Moshiach and Geulah

Proceeding Together — Volume 2
Talks by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
After the Passing of the Previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
on Yud Shvat 5710 [1950]


The Gemara asks: "What is meant by [King David's request in] the verse, 'May I abide in Your tent forever' (lit., 'for worlds')? After all, can a man live in two worlds?!"

The Gemara answers its own question as follows: "Whenever a teaching is cited in this world that was handed down from a certain talmid chacham, his lips murmur in the grave." As Tosafos explains, "While his soul is in the heavenly yeshivah, his lips flutter in the grave as if they were speaking; in this way he lives in two worlds at the same time."

Whether heavenly or earthly, a yeshivah can be so called only when it comprises a rosh yeshivah and students. Students alone do not constitute a yeshivah unless they have a rosh yeshivah who delivers a shiur, whose content they review -- repeatedly, if necessary -- until it is assimilated intellectually.

Understood in this way, the term yeshivah describes both an earthly yeshivah, in which one studies things related to this world, and the heavenly yeshivah, in which one studies heavenly things. Both kinds of yeshivah exist both before and after histalkus. The difference between them lies only along a scale of obscurity and manifestation. Before the histalkus, the presence of the Rebbe [Rayatz] was manifest in the earthly yeshivah and obscure in the heavenly yeshivah; after the histalkus, his presence is manifest in the heavenly yeshivah and obscure in the earthly yeshivah. In principle, though -- inasmuch as now too he is present here, in the earthly yeshivah -- nothing has changed.

Since a state of evil does not come forth from the mouth of G-d, and since there cannot be a state of good unless we are together with the Rebbe, it is certain that he is with us as beforehand. The difference is only one of manifestation and obscurity. Beforehand his presence with us was manifest, and needed no proof; now his presence with us is obscure, and that is why we have to cite evidence from the Gemara -- that it is indeed possible for a man to "live in two worlds." This requires a study of his teachings; as was quoted above, "Whenever a teaching is cited in this world that was handed down from a certain talmid chacham, his lips murmur in the grave." At the same time, however, the fact that his presence with us is obscure and compels us to bring evidence to affirm it, does not weaken the principle of the matter at all.

To illustrate this, my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz], cited a parable.

A certain individual once asked the Rebbe's father, the Rebbe Rashab: How could he talk about angels and other spiritual matters? How could anyone know that such-and-such is indeed the case? After all, no one has come back from the other world and reported just what an angel looks like..., and so forth.

The Rebbe Rashab replied with a parable.

A few sages are seated in a horse-drawn wagon, talking about angels. The horse thinks that they are traveling for the sake of the fodder that is awaiting him at their destination. The wagondriver is making the trip for the sake of the fare that will enable him (a more elevated thought) to support his family. Now, because the horse is thinking about horse-food and the wagondriver is thinking about wagon-fare, does that mean that the sages' talk about angels isn't real?!

So, too, with our subject. Since our cognitive capacity, however subtle, is quite material, our ignorance of elevated matters makes no difference whatever to their truth.


http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/pr ... 02.htm#t33

On the last time, during his life in this world, that the Rebbe [Rayatz] celebrated his Festival of Liberation [12-13 Tammuz], he had to make the point that matters of holiness are eternal. Moreover, in order that his meaning should be unmistakable, he went on to speak specifically of long life, true life that is uninterrupted -- so that we should not think according to what is seen, G-d forbid, by fleshly eyes (for such a situation does not at all apply in the realm of kedushah); rather, that we should know that even after the histalkus there is life without interruption, eternal life, in the case of the Nasi of the generation, and through him eternal life is forthcoming for the entire generation.

There is "an extension of Moshe in each and every generation," up to and including the Moshe in our generation, namely, my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz]: Now, too, as before, he is present and diffuses light (like the sun, which at night, too, is present and diffuses light). If we were proceeding together with him we would see that he is now diffusing light with all the intensity of former times (and, indeed, in a loftier mode).

However, since he has ascended, elevation beyond elevation, whereas we did not accompany him but have remained where we were, he is not visible to our fleshly eyes (just as we do not see the sun at night).

Nevertheless, in this situation, too, his light extends to all the Children of Israel, who in general terms comprise 600,000 souls, and through them it illumines the whole world (just as the sun, from below the earth, shines upon the 600,000 stars, and by means of them diffuses its own light).
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We, admittedly, do not perceive the diffusion of his light. However, as in the above-quoted maxim of the Rebbe Rashab, "If the horse is a horse and the wagondriver is a wagondriver, does that mean that the angels aren't angels?!"


http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/pr ... 5.htm#t116