Cheshvan - Why This Month in Particular Is Suited for Building the Beis Hamikdash

00:00 Forty years ago, I had the privilege of hearing a farbrengen of the Rebbe on 7 Marcheshvan 5746. As we all know, 7 Marcheshvan is the day when, in the Holy Land, in Eretz Yisroel, we begin saying “Vesein tal umatar livrachah.” We begin asking and praying for rain. As the Gemara says, and as is brought in halachah, they would wait until 7 Marcheshvan so that the last of the Jews who had gone up to Jerusalem for the festival could return home. Those who lived the farthest away, near the Euphrates River, needed time to get home. Until then, they would not ask for rain, so that the travelers would not suffer from it. They waited for them, and only then, on 7 Cheshvan, began asking for rain for the new year. So on that very day, 7 Cheshvan, forty years ago in 5746, the Rebbe held a farbrengen. It was a wonderful farbrengen, and I want to share a few points from it that I think are especially important for us today. One point concerns 7 Marcheshvan. What is its message? What is the lesson? On the face of it, this is a day with halachic significance for the wording of the prayers: in Eretz Yisroel, we begin asking for rain today, saying “Vesein tal umatar livrachah.” Outside Eretz Yisroel, we are still waiting. There, it is sixty days after the tekufah, a different time. But this day has a message—a truly wonderful spiritual message. It also speaks to the time we are in now, at the beginning of the year. We have passed through the month of Tishrei and have already begun Cheshvan. Today, 7 Cheshvan, is the day the last traveler reaches home. So in a sense, this is when ordinary life, everyday life, really begins. Halachah also brings an interesting point about the laws of documents. There are laws concerning money, documents, and transactions. Halachah says that when a person writes a document, it needs a date. That is one of the requirements for a document: it must be dated.

02:33 So if a person wrote “after the festival,” how is “after the festival” defined? As 7 Cheshvan. In other words, 7 Cheshvan is considered the end of the festival period. It is the point of transition from the days of the festival to ordinary days. And this connects very strongly with the weekly parsha, Parshas Lech Lecha. The Rebbe went on to give a wonderful explanation, a wonderful lesson that is especially relevant to us at this time, in these days, and we will discuss it now. We will speak about 7 Cheshvan and the transition from Tishrei to Cheshvan, and how this is expressed in the weekly parsha—with a very, very special message for the days we are living through now, especially on the eve of the Geulah, the true and complete Geulah in the days of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, which we all await and long for. In that farbrengen, the Rebbe gave us special guidance on this, all drawn from the weekly parsha. Let us begin with the first point. What special lesson do we learn from 7 Cheshvan? It is something wonderful, yet simple. Think about it: in earlier times, a Jew had a field. That was the main source of livelihood. Nearly everyone had fields, and that was how people made a living. So after Tishrei, surely each person prayed, hoped, looked forward to, and wanted a year of rain. They prayed for rain to fall. On Simchas Torah, on Shemini Atzeres, a Jew begins praying for rain, because winter is beginning. And of course, for people with fields, every rainfall is a blessing. They look forward to rain, yearn for rain. They want this to be a rainy year. They already prayed for it in the Yom Kippur prayers, and so on. So much so that when the Kohen Gadol stood before the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur and said his brief prayer, what

04:57 was included in that brief prayer of the Kohen Gadol? He asked that the year be rainy, and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu not listen to travelers who ask for it not to rain. That is how important rain is to the Jewish people, and all the more so in Eretz Yisroel. And here we see something remarkable. One day passes, then another and another—two weeks since Simchas Torah—and yet the entire Jewish people hold back. They do not ask for rain. The rainy season has already arrived, but we still do not ask for it. We wait until 7 Cheshvan. Why? What are we waiting for? I am already home. I got back long ago. My field is ready, and still I do not pray for rain. Why? Because there is a Jew who is still out there on the road. He has not reached home. He lives far away, in Babylonia, near the Euphrates River. He is on his way back from Jerusalem, and he has a long journey on foot. He still has to reach home. So the entire Jewish people refrain from asking for rain. For whose sake? For that one Jew who is still on the road, who would have trouble getting home and would suffer in the rain. How much Ahavas Yisroel is contained in this halachah? How much Ahavas Yisroel, how much Jewish unity? And this brings us to the time after Simchas Torah. Tishrei is a month of Ahavas Yisroel, a month of unity. Why? Simply because throughout Tishrei we spend much of our time together in shul—in prayer on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on Sukkos, at celebrations, dancing on Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah. It is a time of unity. “Your parting is hard for Me,” says the Midrash in connection with Simchas Torah. Until and including Simchas Torah, throughout Tishrei, a Jew is in a state of togetherness. The Jewish people are companions; the festival is a time of extraordinary unity. After the festival, each

07:02 person goes home, each to his own vine and his own fig tree, each to his work, his business, his life. And then the separation begins. Precisely here comes the wonderful message of Ahavas Yisroel: a Jew feels for another Jew. Even though we so greatly need, ask for, and want rain, I am willing to wait. We all wait wholeheartedly and gladly until 7 Cheshvan, so that everyone can reach home in comfort and peace. Only then do we begin to pray and ask for rain. How much Ahavas Yisroel, how much unity, is contained in the message of this day, 7 Cheshvan! In the cycle of weekly parshiyos, we are now at Parshas Lech Lecha. Usually, 7 Cheshvan falls during the week when we read Parshas Lech Lecha. And here the message is clear: the words “Lech lecha”—“Go forth”—contain it all. This was the time to set out. Lech lecha. A Jew goes. During Tishrei, we were all in one place. We were in shul, immersed in holiness, in joy, in the festival. Now: lech lecha. The time has come to go out into the world, to conquer the world, “to the land that I will show you.” A Jew has to make the world into the Holy Land. There is the famous saying of the Tzemach Tzedek: wherever a Jew goes, he must make that place into Eretz Yisroel—turn the world into a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, into a holy place, and bring holiness into the world. “And Yaakov went on his way.” The Chabad Rebbeim had a custom of proclaiming “And Yaakov went on his way” after Simchas Torah. It is time to go. Where are we going? We are going to Eretz Yisroel. Wherever in the world we go, we go there to turn it into Eretz Yisroel, to make the land of Canaan into the Holy Land. That is what Avraham Avinu, the first Jew, does in the weekly parsha. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu first addresses Avraham Avinu, what is His first command to the first Jew? What does He tell him before anything else? Lech lecha. Leave the place

09:19 what you’re used to. Leave your father’s house, leave your birthplace, leave everything. “From your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” Do what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. Go to the place Hashem has chosen, and there you receive all of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wonderful blessings. Then the parsha continues, and we see that when Avraham Avinu arrives in Eretz Yisroel, he builds an altar. At the beginning of the parsha, we encounter three altars that Avraham Avinu builds. First, it says that Avraham Avinu arrived in Eretz Yisroel: “He built an altar there to Hashem, Who had appeared to him.” He builds an altar. Rashi tells us why he built it: because Hakadosh Boruch Hu had promised him extraordinary blessings—the news that he would have descendants and the news that Eretz Yisroel would be his. After receiving those wonderful promises from Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“I will make you a great nation,” “to the land that I will show you”—both the promise of descendants and the promise of Eretz Yisroel, Avraham Avinu builds an altar to thank Hashem for the wonderful blessings he received, for this great kindness. Then the parsha continues, and again it says, “He built an altar there to Hashem.” This was at Ai. What was the story behind that altar? Rashi tells us that he saw through ruach hakodesh that a sin would take place there. At Ai, there was the incident of the theft. We learn in the book of Yehoshua about Achan, from the tribe of Yehudah, who stole from what they had captured in Yericho. The Tanach tells the whole story: there was a punishment, and Jews fell in battle. So here Avraham Avinu built a kind of altar of teshuvah, an altar of atonement, to ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive and atone for the sin. Then, later in the parsha, after the whole incident with Sarah in Pharaoh’s house in Egypt, Avraham Avinu returns to Eretz Yisroel, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu blesses him

11:49 and tells him, “Arise, walk through the land, its length and its breadth, for I will give it to you.” Avraham Avinu then settles in Chevron: “He pitched his tents as far as Chevron and built an altar there to Hashem.” Now, interestingly, Rashi says nothing. Rashi doesn’t explain the purpose of this third altar. Apparently, Rashi doesn’t need to explain it; it’s clear from the verses themselves. After all, they tell us that Hakadosh Boruch Hu said something extraordinary to him. Earlier, when Hashem had only promised him the land in words, he had already built an altar. Now Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “Walk through the land, its length and its breadth, for I will give it to you.” Especially according to many commentators, Avraham thereby made a kinyan—meaning that right then, he formally acquired Eretz Yisroel. So this was certainly a blessing that called for another altar, especially since Avraham Avinu settled permanently in Chevron and began living in Eretz Yisroel there. He built an altar, and Rashi doesn’t need to explain why. Nevertheless, the verse says, “He built an altar there.” That implies there’s something about Chevron that led Avraham Avinu to build the altar specifically there. And indeed, the Midrash says something about this, though Rashi doesn’t bring it. As we said, Rashi explains the straightforward meaning of the verse, and on that level, apparently no further explanation is needed. But the Midrash asks: Why was the altar built specifically in Chevron? “He built an altar there in Chevron.” Once again, Avraham Avinu had ruach hakodesh. He saw that all the tribes of Israel would gather in Chevron and crown David king. We’ll see in the second book of Shmuel that the Tanach recounts how, after the whole story with King Shaul, and all seven years that David was in Chevron, and all the difficulties between Shaul’s family and David’s family, at long

13:50 last the time came for the entire House of Israel, all the tribes of Israel, to gather in Chevron and crown David king. They made a covenant with him, and the reign of the House of David began. That reign began then and continued from generation to generation: “The scepter shall not depart from Yehudah until Shiloh comes”—Melech HaMoshiach, who descends from the House of David. Avraham Avinu sees all this and builds the altar. So that’s the remarkable story in the weekly parsha. What message is there in Avraham Avinu’s altars? Our Sages say, “The deeds of the fathers are a sign for their children.” Everything the Patriarchs did is a sign for their descendants. We can see that in the story itself. The first altar was for the promise of descendants and the promise of Eretz Yisroel. The second altar represents the power of teshuvah: Hakadosh Boruch Hu will forgive and atone for sins. The third altar, as we said, represents the reign of the House of David. But there’s a very deep and important message here for a Jew’s service of Hashem, especially in our days, when we are so very close to the complete Geulah. It tells us this: First, when we speak about an altar, we understand that it’s connected with the Beis Hamikdash. After all, the altar is central to the Beis Hamikdash. In Hilchos Beis Habechirah, the Rambam writes that the mitzvah to build a house for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Beis Habechirah—“They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them”—is the mitzvah to build the Beis Hamikdash as a place where offerings can be brought. Bringing offerings is a Jew’s service of drawing close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Chassidus explains that the entire subject of the offerings represents a Jew drawing close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A Jew draws close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and brings not only himself but also the animal—beginning with his animal soul—close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “When a person among you brings an offering to Hashem”: “among you” means from within yourselves,

15:56 from our own personal animal. We bring our animal as an offering, and then we take everything in the world, everything a person comes into contact with, and make it all an offering—korban, from the word meaning “to draw close.” We bring the world close and make it a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The service of the offerings is the work of every Jew, and within it there are three altars. There is the service of the offerings connected with the promise of descendants and the promise of Eretz Yisroel—the blessings Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us. Offerings bring blessing. The Gemara says that the offerings nourish and bring down abundance. By bringing an offering, a Jew brings abundance into the world. He brings blessing into the world; he brings bounty. So there is the service of the offerings that brings abundance into the world. Today, too, when we don’t have the Beis Hamikdash, a Jew prays. Prayer takes the place of offerings, and through prayer a Jew brings abundance into the world. The blessings in the prayers ask for healing, livelihood, and all the abundance a Jew brings about through his prayer. That is the first altar. Then there is teshuvah. Every day in prayer, a Jew says, “Bring us back, our Father.” We pray, asking, “Bring us back,” “Forgive us.” A Jew asks for teshuvah; that service of teshuvah is the offerings of the second altar. But there is a third altar. What is its central point? The reign of the House of David, in Chevron. The point of the reign of the House of David is that a Jew knows the entire purpose of his service of Hashem is to reach the reign of the House of David, to bring the Geulah. Avraham Avinu stands at the beginning of the Jewish people’s history. The first Jew has only just appeared. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells him, “Lech lecha.” The first Jew begins his service by building an altar. So in addition to building an altar for all the blessings Hashem bestows on us, and building an altar to give every generation the power of teshuvah, he also builds

18:12 The altar at which he sees the kingdom of the House of David. A Jew needs to know that all his actions, words, and thoughts must be focused on the goal of bringing the days of Moshiach, bringing the Geulah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Teshuvah—the famous teaching of the Rambam that the Rebbe always loved to repeat and asked us to publicize as a foundation of our lives: “A person should always see himself as equally balanced, and the whole world as equally balanced.” The Rambam gives the image of a scale. You see the scale: it has two sides. A Jew must always see himself as having two sides, the good side and the other side, and they are balanced. The world is balanced; the person is balanced, like a scale. If one thing adds weight to one side, that is what tips the scale in that direction. The same is true in a Jew’s service of Hashem. One action, one word, one thought—that is what tips the scale and brings salvation and deliverance to the entire world. That is the message a Jew needs to live with in everyday life. When Avraham Avinu built the third altar, what did he see? He saw the kingdom of the House of David. He saw that “David, King of Israel, lives and endures.” He saw David’s kingdom, which is the kingdom of Moshiach. When a Jew gets up in the morning and says Modeh Ani Lefanecha, washes his hands, and says the morning blessings, he needs to focus all his service of Hashem from the very first moment of the day. Every thought, every word, and every action is meant to bring the Geulah closer, to bring the Geulah. How am I, through this particular action, bringing it about? We need to know that all of our daily lives are for one purpose alone: “May our eyes behold Your return to Tziyon in mercy.” At that farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about this, asked that it be publicized, pleaded for it. It was something extraordinary. The Rebbe then said something interesting. He related that he had received a

20:33 letter from a woman who wrote that she was full of fear. The poor woman had received a letter from someone frightening her, telling her he was sending her a message and that she had to pass it on to ten people, and if she did not, G-d forbid, and so on. It was a harsh letter, and she was terrified. What should she do? Of course, the Rebbe said—and the Rebbe related all this at the farbrengen—“I told her there was no reason to get worked up. It was nonsense, foolishness. Throw the letter in the trash and move on.” Then the Rebbe said: “But as a Jew who has learned from the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov that whatever a Jew sees or hears must provide a lesson in serving Hashem, I said to myself: Why did this story reach me? What is its message for me? Why did I need to hear about such a thing?” Then the Rebbe said: “A wonderful idea occurred to me. Apparently, this can be used in a positive, good, healthy way: the power to share positive messages with another ten people.” The Rebbe then spoke about two messages. It is very interesting. He repeated two teachings from the works of great Torah scholars concerning the point we are discussing now: a Jew needs to be filled with hope, faith, and trust, to ask and pray for the Geulah, and to anticipate at every moment that we will finally merit the complete Geulah. So the Rebbe cited two sources. The first was from the Chida’s Sefer Midbar Kedemos. The Chida was one of the great Torah scholars, one of the sages of Jerusalem—Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, a very well-known halachic authority. He also traveled widely, to Italy and elsewhere. The Chida wrote many books. So in Midbar Kedemos—this will be—he writes about the subject of hoping. He cites a Midrash. The Midrash says that in the merit of hoping, the Jewish people will be redeemed from exile. In other words, in the merit of the hope with which the Jewish people wait, long, and pray, the Midrash says we will merit the complete Geulah. The Chida says that in light of

22:52 this, we can understand something difficult in the wording of the prayers we say every day. Every day, in the Amidah, in Shemoneh Esrei, we say: “May You speedily cause the scion of David Your servant to flourish.” A Jew prays Shemoneh Esrei three times a day, and we ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to bring Moshiach: “May You speedily cause the scion of David Your servant to flourish, and raise his glory through Your salvation, for we have hoped for Your salvation all day long.” The question is: what does “for we have hoped for Your salvation all day long” mean? Bring Moshiach because the exile has been long, because we have had enough, because it is time. But “for, for, for we have hoped for Your salvation all day long”? What kind of reason is that? Because we hope, therefore what? Do we deserve it or not? If we deserve it, he will come; if we do not, he will not. Have we done teshuvah or not? What does “for we have hoped for Your salvation” mean? What kind of reason is that? According to this Midrash, says the Chida, it is understood: we say to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, we have no merits, but we do have one merit, and one alone—the merit of hope. “For we have hoped for Your salvation all day long.” Because a Jew spends the whole day waiting, longing, and hoping for the Geulah, that itself is the reason to “speedily cause the scion of David to flourish.” That is the reason for the Geulah. That is the first source. The second is even more forceful, from one of the earlier great Torah scholars, before the Chida. The Radak, Rabbi David Kimchi, was one of the great commentators on Scripture, even before Rashi’s time, about a thousand years ago. The Radak writes at the end of II Shmuel, where the book describes a plague in the days of King David, rachmana litzlan. There the Radak cites a Midrash. The Midrash says, in Midrash Tehillim, chapter 17—Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai asks: How could there have been a plague in King David’s time, with so many people falling? The Midrash answers: because they did not ask for the building of the Beis

25:00 Hamikdash. They should have asked for the Beis Hamikdash to be built already, and they did not hurry to ask for it. The Radak says: Think about it. If back then, in King David’s time, when there had not yet been a Beis Hamikdash, this happened, rachmana litzlan, because they did not ask for it, then we, the Jewish people, who had the Beis Hamikdash and saw it destroyed, and who are now in exile, in sorrow and darkness, certainly must pray and ask and wait and long. And it is specifically in the merit of that asking and longing that the Geulah will come. Therefore, the Radak concludes, in all our prayers we ask, and ask again: “May our eyes behold Your return to Tziyon in mercy.” With that, the Rebbe concluded and asked every person to make an effort to share this message with at least ten other people—ten people. Just consider: back then, forty years ago, it was not like today, when you can send a message and it reaches hundreds or thousands. There was no internet yet, none of these things. A person wrote a letter; it was all in writing. You had to write a letter and send it through the mail. So the Rebbe said: “I am not asking for more. Just ten people. Send ten letters to ten people with these messages. Simply copy what is written, without threats, without pressure, without warnings. Just copy the words of the great Torah scholars, to awaken anticipation, to awaken hope, to awaken a thirst for the Geulah.” Because this is really what we learn from the weekly parsha, from Avraham Avinu. Avraham builds an altar because he sees that the Jewish people will unite around one point: crowning King David. And that unity is vitally important now as well. Chevron—specifically in Chevron. Chevron is related to the word for connection: to unite in the merit of the patriarchs who are in Chevron. The unity of the Jewish people, the connection among the Jewish

27:12 people, the connection for the purpose of crowning King David: “They will seek Hashem their G-d and David their king.” That is the request, that is the prayer, and that is what we are meant to bring about now, especially as we begin the new period of the year. And it is known that the Midrash says that the month of Cheshvan is especially suited for the building of the Beis Hamikdash, and that the dedication of the third Beis Hamikdash will take place then. The Midrash says—may we merit, this year, this month, this very day in Cheshvan, the complete Geulah, Moshiach Tzidkeinu, and the building of the Beis Hamikdash: “May our eyes behold Your return to Tziyon in mercy.”