Weekly Dvar Torah: Moshe and the Seventh Generation

When G-d sent Moshe to Pharaoh, He said: “בֹּא אֶל פַּרְעֹה” = come to Pharaoh. Why doesn’t it say לֶךְ אֶל פַּרְעֹה = go to Pharaoh? The answer is that Moshe was afraid to go to Pharaoh who represented the antithesis of G-d and G-dliness, he was the super Klipa, the lowest of the low. And Moshe was afraid to engage; who knows if the impure negative forces of Pharaoh would not overpower him.

Moshe is Chochma of Atzilus, the loftiest and most G-dliest place in creation, and all he can relate to is pure G-dliness. Moshe can’t see himself lowering himself to the level of Pharaoh, and succeed. There is absolutely no connection between them, they are two extremes that can never come together unless one of them succumbs and disappears. And who knows who will succumb. G-dliness is Holiness, and the Klipa of Pharaoh is pure impurity.

That’s why G-d said to Moshe; come to pharaoh, come with Me. I am going with you, and I, the infinite who is not bound or limited by either the highest highs or the lowest lows, am not affected by the world and its divisions and limitations. I am able to bring you and Pharaoh together, and I will make sure that you succeed in overpowering Pharaoh because I am able to.

This was massively revolutionary. Until then it was clear that Holiness and impurity could not mix. But from now on, G-d tells Moshe, yes, ‘you’ can, and you will win.

What changed? Moshe is the seventh, and the seventh generation brings the Shechinah, the essence of G-d, down from the lowest heaven to the physical earth.

For six generations since Avraham, they kept lowering G-d from one heaven to the heaven below, but it still remained in heaven, so we could not take the G-dliness and work with it down below, because Shechinah was not there yet. But now once Moshe came around, it is no longer in heaven. It had come down below onto this earth where we are, and we can now go with G-d to purify and refine the world.

Yud Shvat marks that we are in the seventh generation.

The Rebbe in his first Maamar, said on the 10th of Shvat 5711 (1951), explains that we are the seventh generation from the Alter Rebbe, and this chain runs parallel to the seven generations from Avraham to Moshe. Just as Moshe was the one who drew down G-d to the world below in Egypt, and was able to bring about the exodus from exile, so too, this seventh generation, will succeed to draw G-d into the world, and will bring about the redemption from exile through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.

And the Rebbe lays out the plan in this Maamar. This is not just a nice thought, rather this all has strategy and meaning. We are going to bring G-d down here into this physical earth.

How? By proclaiming G-d as being part of the world, not just as the G-d of the world, who is lofty and removed. We are going to go to the four corners of the world and proclaim the existence of G-d. If until now when you wanted to connect to G-d you had to disengage from the world and all materialism, because G-d is G-dly and spiritual, and the world is materialistic and coarse. We will show that the world is also part of G-d, and inseparable from G-d. We will introduce the infinity of G-d which is not affected neither by spirituality nor by coarse materiality, but is superior to both, and can fuse both together.

Why are we able to do this now, and why could this not have been done before? Because the time had not yet come. The Shechinah was still up in the heavens, so we could not draw G-d down with our limited finite powers into this physical world. But now we are in the seventh generation, and for the seventh generation the Shechinah comes down to this earth. All we have to do is take the power of the Shechinah and run with it. We now have G-dly powers at our fingertips.

This explains why the whole concept of Shlichus was fully initiated by the seventh Rebbe and not before. An honest review of history will show how just in America it was almost impossible to be a practicing Jew. This was not because of persecution or torture. America was simply called the Treifene Medina (the Treif country), because materialism could not co-exist with G-d.

The seventh generation is able to take the luxuries of materialism and harness them to help serve G-d and spread G-dliness all over, even in the most un-G-dly places. America has become the center and the headquarters to do the same all over the world. Because we have been empowered by having G-d with us and near us, the most infinite and unlimited force present in the world.

Now that we have introduced G-d, the world has become ready and able to welcome Moshiach, whose purpose is to reveal G-d to the physical flesh and in the clearest way. We learned how to understand and appreciate G-d. Moshiach has who to come for.

The Rebbe showed us how to live as a precursor for Moshiach.

Have a Shabbos of commitment to G-dliness,
Gut Shabbos, and a successful Yud Shvat

Rabbi Yosef Katzman