Weekly Dvar Torah: The Painful Cry of The Rebbe

31 years ago, today, 28th of Nissan 5751 (1991), we heard one of the most painful cries from the Rebbe:

“Even when demanding “Ad Mosai (until when [do we have to still be in Galus])” it is done because [you were] instructed, if you had the proper intent, and you demanded and cried with [your full] truth, for sure Moshiach would have already come!

“What else can I do to get everybody to cry out and demand with [their whole] truth to bring Moshiach in reality, since everything that was done until now accomplished nothing, and the proof is that we are still in Galus, and most importantly – [we are] in an internal Galus in the service of Hashem.

“The only one thing that I can [still] do, is to hand over [this mission] to you: Do all that you can … to bring Moshiach [down] in reality, speedily, now, in reality.”

And the Rebbe concluded:

“I have done all that I can, from hereon [it is up to you to] do all that you can….

“Most importantly, you should accomplish to bring about the full true Geula (redemption) in reality.”

This is one of those moments that all those who heard this in real time, can tell you exactly what they did, and where they were, when this event occurred.

We were shaken to the core, and we were left confused and helpless.

31 years later, and we are still struggling.

Is confusion really in order?

Did the Rebbe really say that after all his good work and amazing success to revive Yiddishkeit, and reawakening the desire and the yearning for Moshiach, the Rebbe didn’t succeed, and therefore the Rebbe is G-d forbid giving up on his own efforts and is giving it over to us tiny Lilliputians, and we will succeed?

A sober review of the Rebbe’s words can revive us and give us some clarity.

The Rebbe is talking about the idea of demanding Moshiach, that it must be with the whole truth.

The question begs; what is wrong if we demand Moshiach because we were told to do so, don’t we do everything because Hashem told us to, isn’t this the proper way to follow what Hashem asks us to do?

For this we need to backtrack 40 years, to the day that the Rebbe accepted the leadership of Chabad to become the Lubavitcher Rebbe, during the Farbrengen of Yud Shvat (11th of Shvat), 5711 (1951).

  1. The Rebbe declared the seventh generation as the generation whose purpose is to bring G-dliness down to earth in reality, by bringing about the revelation of Moshiach.
  2. The Rebbe also laid down his mission statement for the seventh generation, he declared the three loves; 1) Love of Hashem 2) Love of Torah 3) Love of every Jew, as three loves dependent on, and intertwined with each other, you can’t love Hashem without loving the Torah and every Jew, and vice versa.
  3. The Rebbe added one caveat, don’t think that you picked yourself a new Rebbe and now you can all go back to sleep and the Rebbe will do all the work for you, we are Chabad, and in Chabad a Chosid must do the work on his own, the Rebbe will assist in every which way to help you and guide you, but the actual work has to be done by you and it must come from you.

Successfully the Rebbe drilled into our minds and our hearts the love for every Jew, and we went out of our comfort zone, to reach out and to find every Jew and bring them closer to Hashem and His Torah, and we did this because we learned to love every Jew unconditionally, because every Jew is really our brother.

There is no need to elaborate on the obvious, only the latest events in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine and Russia, demonstrated the self-sacrifice of young Shluchim, many of whom never even met the Rebbe, to give precedent to other Jewish physical and spiritual lives, ahead of their own.

There could be no better illustration of the Rebbes success on points 1. And 2., and if you didn’t know about this on your own, just read any newspaper or any other media outlet anywhere in the world.

However, on point 3., there was room for progress, the Rebbe wants “Chabad” Chasidim, the Rebbe wants that everything we do should permeate not only our actions, but also our entire being.

To do all these wonderful things just because this what Hashem wants, is wonderful, but for this Hashem didn’t need to create us mortals, he has plenty of angels who have no other desires but to do what Hashem wants, we were placed in this world because we have minds of our own, and we have desires of our own, but we learn Chassidus, and this Chassidus penetrates our minds to change it that our understanding of reality should be the same as G-d’s.

Then our minds have to affect our hearts, so that also our desires should be that of Hashem’s wants, and then our actions are driven by all our faculties so that our entire body from head to toe, is all about what Hashem wants.

The Rebbe wants us to want Moshiach not just because life will be better then, or not even because the Rebbe told us to want Moshiach, the Rebbe is expecting us that after 40 years of teaching us all about Moshiach, and teaching us Chassidus, and giving us a taste of the G-dly revelations that Moshiach will bring about, we too should have a desire for those revelations from within our minds and hearts, and this should drive our actions to cry for Moshiach and do everything possible to hasten his arrival.

That’s why the follow-up to this cry was the instruction to get involved in learning all about Moshiach, because as the Rebbe explained, by learning about Moshiach, our minds will be consumed by Moshiach, and this will create this yearning for Moshiach in our hearts to change our entire behavior to be all about working to bring Moshiach down to reality.

I dare conclude by saying that perhaps at the time the Rebbe complained to those present that we failed him (as I’ve heard many of today’s generation complain that we ruined it for them), but the youngsters are not failing the Rebbe, a brief review of how the youth took to celebrating the Rebbe’s 120th birthday, a Rebbe that (supposedly) they never met, demonstrates that they are not failing the Rebbe, they yearn for Moshiach with their entire being and with their whole truth.

The only thing left is this heartfelt cry: Rebbe, Ad Mossai!!!!

This time it’s for real, the youth are making up for all our past failures, you have a serious crowd waiting truthfully and anxiously to see you, how much longer must we wait? The time is NOW!

Have a Moshiachdike Shabbos,
Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Yosef Katzman