Weekly Dvar Torah: Those Wonderful Golus Days
The Rebbe Rashab once said; when Moshiach will come we will yearn for the Golus days (Hayom Yom 3 Menachem Av).
This is a very perplexing statement. How can we understand this?
We have been in this bitter Golus for close to 2000 years. We have suffered and have been persecuted physically and spiritually. We were chased from country to country. We were deprived of our basic livelihood. They even took our possessions. We were killed and maimed. And they tried to prevent us from living as Jews.
On a spiritual level we suffered from all the decrees that were made against Jews. The Romans forbade us from keeping Shabbos and circumcising our children. The Inquisition burned us at the Auto-da-Fe when caught at a Seder table. The communists shot us or sent us to die in Siberia for teaching our children Torah. The Nazis couldn’t even fathom that there will remain the existence of even one Jew. And finally, when we got some freedom we were so bogged down to earn a dollar, that we felt the need to assimilate. So, what is there in this bitter and long Golus to yearn for?
When Moshiach will come, we are told that we will be freed from all the persecution, nobody will rule over us and control our lives. We will study Torah freely. We will keep Mitzvos undisturbed. All our needs will be at our fingertips. We will be totally free.
On a spiritual level we will have such revelations of G-d and G-dliness, that we will have no other desires, but to occupy ourselves with the knowledge of G-d. We will have no distractions to prevent us from studying Torah and serving hashem. So how is it that there can be even a remote possibility that we will look back at the bitter Golus and find any value in it, to the point of yearning for the Golus days?
The Rebbe gives a most fascinating explanation.
When Moshiach will come, there will be the revelation of the Essence of G-d. We will see G-d Himself and His truth, we will see everything in its fullness.
True, at that time we will have the ultimate revelation of G-d. But we will also see and understand how we got there. And this is due to our work during the bitter Golus days.
When we do a Mitzvah we draw some aspect of G-d’s supernal light. For example, when we lay Tefillin, we draw from the supernal intellect and we connect to the G-dly attributes, by putting Tefillin on our head next to our mind, and on our arm next to our heart. When we light Shabbos candles, we connect with G-d’s place of peace and serenity, and we have an elevation to the wholesomeness of creation.
These are very limited and focused levels of connection to G-d, and they draw a very specific revelation of G-dliness according to the mitzvah that we perform at any given time.
When we do a Mitzvah under duress, and we have to give it our all. It requires us to have Mesiras Nefesh (self-sacrifice) to keep it, because of the difficulties that we are experiencing, or because some cruel government is preventing us from doing it. We rise high to overpower all challenges and difficulties. Then, when we do a Mitzvah, regardless of its specific role in drawing a limited G-dly revelation, we connect with the essence of G-d Himself. This is because we showed that we disregarded all formalities and external matters, and we do this for G-d and G-d only. Therefore, we benefit by connecting to G-d Himself who is above all forms and limitations.
The limitation here is, that all of these lofty G-dly revelations, remain hidden. We are still in Golus, and in Golus, G-d and G-dliness is concealed. It is there, but it remains hidden.
However, when Moshiach will come, we will have everything in the open. Everything will be revealed. Not only will we have a G-dlier life, but we will be able to look back and see clearly what we accomplished by keeping Torah and Mitzvos under the most difficult circumstances. We will see then, the great revelations we have earned by our actions in Golus. We will see how we connected to G-d Himself in those terrible dark days.
Once you know how this all happened, you will yearn for those days, realizing how much more you may have accomplished if you had applied yourself more. Because when Moshiach will come we will enjoy the fruits of our labor for the 2000 years in exile. Then we will no longer be able to accomplish new connections as we did in Golus. This is what we will long for.
With such an understanding, while we mourn the Golus and the concealment of G-dliness, we also get a tremendous boost and impetus, to utilize the last few moments of Golus, to do as much as we can to connect with the concealed essence of G-d even more, in preparation the glorious revelations that will come about as a result of our work now, here in Golus.
What a redeeming feeling!
Have a G-dly liberating Shabbos,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
