Weekly Dvar Torah: The Light Hidden Inside the Darkness
This Shabbos, the 18th of Av, falls between two remarkable dates on the Jewish calendar.
Just a few days ago we celebrated Chamisha Asar B’Av, one of the greatest Yomim Tovim of the year. In just a few days we will mark Chof Av, the yahrzeit of the saintly Harav Levi Yitzchok Schneerson, the father of the Rebbe.
At first glance, these two occasions seem to have little in common.
One celebrates the brilliance of the full moon. The other recalls the passing of a man whose life was filled with suffering, persecution, imprisonment, and exile.
Yet perhaps they are teaching us exactly the same lesson.
The Mishnah tells us that there were no greater festivals for the Jewish people than the Fifteenth of Av.
But why?
Every month has a fifteenth day. Every month the moon reaches its fullness. What makes the moon of Av so unique?
Chassidus explains that its greatness lies not merely in its fullness, but in what came before it.
Only a few days earlier on Tisha B’Av, we mourned the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, centuries of exile, and the pain of a nation that has wandered through history.
Precisely from that deepest darkness emerges the brightest moon.
The message is profound.
The greatest revelation does not come despite the darkness.
It comes because of the darkness.
Just as the moon disappears only to return in its fullest glory, so too with the Jewish people. Exile is not the end of the story. Hidden within it is a far greater revelation that will ultimately emerge with the coming of Moshiach. Already on the Fifteenth of Av we are given a glimpse of that future, a foretaste of the ultimate redemption that follows the deepest concealment.
This same perspective characterized the life of Reb Levi Yitzchok Schneerson.
On the surface, his life appeared tragic.
He stood fearlessly against the Communist regime. He refused to compromise on Halachah. He was arrested, imprisoned, exiled to Kazakhstan, and ultimately passed away far from home under the harshest conditions.
Yet if one studies his writings from exile, one discovers something astonishing.
He did not view his suffering as random misfortune.
Everything had meaning.
The five years of imprisonment.
The five places through which he was moved.
The day on which he was sentenced.
Even his own names, Levi and Yitzchok.
Through the inner teachings of Torah, he uncovered a Divine pattern running through every detail of his ordeal. What others saw as darkness, he saw as Gevurah—a hidden expression of Hashem’s powerful Providence. Nothing happened by accident. Every event, no matter how painful, was another revelation of Hashem’s guiding hand.
Most people ask, “Why did this happen?”
Reb Levi Yitzchok asked a different question.
“What is Hashem revealing through this?”
That is an entirely different way of living.
The Fifteenth of Av teaches us that after darkness comes light.
Reb Levi Yitzchok taught something even deeper.
The light is already there.
The darkness merely conceals it.
Perhaps that is why he never lost hope, never abandoned his learning, and never stopped writing Torah, even when his wife had to gather grasses to produce ink so that he could continue recording his Chassidic and Kabbalistic insights on the margins of the few Seforim he possessed.
He was already living the message of the Fifteenth of Av.
This also helps us understand the greatness of the son whom Reb Levi Yitzchok raised.
The Rebbe inherited far more than his father’s scholarship and saintliness. He inherited his father’s vision.
The Rebbe looked at the world through the same eyes. Where others saw darkness, he saw hidden light. Where others saw assimilation, he saw a Jewish soul waiting to be awakened. Where others saw the most remote corner of the globe, he saw another place where the Divine Presence was waiting to be revealed.
Then the Rebbe challenged us to adopt that same perspective. Thousands of Shluchim, and countless Chassidim, learned to search for the hidden spark in every Jew, the hidden purpose in every technology, and the hidden holiness in every corner of the world.
In a very real sense, the message of Chamisha Asar B’Av did not remain an idea. Through Reb Levi Yitzchok and his son the Rebbe, it became a way of life.
We all experience periods when life seems dark.
Sometimes we cannot understand what Hashem wants from us. Sometimes the concealment appears overwhelming.
Perhaps that is the deeper connection between Chamisha Asar B’Av and Chof Av.
Chamisha Asar B’Av teaches us that after the deepest darkness comes the brightest light.
Reb Levi Yitzchok lived that truth.
His son, the Rebbe, taught us to reveal that truth—in ourselves, in every Jew, and in every corner of the world.
Our task is not merely to wait for the light to appear. Our task is to uncover the light that is already there, hidden beneath the darkness.
And through that work, may we very soon merit the day when the hidden light will no longer remain hidden, when the darkness of exile itself will be transformed into the eternal light of the Geulah with the coming of Moshiach.
Have a revealing and Liberating Shabbos,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
