By Rabbi Dovid Markel
Sixty-five years ago today, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson assumed the mantle of Chabad leadership, becoming the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The Rebbe’s opening speech was a chasidic discourse based on the verse from Song of Songs (5:1), “I have come to my garden, my sister, [my] bride.”
The Medrash explains, that this world is G-d’s garden and initially His splendor was radiant in our physical world. Only because of sin G-d withdrew from this world, as the Divine Presence no longer able to be expressed in a world of sin.
Our mission–explained the Rebbe–is to reverse this trend. We are to reveal the innate goodness and G-dliness that is imbedded in every detail of creation. In doing so, we will expose that the world is not a jungle but a garden.
When we inspect the happenings of the world around us and our own lives, we can mistakenly assume that intrinsically the world is a wild jungle, and that any goodness is superimposed on it.
The Rebbe explains, that the opposite is the case. All the folly and sin of the world is a momentary lapse of insanity, in a world that is inherently expressive of the very essence of G-d.
The Rebbe had unbounded trust in the individual. Just as the Rebbe saw that the core of the world was G-d, so too, he saw the essential soul connection that every individual has with the Almighty.
The Rebbe understood that when each of us taps into our supra-rational connection with the Divine, we are truly unstoppable.
Only this essential connection with G-d has the power to not only stand up to all the insanities of this world, but to transform it as well and ultimately herald the messianic era.
Throughout history, there have been individuals that have attempted to bring the Moshiach. The Rebbe was unique in this regard, in that he placed this mission on the shoulders of every individual and indeed believed that we can get the job done.
Let’s view ourselves in the same awesome manner that the Rebbe saw us! Let’s not the Rebbe down and let us finally reveal that the world is truly G-d’s beautiful garden, with the coming of Moshiach!
