Dear Reader Sh’yichyeh
At first glance it seems that the month of Cheshvan is a month that symbolizes exile. There are no official Jewish holidays and the darkness of winter begins to become apparent. Its Halachic name is “Mar-Cheshvan,” which means the bitter month of Cheshvan. Yet, in Chazal and Chassidus, we are taught that, on the contrary, the month of Cheshvan is kept bare of all holidays, so that it can be filled with the great light and holiday of Geula!
In the words of Chazal: “The first Beis HaMikdash which was built by King Shlomo in Yerushalayim was completed in the month of Cheshvan. It was the Divine Will to delay its inauguration. Only about a year later, during the month of Tishrei, did the people of Israel celebrate the inauguration and dedication of the first Beis HaMikdash. G-d promised the deprived month of Cheshvan that the third and eternal Beis HaMikdash – the Temple of Moshiach – will be built and dedicated in the month of Cheshvan.”
This is congruent with what is brought down in Kabbalistic sources regarding the month of Cheshvan, the eighth month of the year (starting from Nissan). The number eight is the number that represents miracles which are higher than nature (symbolized by the number 7). What is miraculous about the month of Cheshvan? Based on the above, that it is a month that is being set aside for the miracles of Moshiach, it is very much understood.
Cheshvan is also the month of the birthday of the Rebbe Rashab, the founder of Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim. That is very much connected to Moshiach. In the words of the Rebbe (18 Cheshvan 5752): “The accomplishment of the Rebbe Rashab in founding the Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim is explained in the well-known discourse All Who Go Out to the Wars of House of David. The students of the Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim are the ‘soldiers of the House of David’ who fight the wars of the House of David against those ‘who revile the footsteps of your anointed.’ In the words of the Rambam in his Laws of Kings and their Wars and the King Moshiach: ‘He [Moshiach] will fight the wars of G-d’ until he is ‘victorious.’ [That Moshiach will be victorious] is also indicated by what follows after ‘who revile the footsteps of your anointed,’ in the words ‘Blessed is the L-rd forever Amen and Amen.’ For ‘Amen’ (and all the more so when Amen is repeated) testifies to victory in war, through which the coming and revelation of Dovid Melech HaMoshiach will be accomplished in actual reality.
“Our generation, the third generation from the Rebbe Rashab and his students, the soldiers of the House of David, will be witnesses to the conclusion and completion of their Divine service to bring the Redemption in actual reality through Dovid Melech HaMoshiach. In the words of my sainted father-in-law, the leader of our generation, while he was alive in this world, all the Divine service has already been concluded and completed, and we stand prepared to greet Dovid Melech HaMoshiach. This is all the more so the case, since the Divine service has continued in a manner of ‘the L-rd has give you a heart to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear.’”
Rabbi Avtzon is the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Lubavitch Cincinnati and a well sought after speaker and lecturer. Recordings of his in-depth shiurim on Inyanei Geula u’Moshiach can be accessed at http://www.ylcrecording.com.