A response to a chassid who had asked that the Rebbe accept leadership of the chassidic movement; an explanation of the statement of the Zohar III, p. 145b, that an unmarried priest is forbidden to perform any service in the Beis HaMikdash

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Instructions concerning beginning shlichus in North Africa; the importance of the quality of eagerness

No. 577

The text of this letter was sent to various individuals, personally addressed to each one.

B"H, Adar 26, 5710

Greetings and blessings,

In one of his letters,[316] my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, hk"m, writes: "Chassidus brought about [a situation in which] one is not alone." If that applied when "the tzaddik was living on this earth...in a physical place,"[317] certainly it applies to a much greater degree at present when "he is found" — even in this world of deed — "more than in his lifetime."[317] How much more so does this apply with regard to a tzaddik who is also a Rebbe who is "an intermediary who binds" between G-d and [the Jewish people]![318]

[The name used for G-d,] Havayah, is not related to [the limitations of] nature, Heaven forbid. The intermediary possesses dimensions of both the entities between which he mediates. With regard to his chassidim and those bound to him at present, as previously — for a connection [with a Rebbe is] one of yechidah which is above the concept of time — the motif of bonding is even stronger now. For [the chassidim] tell their souls and their bodies that we have no other alternative[319] at all. And then there will be no interruption [in that bond], Heaven forbid. On the contrary, "the spirit will draw down the spirit."[317] [This will be manifest in spiritual matters and in material matters, in all forms of good. For just as Above, so too below, i.e., with regard to a Rebbe: the nature (i.e., a tendency above nature) of the good is to do good.[320]

M. Schneerson

   

Notes:

316. (Back to text) [Cited in HaYom Yom, entry 22 Iyar,andin Sefer HaSichos 5700, p. 111; see also Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe Rayatz, Vol. XIII, p. 273.]

317. (Back to text) [The Rebbe is employing the wording used by the Alter Rebbe, in Tanya, Iggeres HaKodesh, Epistle 27, which consoles the chassidim after the passing of R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk.]

318. (Back to text) [The Rebbe is referring to Devarim 5:5 where Moshe says that he "stands between G-d and you." Similarly, every Rebbe is "a Moshe in microcosm," enabling his followers to develop a bond with G-d.]

319. (Back to text) [To bonding with the Rebbe.]

320. (Back to text) [See the notes of the Rebbe to Maamarei Admur HaEmtzo'ei Kuntreisim, p. 5, and the sources mentioned there.]

A response to a chassid who had asked that the Rebbe accept leadership of the chassidic movement; an explanation of the statement of the Zohar III, p. 145b, that an unmarried priest is forbidden to perform any service in the Beis HaMikdash

Table of contents

Search this book:

Instructions concerning beginning shlichus in North Africa; the importance of the quality of eagerness