Tomorrow, the tenth day of the month of Shevat on the Jewish calendar, marks seventy years since the Rebbe’s accepted the mantle of Chabad's leadership (one year after the passing of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the Rebbe’s predecessor and father-in-law).
The relatively small Chabad community, most of whom had narrowly escaped the Holocaust’s carnage, gathered in Brooklyn to hear their forty-eight year old Rebbe lay out his vision for the future.
Here's a snapshot of what the Rebbe told them:
We yearn and strive for connection with an Infinite G-d, an unfathomable Divine Reality. At the same time, we live in a world that seems shallow, unreasonable and replete with moral challenges.
This is the reality G-d has given to us, by design.
When - in any given decision - we make a virtuous choice, it has cosmic impact. Even it concerns an issue that seems relatively trivial, it matters to G-d and the universe. When we rise above our own egocentric impulses, transcend the bombardment of external distractions, and do the right thing, G-d's essential presence is drawn into our reality.
But life is not just about virtuous individual decisions. It is when we commit ourselves to a purposeful life, and make a super-rational commitment to Higher Living, that we fulfill our core purpose in life. When we work toward being the person who G-d created us to be, to finding a deep-seated relationship with the Divine, we bring G-d’s Essence into our lives.
Chassidic thought teaches us that a big-picture, super-rational commitment to Higher Living, tempers our occasional tendency toward irrational behavior, i.e. our counter-productive habits. When we get our weaker side in check, we’re poised to make virtuous individual decisions that draw in G-d’s presence.
That’s the prize of our entire reality. All of spirituality, the angels and metaphysical cosmos, are simply players in our daily struggle to live a purposeful life in this otherwise-shallow world.
This has been the challenge of history: Drawing Divine Essence into our human experience. Now, said the Rebbe, we’re finally at the peak of history’s mountain. We’re at the cusp of the Messianic era and we need to bring Moshiach.
It can sound grandiose to think that we’ll accomplish a goal that has eluded previous generations. But we’re standing on giants’ shoulders. Our strength lies in completing what they’ve begun, and what they have granted us the opportunity to achieve.
The Rebbe passed away in 1994, yet his voice still speaks to us.
He’s still telling us: The mission can’t wait.