Yud Shevat Farbrengen

L’chaim, l’chaim!

Before we begin the farbrengen, I urge you to pause for a moment and take a small l’chaim if you’re old enough. Or a bissel grape juice if you’re not. But before I continue, let’s sing a niggun together. If you know Shamil’s niggun or the Benoni niggun, sing one of them. If not, hum Hu Elokeinu or Tzama Lecha Nafshi, niggunim the Rebbe taught us, pathways that bind a chassid to a Rebbe and a generation to its soul. Now that you’ve had your l’chaim, let me tell you a story.

Every year on Simchas Torah, the Rebbe would teach a new niggun. One year, while my father was growing up, he fell asleep after the seudah on Leil Simchas Torah before his father left for Hakafot at around 1:30 a.m. But they had an agreement that when his father returned, he would whisper in his ear the niggun the Rebbe had taught that night.

Later that morning, my grandfather came home and hummed the now-famous Hu Elokeinu niggun, the niggun that the Rebbe had taught just hours earlier. Some melodies are not learned; they are transmitted.

On the tenth of Shevat, 1950, Shabbos Parashas Beshalach, the Frierdiker Rebbe distributed a twenty-chapter maamar entitled Basi Legani, in honor of the yahrzeit of his grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, wife of the Rebbe Maharash.

The very next day, Shabbos morning, the Frierdiker Rebbe returned his soul to his Maker. On the surface, the future of Chabad leadership appeared uncertain. But only on the surface. The Rebbe’s shidduch to Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka had been contingent upon succession. Many Chassidim, including my great-grandfather, had already turned to the Rebbe during that year for guidance and berachos. Though others entertained alternate possibilities, the inner current was already flowing.

For this reason, I’ve always felt that the Rebbe’s nesiyus did not truly begin on Yud Shevat 5711, at the inaugural farbrengen upstairs at 770. It began the moment the Frierdiker Rebbe passed away. Why?

Because the Rebbe’s leadership was bookended not by proclamation, but by silence. He showed us something radical: How to lead a generation while remaining a devoted Chassid of the previous Rebbe.

When pressured to formally accept leadership, the Rebbe responded again and again: “I don’t understand the need for another Rebbe. The Frierdiker Rebbe is my Rebbe, and he continues to lead me.”

Now, before continuing, let us take another small l’chaim.

In his first maamar of Basi Legani in 5711, the Rebbe laid down a mandate, not for himself, but for a generation. The task of drawing the Shechinah back down to this world, to its original dwelling place, was notthe work of one Rebbe. It was the work of Dor HaShevi’i.

The Rebbe opens by quoting a Midrash in Shir HaShirim: “I have come to My garden, My sister, My bride.” Originally, the Shechinah resided on earth. The sin of Adam and Chava pushed it to the first heaven. Kayin’s sin pushed it to the second. And so on until the seventh.

Avraham drew it from the seventh to the sixth.

Yitzchak to the fifth.

Yaakov to the fourth.

Until Moshe, the seventh generation, drew it back to earth.

Chazal say: Kol HaShevi’in Chavivin, all sevenths are beloved.

After the Yud Shevat farbrengen of 5711, word reached the Brisker Rav that the Rebbe had said a maamardeclaring the generation Dor HaShevi’i and invoking Kol HaShevi’in Chavivin. The Brisker Rav reportedly commented: “The young Rebbe thinks he’s the Moshiach.”

I wasn’t there. I don’t know the tone. But taken at face value, it sounds like an accusation of self-aggrandizement. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What is Moshiach, really? Moshiach is not a fairy-tale monarch or a Disney hero. Moshe Rabbeinu is called a king, Vayehi B’Yeshurun Melech, yet he was the humblest man who ever lived.

The Jews in Mitzrayim had fallen to the 49th level of impurity. Redemption required dismantling an entire civilization they had helped build: language, culture, and identity, and rebuilding it for Torah and mitzvos. That process did not end with Yetzias Mitzrayim.

The key to the final redemption is reaching the Shaar Hanun, the fiftieth gate, a level that Moshe himself could not fully articulate. That’s why his question, “Lamah harei’osa l’am hazeh?” remains unanswered for a full week. The fiftieth gate is ineffable. It cannot be explained. Only embodied.

Moshe tried to refuse leadership. He cited his speech impediment. The resistance of Pharaoh. The skepticism of the people. And yet, once entrusted with the mission, his love for the Jewish people was unflinching. So too Esther HaMalka’s. When Mordechai questioned the fast coinciding with Pesach, Esther replied: “There is no Pesach without a Jewish people—Ka’asher avadeti, avadeti (If I perish, I perish).” Leadership that risks everything for Klal Yisrael.

The Rebbe explained that the virtue of being seventh is not earned. It is assigned. No merit. No credit. Just responsibility. And that is precisely what humility looks like.

The word Moshiach can be read as M’siach: speech, growth, even discarded field-growth. The Torah tells us to build a sukkah from the pesoles goren v’yakev: the refuse. Moshiach emerges not from grandeur, but from humility, from unconditional love, from seeing the irreplaceable worth of every Jew.

If we are still here, it means one of two things: that we are not humble enough or we have not loved enough. It’s time we did both.

L’chaim, l’chaim.

May we merit the final geulah b’rachamim very soon.

Mamash now. 

The author can be reached at [email protected].