35 Years Later: What the Rebbe Said Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes

00:00 Today I want to share something from a farbrengen the Rebbe held on this very Shabbos, Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei, Parshas Hachodesh, thirty-five years ago. I think the words of that farbrengen sound as though they were spoken today, for us. It is a wonderful sicha, with a wonderful explanation of the state of the world and how it connects to the time we are living in now. This Shabbos, we come to Parshas Hachodesh. We are already beginning to enter the atmosphere of the month of Nissan. We will read in the Torah, “This month shall be for you the head of the months; it shall be the first for you of the months of the year.” This is the parsha in which we prepare for Pesach, for the month of Nissan, the month of Geulah. The atmosphere of Shabbos Mevarchim for Nissan heralds the arrival of this special month, the month of Geulah. “In Nissan our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt,” the Gemara says in tractate Rosh Hashanah, “and in Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” Just as the first Geulah took place in Nissan, the final Geulah, too, will take place in Nissan. That tells us something very significant. In general, a Jew believes in the Geulah and waits and longs for it: “Every day I await his coming.” A Jew waits and longs for the Geulah every day. This is one of the foundations of faith, one of the foundations of a Jew’s life, as the Rambam writes in his work of Jewish law. But there are times of the year when that faith is awakened more powerfully, and that happens now, as we come to Parshas Hachodesh, to Shabbos Mevarchim for Nissan, and remember what our Sages tell us: In Nissan our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt, and in Nissan they are destined to be redeemed. So every Jew hopes and longs for it to happen this year, this Nissan. That is, for Moshiach to come already in the month of Adar, so that Nissan will be a Nissan of Geulah. Especially in our time, when we see with our own eyes how the world is moving forward through the extraordinary wonders and miracles of Geulah, it stirs something in every one of us. When we see what is happening to the enemies of

02:29 the Jewish people, we see the absolute victory. We see progress toward the elimination of all the hatred and evil in the world, and the beginnings of a world of rest and tranquility. Certainly, everything happening in the world today is part of the unfolding events leading toward the Geulah, as described in Tanach and in the Midrashim—those wonderful Midrashim that tell us what will happen before Moshiach comes. We pray that all of this take place with kindness and mercy. We can already see the kindness and mercy, and may we merit to see them in their fullness, so that there will be “peace in the land, and you will lie down with none to frighten you,” and so on. A moment, a time, a period like this takes us back to that farbrengen I began speaking about, thirty-five years ago. It was in 5751, during the Gulf War. That war brought a great deal of fear and tension throughout the world, particularly in Eretz Yisroel. There were many warnings and alerts, and all sorts of things were being said. As is well known, the Rebbe of Lubavitch stood firm and declared on every platform that Eretz Yisroel was the safest place in the world, and that, with Hashem’s help, it would remain peaceful and secure. No one needed to flee or travel away, and so on. Those events are well known. There were great miracles, and on Purim of that year, the war ended. On Shabbos Parshas Hachodesh, Shabbos Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei, the Rebbe held a farbrengen. It was just a few days after everyone had seen the great miracles that took place in that war. At that farbrengen, the Rebbe delivered a wonderful sicha. Later, the Rebbe also sent it out as a letter. The Rebbe’s practice each year was to send a letter in honor of Pesach. Usually there was more than one letter,

04:55 two letters; that year, there were even three letters that the Rebbe sent between Purim and Pesach. They were general letters addressed to all the sons and daughters of Israel wherever they might be—that was always the heading of the letter. A letter to the Jewish people as a whole, with a message for the festival. That year, the letter was essentially part of that Parshas Hachodesh farbrengen. It is a wonderful sicha that explains the reality of the world to us, connects it with the time of year, and teaches us the Jewish perspective: the right way for a Jew to look at and live with the things we see happening in the world, and to bring them into our service of Hashem as well, so that we know what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants from us in these days and moments. The Rebbe spoke about the fact that we are in the period between Purim and Pesach. If we think about it, we know that Pesach is the festival of the miracles and wonders that took place at the birth of the Jewish people. Pesach symbolizes the birth of the Jewish people. As the prophet Yechezkel writes in chapter 16, “the day of your birth.” In other words, the Exodus from Egypt is considered the nation’s birthday. The Jewish people were born as a nation then, and their birth was accompanied by great and extraordinary miracles. The miracles we have seen, heard about, and studied, which the Torah relates in the parshiyos about the plagues, the Exodus from Egypt, and the splitting of the sea—the entire process from the Exodus to the giving of the Torah—were accompanied by tremendous miracles and wonders. These were miracles beyond the bounds of nature, miracles that completely broke all the laws of nature. That is how the Jewish people began, and then we received the Torah. Then we continue through the history of the Jewish people, skipping several hundred years—more than a thousand years—and arrive at the time of Purim. There, too, we find miracles and wonders. But they are a different kind

07:16 of wonder, not quite like the wonders of Pesach. They are a different kind of miracle. The miracles of Purim operate together with nature. They are not miracles that break the laws of nature, as happened during the Exodus from Egypt. Those were miracles entirely beyond the bounds of nature, breaking every rule: the sea splits in two, and the Jewish people cross through. Things like that do not happen. The Purim story, as we know, is clothed in the garments of nature. Of course, when we hear Megillas Esther read in shul and take in the whole story at once, so to speak, it all seems to have happened in a single day. It is extraordinary: Achashverosh has Vashti killed, marries the Jewish Queen Esther, and then there is Mordechai; then Haman arrives and wants to kill Mordechai; then everything turns around, and instead of Mordechai being hanged, Haman is hanged on the gallows he prepared for Mordechai. Then comes “it was turned upside down,” then the battle, and everything seems to happen at once. It seems immense. But when you read the Megillah a little more carefully, you notice that the Purim story took about ten years. Ten years is a very long time. There is plenty of time to forget one part of the story before the next. In the third year of Achashverosh’s reign, he holds the feast, and then the episode with Vashti takes place. Only in the seventh year of his reign does he marry Queen Esther. The story with Haman does not happen until the twelfth year of his reign. In other words, many years pass from one stage to the next. People have time to forget. We all know what that is like. When we hear the news, the whole world is in an uproar, everyone is talking about it. But after a few days, people forget and move on. That is human nature. So suppose people did hold on to the memory and kept following the story.

09:11 That’s not quite accurate. Things unfolded through natural processes. Achashverosh was the king. The Jewish people were suffering in exile, and then suddenly this Haman arose, and the Jewish people—and so on and so forth. The whole story of the Megillah. When we put all the events together, we see: wow, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu directs everything that happens. So that is really the great difference between Pesach and Purim. Now, when you look at it very, very superficially, at first glance it seems to us: wow, Pesach is much more powerful. Ask someone, “Which miracles seem more wondrous to you?” Obviously, Pesach. Open, visible miracles and wonders. No nature, no ordinary world—everything goes against the way things normally work. What about Purim? You can explain every part of it. Mordechai happened to be there, Esther happened to be there; this worked out and that happened. Achashverosh was a drunk, he loved drinking wine, and they managed to manipulate him. He was a foolish king. You can give some explanation involving a natural process for everything that happened to us. We happened to have just such a king on our side, and so on. So no, Pesach seems like something greater. But here comes the big “but”: in truth, when you go deeper into it, it’s the opposite. Precisely the miracle of Purim expresses something deeper: the G-dly light, the miracle, the Divine influence, the infinite power of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the wonders of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, can work together with the garments of nature. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not have to break the world, to destroy reality, in order to bring His light. On the contrary: the world itself, nature itself, reality itself, works together with the Supernal Will. This expresses the depth of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s infinite control: He governs within the bounds of nature and uses the world, nature, and reality, and it

11:17 works together with the— with the— with the miracle. There is a wonderful union here between miracle and nature, a wonderful union between the world and the infinite light. And this, precisely, is the deeper meaning of preparing the world for the true and complete Geulah. The Rebbe explained that when we speak about the difference between the first redemption and the final Geulah, the first redemption, precisely because it was such a wondrous, lofty redemption, above the world and above nature, did not fully connect with the world. It broke through the world, but it did not make the world itself into a vessel, so that the world itself could receive the G-dly light—meaning that nature itself becomes united with the infinite light. And because the world was not truly a vessel for it, once the miracles and wonders had passed and ordinary life resumed, regrettably, bad things happened. We see that after all the miracles and wonders, the Jewish people fell into the sin of the Golden Calf. We just read in the weekly parshiyos about things that were not so— not so wonderful. And that is precisely why: when things happen in this way, like an explosion, something huge—boom!—and then it disappears, nothing of it remains. But when the G-dly light penetrates reality, the world, the limitations of nature, until nature itself, the world itself, cries out, “There is nothing else besides Him”—that is the purpose of the Divine revelation that will come when Moshiach arrives. The great miracle we are all waiting for, the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, will not be a redemption where there is a Divine revelation and that’s that. Rather, it will come after thousands of years of Jewish life, of Torah, of mitzvos, of—of exile, of the Jewish people working to refine creation day after day, moment after moment, deed after deed. In this way, we make the world inwardly ready for the Geulah. And that is why the miracles and wonders of Purim happen specifically in a way

13:30 that nature itself works together with the miracle. There are not two separate powers here, not two worlds; there is one reality. The world and Hakadosh Boruch Hu come together, merge, become united in the fullest and most complete way. That is what will happen in the future, with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And so the Rebbe returned to the story we see unfolding before our eyes, what happened then, thirty-five years ago. And today we can add what is happening now, in these very days, before our eyes. We are witnessing tremendous miracles and wonders—things that, just a few years ago, a short time ago, people would never have dreamed could happen. The entire war with Iran, the victory over Iran, everything going on here, every victory over the enemies of the Jewish people—how it all works out so perfectly and precisely. In earlier times, things like this would have meant a world war. Things like this could take years upon years and cost thousands and tens of thousands of lives. Yet here we are seeing extraordinary miracles and wonders, given the circumstances. We still want to see more, for things to get even better, and we do not want, G-d forbid, to see the Jewish people suffer, and so on. But if we look at what is actually happening and at the process, at how it is happening through nature itself—people might say, “Well, there’s America, and there’s what we have in Israel, and we have the most sophisticated bombs, and all the technology, and everything else.” But you would have to be foolish to think that way. In fact, that is precisely the point. The world, nature, the coincidences—how they occur in such a G-dly way. That is exactly the point here: not the breaking of nature, but how nature itself, the world and America and the countries and so on—how all these things

15:39 happen as though the strings are being pulled in just the right way, in the most profound way, so that the world and nature itself come to the aid of the Jewish people, reveal the greatness of the Jewish people, and turn darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness. That is really the inner essence of the miracles and wonders we are seeing before our eyes in our generation. And here we come to a wonderful point connected to this time, to the Shabbos we are about to celebrate. As we said, we are now coming to Shabbos Parshas Hachodesh, Shabbos Mevarchim for the month of Nissan. There is something wonderful about this Shabbos, especially with the way it falls this year. Notice: this Shabbos, as we said, is Shabbos Parshas Hachodesh. In Parshas Hachodesh we will learn about the miracles and wonders of the Exodus from Egypt: “This month shall be for you the first of the months.” And there is a wonderful Midrash. The Midrash asks: What does it mean, “This month shall be for you the first of the months,” referring to Rosh Chodesh Nissan, when we know that the world was created in Tishrei and Rosh Hashanah is in Elul—in Tishrei? So why does it suddenly say, “This month shall be for you the first of the months,” making Nissan the first of the months of the year? The Midrash says: When Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, He established the month of Tishrei as Rosh Hashanah. That was when the world was created. But when Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose Yaakov and his sons—which is what happened at the Exodus from Egypt—Hakadosh Boruch Hu established the month of Nissan as the first of the months. In other words, there is the creation of the world, which is connected with the month of Tishrei, when nature was created. But there is also Rosh Chodesh Nissan, when the miracles and wonders of the Exodus from Egypt took place. So the Midrash puts it this way: “When Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose the world because, as it were, He created it and chose it as the place where He wants to be, to reveal Himself, to bring the Shechinah

17:52 into this world. That was at the beginning of creation. So Rosh Chodesh Tishrei is Rosh Hashanah. Once He chose Yaakov and his children—and that is what happened on Pesach—“This month shall be for you the first of months.” So Nissan is the month of Geulah. And here is something remarkable about this particular year. What happens this year, when Shabbos Parshas Hachodesh falls on 25 Adar? What is 25 Adar? We look in the Gemara, in tractate Rosh Hashanah, on pages 10 and 11. The Gemara there discusses the difference between Adar and Nissan. It says that Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua disagree about exactly when the world was created. Rabbi Eliezer says: The world was created in Tishrei. That means 25 Elul was the first day of creation. “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.” “And G-d said, ‘Let there be light.’” That was on 25 Elul. Then the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th were the six days of creation. The sixth day is Rosh Hashanah, the day Adam was created. That is the Rosh Hashanah we celebrate today. That is Rabbi Eliezer’s view. Rabbi Yehoshua says the world was created in Nissan: Rosh Chodesh Nissan is the day Adam was created. According to Rabbi Yehoshua, 25 Adar was the first day of creation. “In the beginning, G-d created” happened on 25 Adar. This is a dispute in the Gemara: Did the creation of the world begin on 25 Elul or 25 Adar? So according to Rabbi Yehoshua, when did creation begin? On 25 Adar. And the Gemara there, and Tosafos, explain that to this day, there are some things we do in Tishrei and some things we do in Nissan. Because there are two views, two beginnings, two ways of thinking about precisely when creation began. This also gives rise to laws of sanctifying the new month and other laws. Do we begin the year in Tishrei or do we begin the year in Nissan? Both

20:10 are correct. We need to understand how these two views fit together. There are many explanations, but the point is that according to Rabbi Yehoshua, when exactly did the creation of the world happen? “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth” was on 25 Adar. This year, that very day falls on Shabbos Parshas Hachodesh. In other words, this year, on the day we learn about “This month shall be for you the first of months,” about the month of Geulah, we also celebrate the world’s Rosh Hashanah—which, according to Rabbi Yehoshua, is the day the world was created. Put differently, what is the connection here? The connection between the miraculous and the natural. According to Rabbi Yehoshua, on the very day that marks the renewal of creation, the creation of the world and of nature, we will also read Parshas Hachodesh, which speaks about the miraculous, about Nissan, about the month of Geulah. The two come together on the same day. What does that tell us? That the miraculous and the natural belong together. So this year, on Shabbos itself, we experience that connection between the miraculous and the natural. This is the essential point of all our service of Hashem as preparation for the Geulah. For a Jew to reach the light, to open the door—we are now on the threshold of the Geulah, and we need to prepare ourselves. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that all the light of Moshiach depends on our actions and our work during the time of exile. What we do today is prepare the ground, prepare ourselves for the coming of the Geulah. As Jews, we know that the Geulah means the union of the miraculous and the natural, the union of the world with the Infinite Light. That is precisely the connection between 25 Adar, the day of the world’s creation according to Rabbi Yehoshua, and “This month shall be for you the first of months,” the month of Geulah. They come together on the same day. That also tells us that this needs

22:22 to be a way of serving Hashem. A Jew needs to serve Hashem within both the miraculous and the natural, together. Bringing the miraculous and the natural together in everyday life. What does that mean in everyday life? It means that, on the one hand, we need to conduct ourselves within the reality of this world. We are not asked to jump off a roof, or to jump onto one. Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not demand things of us that are beyond our abilities. Everyday life takes place within nature, within reality, within creation, within the ordinary day. And at the same time, within that reality, within nature and everyday life, a Jew needs to live in a miraculous way: to go beyond his limitations, not to remain fixed, stuck, constricted, limited, and defined by the bounds of nature, by our own boundaries. We need both of these together: serving Hashem in a miraculous way within the reality of nature. That means our inner approach must be to rise above our natural limitations, above the limitations of nature. It means we need to demand of ourselves that we serve Hashem with hiddur mitzvah, in the most beautiful way possible. Going beyond our nature in everyday life means giving of ourselves even for things that are sometimes difficult for us, but without breaking the reality of the world. A Jew needs to live within reality, within nature, and serve Hashem in everyday life—even when you eat and when you sleep. But there, too, you must bring in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bring Him into everyday reality. That is the remarkable connection between a person’s nature, reality, everyday life, and, at the same time, being free of inner exile within everyday life. In simple terms, it means that sometimes we have our daily lives, our schedule, our habits. You get up in the morning, you go through your routine, and they are all

24:27 good things. But sometimes we sink into rigidity, into a kind of box where every day is the same, without any vitality, enthusiasm, or renewal. That is exactly where we need to work on ourselves. Within everyday life, without breaking the vessels—within our daily lives, in all your deeds and in all your ways. But at the same time, “know Him”: remember Hakadosh Boruch Hu in everyday life. There should be G-dly enthusiasm, a going beyond the limitations of nature even within everyday life. This connection in our daily lives is what prepares us for the connection between 25 Adar and Rosh Chodesh Nissan, between life in this world and a life of Geulah. Even within the reality of everyday life, a Jew sees Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He sees the Divine revelation. He does not let the world—olam, related to the word for concealment—hide the Divine light. On the contrary, the world itself cries out, “There is nothing besides Him.” And the reality of our world today helps us so much to live this way. When we look around and see how the world is progressing toward the Geulah, that gives each of us the strength to truly bring this message into our everyday lives. The time has come to open our eyes. The time has come to renew ourselves. Parshas Hachodesh is coming. A Jew is coming. Parshas Hachodesh. Chodesh is related to the word for renewal. This is the time for all of us to renew ourselves, open our eyes, and serve Hashem with renewed energy, new vitality, and new light. And then we will truly merit what is written: “A new light shall shine upon Zion,” and may we all soon merit its light. May the new light, the light of the Geulah, shine upon Zion, upon Jerusalem, and upon the whole world. May we merit, already this Nissan—when we are destined to be redeemed—the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.