DAZE OF EXILE, DAYS OF MOSHIACH

The exodus contains a secret of how we can break free from everything that holds us down or limits us in any way - something that is possible even now, before there’s a throne in Jerusalem. 

By Rabbi Boruch Merkur

 

The book of redemption, Shmos, states the names of those who enter Egypt. Curiously, those who descend into exile, the Twelve Tribes, children of Yisroel, are all named after the idea of redemption. Somehow the descent into exile itself contains the uplifted experience of redemption. Despite being flung into the seething world of Mitzrayim, a Jew keeps his/her name, the true identity of being from a Divine dynasty. 

 

The name Yosef, for example, means redemption, “for in the future, G-d will add (l’hosif) and redeem the Jewish people from a wicked kingdom, as he redeemed them from Egypt, as it is written, ‘On that day, G-d will extent (yosif, lit., add) His hand a second time, etc.’”[1] The exodus from Egypt was a (superficial) prototype to the complete redemption, which will be the permanent eradication of suffering and evil, and their total transformation into good. 

 

A Jew in his core is freedom - “My servants; not slaves of slaves.” The Mitzva to recite the exodus narrative daily establishes that freedom is something we live with as a mission statement. The exodus contains a secret of how we can break free from everything that holds us down or limits us in any way - something that is possible even now, before there’s a throne in Jerusalem.

 

The Rebbe insists there is a power that is accessible now, in the time of the exile of our people, and it is the ultimate revolutionary experience of G-d being present and felt in every aspect of our lives (including the miraculous life of the Era of Resurrection,[2] when our bodies will be enhanced with supreme health, dimming the sun with its radiant k’dusha). All this is not only possible; it is our mission.[3]

 

Our Sages teach that “all the days of your life,” your efforts in this challenging world, “bring the days of Moshiach.” “Moreover, it brings into your life the ultimate experience of ‘the days of Moshiach’ (in the plural, including all its stages) in the true and complete redemption.”

 

What facilitates this incredible sneak preview experience, when geula is woven into the fabric of galus, and the descent into exile itself transforms into a launchpad and venue for redemption? That’s the role of Rebbe:

 

It is specifically he who has the power to join and unite exile with redemption, or more particularly,[4] to join the exodus from Mitzrayim to the Days of Moshiach … As a Jew lives “all the days of your life,” as a soul in a body, in this physical and coarse world and in the time of galus, he can depart from limitations and boundaries, even experiencing the Days of Moshiach.[5]

 

The Rebbe (presumably through his teachings) gives us the power to be engaged and present in the physical world, the world of the animal soul, and perfect it. The result of this transformation is “Divine vision, reaching perfection in the Future Era.”[6]  

 

Even in the darkness of exile, we have the power to live the brilliant life of the complete redemption:

 

See Kol Sofer … where it interprets “zachisi, I was worthy (to recount the narrative of exodus at night)” to mean “zachu” in the way our Sages teach[7]on the verse,[8] “b’ita achishena – in its time I will hasten it”: “Zachu, if they are worthy, achishena, I will hasten it.” “The latter interpretation is in line with what G-d says, ‘My children have triumphed over Me; My children have triumphed over Me.’[9] Thus, ‘zachu-worthy’ means that if the Jewish people attain the height of asserting themselves to be victorious over the Sh’china - as in, ‘Who rules over Me? The righteous. G-d decrees and the righteous annul’[10] – that victory results in ‘I will hasten it.’”[11]

 

The role of Jewish leaders today is to publicize the reality of the end of birurim, the end of our enslavement to worldly trappings. There is the power of exodus at our fingertips that allows us to live geula before that becomes strikingly obvious. This is a state of mind that is comfortable with the idea of being worthy, when our most sensitive and open conversations with G-d amount to Him wanting us to assert our own volition over His towards victory.  

 

Evidently, at the risk of teaching His children the need for follow-through, to seek victory instead of tantalizing more, thousands of years, a seeming eternity, over the glory of the struggle, G-d holds out and the exile lingers. The point is though that we are being given the opportunity to seek that victory as our own, to be like Moshiach, who “peeks through the cracks” in anticipation of this epic denouement of history. That yearning pushes us forward to the final celebration.

NOTES: 

[1] Shmos Rabba 1:5

[2] Seifer HaSichos 5752, pg. 250, FN 47

[3] Ibid 245

[4] Notice how the Rebbe builds on saying that his role is to connect exile to redemption, to the role of connecting the exodus from Mitzrayim to the Days of Moshiach. The exodus itself, split seas and all, is seen as a galus we must free ourselves from to strive for the real thing.

[5] Ibid 250

[6] Ibid 251. Fascinatingly the Rebbe hints here (speaking ostensibly of Rebbi Elazar ben Azarya) that it is in virtue of the nasi’sperfection, having refined his character to the nth degree, that he grants power to other Jews to experience redemption in the time of exile, attaining Divine vision while within the world of concealment. Perhaps avodas ha’birurim is completed in this sense. The Rebbe achieved total transformation of evil (in his perfect tzidkus). The result of that achievement is our ability to be swept into the Rebbe’s world, above avodas ha’birurim.  

[7] Sanhedrin 98a

[8] Yeshaya 60:22

[9] Bava Metzia 59b

[10] see Moed Katan 16b

[11] Ibid FN 54