to shed light on today: to gain at least a glimpse of the secret of Chabad chassidim, the secret the Rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, taught us, which gives a chossid the strength, the energy, and the drive to do all these things—and to do them with such tremendous joy and such extraordinary enthusiasm. Today we will look at several points from talks and sichos we heard from the Rebbe at some profoundly historic moments. They will help us understand the foundation, the depth, the root of the answer to these questions. We will discuss the first farbrengen, known as the farbrengen at which the Rebbe accepted the leadership, and something the Rebbe said there that is really the foundation of everything we will discuss today,

02:47 and we will go on to discuss another wonderful sicha connected with this, which the Rebbe delivered at another historic moment: on his seventieth birthday, 11 Nissan 5732, the day he turned seventy. We will discuss that as well, and also come to sichos that I was privileged to hear as a young man, when I was privileged to be a student close to the Rebbe, at 770. I was privileged to attend many farbrengens there, and I heard, absorbed, and received this message from the Rebbe. It is the message that drives the chossid, the message that ignites him and draws him into this special work. Let us begin with the first farbrengen. On Yud Shvat 5711, one year had passed since the passing of the Frierdiker Rebbe. On Yud Shvat 5710, the Frierdiker Rebbe, the sixth Chabad Rebbe, passed away. For a year, despite all the chassidim’s pleas that he accept the leadership, the Rebbe would not hear of it. Then, on Yud Shvat 5711, at the farbrengen marking the yahrzeit, the Rebbe delivered the maamar of Chassidus beginning “Basi Legani, Achosi Kallah”—“I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride.” It became a historic maamar, a foundational maamar that every Chabad chossid lives with. In that maamar, and in the sicha that followed it, the Rebbe made a fundamental point that is truly the lifeblood of a chossid’s life. The Rebbe spoke about the mission of our generation. He explained that our generation is the seventh generation of the Chabad Rebbes. The Alter Rebbe was the first Rebbe, the founder of Chabad Chassidus; ours is the seventh generation. And the Rebbe explained that there were likewise seven generations at the beginning of the history of the Jewish people: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon—excuse me: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Levi, Kehos, Amram, and Moshe. Moshe was the seventh from Avraham Avinu. As the Midrash says, each generation, each tzaddik, brought the Shechinah down from one heaven to the next and then the next, until Moshe Rabbeinu, the seventh. “All sevenths are cherished,” as it says

05:33 in the Midrash. He brought the Shechinah down here to earth at Mount Sinai, at the Giving of the Torah, and afterward, in a more complete way, with the establishment of the Mishkan. “I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride”: as the Midrash says, on the day the Mishkan was established, Moshe Rabbeinu, who was the seventh generation, completed the process of bringing the Shechinah down here into this world. So the Rebbe said that the same applies to Chassidus—Chabad Chassidus, revealed by the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe revealed Chassidus, which is really the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. The Alter Rebbe brought it into Chabad—chochmah, binah, and daas—with wonderful, understandable explanations, so that every Jew could come close to the great light of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings. So there have been seven generations of Chabad Chassidus revealing Chassidus, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov. And we know that the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings are the teachings with which we will go to greet Moshiach Tzidkeinu. For we know that the Baal Shem Tov received the message, “When your wellsprings spread outward”: through spreading the wellsprings of his teachings, we will merit the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Now we are the seventh generation, the Rebbe says in the maamar. So our task is to bring the Shechinah down to the place we are all waiting for it to reach: the lowest place, this physical world. The revelation of the Shechinah here is, in fact, bringing Moshiach. And there the Rebbe says that when we speak of the seventh generation, of Moshe Rabbeinu, one might think we mean the tzaddik, the leader, the Rebbe, the holy man of the generation. But the Rebbe says no: this is actually the task of every single person in the generation. We are all partners in this work. That is one of the things the Rebbe made very clear in that maamar: he did not mean only a select few. In the words of the maamar, it is not a task placed only on special people in the generation, but on each

07:42 and every one of us. Every Jew can say, “When will my deeds reach the deeds of my forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov?” as it says in the Midrash. The Rebbe cited that Midrash to make the same point here. Every person in the generation is part of the seventh generation and has the task of bringing the Shechinah down, of revealing Moshiach here in this world, through each person’s own work. What is that work? The Rebbe explained that the task is to go out into the world and illuminate it. He cited the teaching of our Sages about Avraham Avinu, the first Jew. After all, the seventh is connected to the first, and Avraham Avinu was the first. What was the task of the first Jew? “And there he called in the name of Hashem, G-d of the world.” The Gemara says: Do not read it as “he called,” but as “he caused others to call.” Avraham Avinu got others to call out; he proclaimed and spread awareness of G-dliness and faith in Hashem to everyone in the world. That is exactly our task. Do not read it as “he called,” but as “he caused others to call.” Do not be content with your own learning, your own davening, your own personal service of Hashem. Instead, get others to call out. Go out into the world, to places where there is no Yiddishkeit, where there are no Jews—or there are Jews, but they have no connection to Yiddishkeit. Find a Jew wherever he is; teach him the alef-beis, teach him Yiddishkeit, teach him Torah, and teach him to perform a mitzvah. When every Jew carries out this task, we will bring the great light of the complete Geulah. This is the task of all of us. In the sicha following that maamar, the Rebbe developed this point further in a truly wonderful way. The Rebbe said: “Every one of us is a partner.” He gave the example of Moshe Rabbeinu. When Moshe Rabbeinu came to build the Mishkan, it says that he asked all the Jewish people—men and women, everyone—to contribute to the Mishkan.

09:50 “They shall take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart moves him, you shall take My offering.” The Mishkan was built by the entire Jewish people together. Why was that? Moshe Rabbeinu could have built the whole Mishkan without anyone else’s participation. Our Sages say that Moshe Rabbeinu was wealthy—extremely wealthy. He could have obtained the silver, the gold, the copper, and the precious stones. Everything needed to build the Mishkan, Moshe Rabbeinu could have obtained on his own. But no. Moshe Rabbeinu wanted partners. He wanted the entire Jewish people to have the merit of taking part. Not because he needed them, but because of the great love of a shepherd of the Jewish people, a leader of the Jewish people. He wants partners. He wants the entire Jewish people, all his students, to have that merit and to share in this wonderful undertaking. The Rebbe went on to tell how the same thing happened with the previous Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe. At a certain point during World War II, the Frierdiker Rebbe called in several prominent chassidim and told them that he wanted to begin writing a Torah scroll with which we would go out to greet Moshiach Tzidkeinu. He said, “I could write this Torah scroll on my own—that is, I could pay all the expenses myself, and it would be something private. But I don’t want it to be something personal. I want all the chassidim, and every Jew, to take part in writing it.” Each person would participate by sponsoring a letter or in some other way, and with that we would begin writing the Torah scroll of Moshiach. It took many years. Only after the Frierdiker Rebbe’s passing, twenty years after his passing, in 5730,

11:51 on Yud Shvat, the twentieth yahrzeit, did the Rebbe complete the writing of the Torah scroll. Then there was a hachnasas Sefer Torah for what is called the Torah scroll of Moshiach—the Torah scroll with which we will go out to greet Moshiach Tzidkeinu. There was tremendous excitement. The Rebbe then spoke and asked: Why did the Frierdiker Rebbe need everyone to be a partner in this? He could have paid all the expenses of the Torah scroll himself. But just like Moshe Rabbeinu, that is what a true leader is, a shepherd of the Jewish people, a faithful shepherd. He doesn’t think only of himself; he wants partners. He wants every single person to have the merit of being part of it. The Rebbe concluded by saying that the same applies to the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu. The great tzaddikim in every generation could gather together and, through their righteousness, bring Moshiach. The great tzaddikim have the power to bring Moshiach’s coming closer and hasten it. “But I want,” the Rebbe said, “every Jew to be a partner. I want all of us to take part.” Every single person needs to work on themselves, on their animal soul—to work, refine themselves, prepare themselves, and, as we said, go out, break through, reach one more Jew and another, and make sure that no Jew, G-d forbid, remains empty of Torah and mitzvos. To bring Torah and mitzvos, and the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, throughout the world. Through the work of all of us, we are all partners; we will bring the Geulah. This was the first message the Rebbe gave us. And throughout all the years of his leadership, the Rebbe continued to encourage and strengthen the chassidim in this direction: I want partners in this work. Think about it—there is something extraordinary here. When we think about bringing Moshiach, it is something so wonderful, so

13:55 lofty, so uplifting, so exalted, so awe-inspiring. Who can bring Moshiach? We know about tzaddikim throughout the generations; we know stories from the history of the Jewish people. There were great tzaddikim, towering figures of our people, who did everything they could to bring Moshiach. We’re talking about exceptional people. And here the Rebbe comes and says: No, this time I want it to be everyone’s task. We are all partners in this great undertaking. The extraordinary thing is that the Rebbe made us—each and every one of us—partners. Every Jew, however simple; every Jew, whoever they are and whatever they are. Not just a great scholar, not just a great tzaddik, but each and every person of this generation. We all share the burden, as people say in today’s language. We are all part of this mission, this wonderful mission. We have both the privilege and the obligation to be partners in bringing the Geulah and to make sure that we merit to see the revelation of King Moshiach in this physical world. In 5732, on 11 Nissan, as we said, at the great farbrengen marking the Rebbe’s seventieth birthday, there was tremendous excitement. Chassidim came from all over the world, and there was great enthusiasm. The Rebbe held a farbrengen and, among other things, delivered wonderful sichos. But one of the points was this one. He elaborated and explained in depth what this partnership really means. The Rebbe gave an explanation—I’ll at least try to explain the point briefly—but it is a wonderful, profound point that gives us a general understanding of the purpose of creation. The Rebbe began with a very simple question. We all understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, our Father in Heaven, loves each and every one of us. He loves His children. If an ordinary father loves his children, surely Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves His people far more. As the Baal Shem Tov said, the love of Hakadosh

16:08 Boruch Hu for every Jew, even the simplest of the simple, is incomparably—infinitely—greater than the love of an elderly father for an only son born to him in his old age. Imagine an elderly father, someone who had no children for years and years. Parents who waited so many years. At last, a baby is born to them. How much love do they give that only child? The love of Hakadosh Boruch Hu for each and every one of us is infinitely greater than the love that elderly father has for the son born to him in his old age. If so, a very simple question arises: If Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves us so much, why does He make life so hard? Why does He demand so much work and effort from us in serving Hashem? Why doesn’t He make things easier? Why do we find that learning and davening involve a struggle with the yetzer hara, challenges and difficulties, and don’t come easily? What is the reason for that? It should have been much easier. Hakadosh Boruch Hu could have given us everything without asking so much of us—without all the demands, conditions, action, activity, effort, energy, struggles, and challenges. So what is the explanation? One well-known explanation, cited in the name of the Zohar, is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us to receive the great, wonderful reward without it being “bread of shame.” The Zohar calls it “nahama d’chisufa”—bread of shame. Imagine a person who doesn’t work and isn’t allowed to work. They tell him: Sit at home, do nothing, and every month we’ll bring you a salary of thousands of dollars. You’ll have everything. Just don’t work; don’t do anything. A person might enjoy that once or twice, but truly, a normal, healthy person would feel ashamed. “Bread of shame”

18:12 That is bread of shame. Bread I didn’t work for isn’t worth the same. A person would rather have, as the Gemara says in Bava Metzia, in the chapter Hamafkid, “A person prefers one kav of his own to nine kavs belonging to someone else.” A person prefers a small profit, a single kav—kav is a unit of measure—a little fruit that he himself worked hard for, rather than receiving ten times, nine times as much from someone else as a gift. And since that’s so, the same applies to spiritual work. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, precisely because He loves us, knows that we don’t want gifts. When we’ve worked hard for something and earned it, we value it in an entirely different way, and then the reward is the reward for our own work. Very good. That is the answer given in many sefarim, but the Rebbe did not accept that answer. Listen to the interesting question the Rebbe asked about it. The Rebbe asked a very simple question: This principle that a person doesn’t like gifts, that a person likes to work hard and prefers one kav of his own to nine kavs belonging to someone else—that principle is part of the nature of creation, because that is how Hakadosh Boruch Hu created man. But why did Hashem make our nature that way? After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created nature, He created man, and He created the mind. So why did He create man in such a way that a person feels uncomfortable with things he receives as gifts and specifically wants to work hard for them? That’s why Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us tests, so that we have to work hard. He could have created man with a different nature, so that a person would enjoy receiving gifts without effort. Then He could also

20:08 give us the great reward Hashem wants to give us without any special effort. And here the Rebbe came with this wonderful message: partnership. The Gemara in Shabbos 119 says that one becomes a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of creation. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, wants to give a Jew the wonderful privilege of being a partner in the work of creation. We don’t just work for Hakadosh Boruch Hu as His servants; we are actually His partners. Partners in the work of creation. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world from nothing into something. He created the world—and, as the Baal Shem Tov teaches us, He actually creates it at every moment—and we, the Jewish people, are partners in that work. When a Jew fulfills a mitzvah, when a Jew works hard to fulfill a mitzvah, he feels like Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s partner in this wonderful work. Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world from nothing into something, and the Jew makes something into nothing. Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes the physical out of the spiritual; the Jew makes the spiritual out of the physical, making the physical a vessel for the spiritual. That is the task of each and every one of us in this generation. We are partners with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in this great work of making the world a dwelling place for Him. We are all partners in it. And then the Rebbe came out and said: Some people tell him, “Now that you’re seventy, perhaps it’s time to stop. Perhaps it’s time to rest, to take a vacation. That’s enough.” The Rebbe had brought about revolutions in those years. The Rebbe said: “No, we’re only beginning now. The work must grow more and more. I want partners with me to open more institutions.” The Rebbe then asked for seventy-one new institutions to be opened, and more institutions and more centers of Torah and Yiddishkeit everywhere in the world. How wonderful! In 5726, I came to the Rebbe as a young bochur and had the privilege of studying for several years close to the Rebbe. I had the privilege of attending many farbrengens and hearing the Rebbe’s holy sichos in those years,

22:29 5726, 5727, 5728, 5729, 5730, and so on. There were sichos and farbrengens in those years, and wonderful sichos that I was privileged to hear from the Rebbe at that time still stand before my eyes. Among the things the Rebbe spoke about then were wonderful sichos meant to awaken, encourage, and strengthen us, and to say: Chassidim, we all need to go out on shlichus. Every person in our generation has a role as a partner in this wonderful work of bringing the world to a state of Geulah. “You are all shluchim!” the Rebbe cried out. I remember a farbrengen where the Rebbe said: Every person in this generation, all of us, are shluchim of the leader of our generation, the nasi hador, to go out into the street and reach another Jew and another Jew, to bring the world to a state of Geulah. The task of each and every one of us today is to be a partner in this great work, preparing the world to greet Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And we do that by each making his own place, his own area, his home, his surroundings, the place where he goes, into a place of Torah, a place of light, a place of holiness. In 5727—I remember the winter of 5727—farbrengen after farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about these points with tremendous passion. “We are all partners in bringing the Geulah!” the Rebbe cried out. It is no longer a matter for one person alone. It is not a matter just for the tzaddik of the generation, for the Rebbe. It is a matter for every person in the generation. The Rebbe spoke then about the well-known ruling of the Rambam, who tells us in Hilchos Teshuvah that the entire world is balanced like a scale. One deed, one word, one thought can tip the world toward merit and bring salvation and deliverance. Every deed, word, and thought moves the world toward the Geulah. That is the task of every one of us in this generation. One deed, one word, and one thought. After all,

24:46 this teaching of the Rambam is something everyone should publicize at any gathering of Jews. Share it, tell people, say: “Listen, Jews, there is a Rambam, an explicit halachah, teaching us that the world is waiting for one deed of yours. The world is waiting for one word of yours, one thought of Torah and mitzvos, to turn the world into a world of light, a world of Geulah.” We are all partners in this work. That is the secret. That is the point: this partnership. Look at the wonderful thing the Rebbe teaches us. With the Rebbe, everything has a source in halachah; it all begins with halachah. The Rambam. The Rambam says it is halachah, and if it is halachah, it concerns every single Jew. The Rebbe said something interesting about this. Listen: The Rambam is divided into sections of halachos, fourteen books covering all the subjects. There is Sefer Kinyan, the Book of Acquisition, which contains all the laws connected with acquisition. It includes a section called Hilchos Shluchin VeShutafin, the laws of agents and partners. The Rambam joins the laws of agency with the laws of partnership. These are two subjects in halachah. There are laws about agents: a person can send an agent to perform all kinds of acts, mitzvos, and other tasks on his behalf. Those are the laws of agency, of acquisitions and other matters. Partnership is a different subject—the laws governing all kinds of partnerships people form. The laws of agency and the laws of partnership: the Rambam puts them together, Shluchin VeShutafin. The Rebbe said: The Rambam is conveying a message to us with this. Every Jew is a shliach of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “A person’s agent is like himself,” as the Gemara says. Every Jew is a shliach of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; he is a shliach of the nasi hador, the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation, who says, “I stand between Hashem and you to tell you the word of Hashem.” And at the same time, we are partners. It is shlichus together with partnership. We are all partners in the work of creation, partners in illuminating the world and making the world

26:54 a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that is what drives us, the force that pushes and motivates each and every one of us. If we grasp this message—each one of us, each one of you—you need to know that you have this special task. You are a partner in the work of creation. We are all partners, we are all shluchim, and we are all partners in this great work: preparing ourselves and preparing the world for the light of the Geulah. If we take these words to heart and begin the work, or continue the work, or continue it with greater enthusiasm, knowing that we are all part of this great undertaking, then we will merit, very soon, to see the completion of this task: how the whole world will shine and be transformed. Eretz Yisroel is destined to spread throughout all lands, so that its holiness will reach every place. The Rebbe spoke about this in his final sichos. Everyone knows one of the last sichos we heard from the Rebbe, in that final year, when the Rebbe said: “I am giving this over to each and every one of you. Do everything you can to bring the Geulah.” The task each of us has is to be part of this wonderful partnership, to make this world a world of Geulah, to prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And may it be Hashem’s will that we truly merit to see the complete Geulah today. Amen, may it be so.