This is how we live the days of Moshiach

Special practical Farbrengen for our every day life with the Mashpia

Harav Binyomin Gandal Shlita

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It is told about a peasant who didn’t how to read and write, he hired a tutor for his children to teach them torah. Since this tutor was educated, know how to read and write part of his job was to read the letters that peasant received. One day the peasant received a letter, he called the tutor to read it for him. The tutor opened the letter and started reading in a loud voice “your father just died” the peasant who was listening instantly fainted, surprisingly the tutor who read it first was fine.

The obvious question is the tutor understood the letter as soon as he read it before the peasant even heard it how come it is the peasant that fainted and not the tutor. The answer is simple. The peasant is the one that lost his father and not the tutor, therefore it touched his soul. The words were understood by the peasant but it didn’t touch him he didn’t feel the pain since it wasn’t his father. Needless to say the peasant felt the pain and he cared that’s why he fainted.

On of the more foundational principles of Chassidut is the importance of learning chassidut in depth and in breadth and after mastering the materiel the person needs to make it relevant to his every day life, after being knowledgeable in it the person should meditate on it to allow the animalistic soul connect with the material. Its not enough to learn and be able to know the material well and see it as an interesting spiritual theory but our purpose should be to know it well so that we can make it relevant and easier to live with in our daily life. The person should ensure to learn from each maamar or any other subject the practical lesson that is part of it specifically what is this maamar or shicha is teaching me in my service of Hashem that is practical and useful and I can practice.

It’s possible to learn the whole entire subject of Chassidut and remain insensitive and not be affected by it . Even though while learning the person feels elevated but once the learning is over the animalistic soul returns to its usual habits good or bad whatever it desires at the moment . The Godly soul did enjoy the learning and got into it but the animalistic soul didn’t care too much. The whole purpose of the learning of chassidut is to reveal the presence of Hashem in our world in more obvious way. When we learn and practice what we did learn it has an impact on us that even our desires an wants and needs become of spiritual and holy nature that helps reveal Hashem in this world.

This is why our rebbes emphasize the necessity and obligation of our spiritual work, they repeat over and over that learning alone without any practical application is not worth it. Because the purpose of chassidut is that it should enable even us as human beings, with physical challenges to be able to connect to godliness specifically to the rebbe king moshiach, we should be able to love Hashem connect to the rebbe each and every moment, we should feel pleasure in godliness. For this to happen we must meditate, one way to accomplish is to stop after learning and focus on some idea in chassidut and to think to himself how is this pertinent to me how can I use this when I’m going through a challenge how can this idea help me overcome my challenge? How do I live godliness even when I am going through challenging times.

Lets review ways to accomplish theses lofty but doable ideas, first when we learn a maamar it would be considered learned only if it was reviewed three times,as authentic chassidim would say at that point you become familiar with the maamar, next you need to be able to review and summarize it a sequential manner mentally. Then you would condense the materieal into major points and finally into one single point that can reflect the whole maamar by being the central idea that runs through the maamar and connects all the ideas mentioned into one unifying idea. At this point you meditate on this one central point, to live it and feel it to become like peasant in the story and not the tutor that is disconnected from the message in the letter.

The idea of meditating on the material of a maamar is not to increase the amount of details or connect it to other known material we are familiar with but it really means simply to live with this new concept learned in the maamar. As for example when one goes on a trip and stops at a scening lookout you watch a beautiful scenery you could be absorbed in it for half hour or even an hour it’s not that you are seeing more things its the same thing but you are taking all in and enjoying it allowing all your senses to connect and have pleasure from this view and eventually it will affect your emotions and how you feel. We can learn from the physical process where you go from connecting to something on a physical level where it would extend to be more emotionally connected level as was discussed earlier with the beautiful view. Its the same process when we try to assimilate ideas that we learn about intellectually and especially spiritually we need the time of meditation to allow our whole self to connect with the idea as we become more and more familiar and comfortable with this idea then we can emotionally connect to this idea we help our heart to get into it. We have to find ways and methods that would help us make practicing chassidut attractive. We are trying to become like the peasant in the story even though we really are really the tutor.

This is the meaning of meditate on Chassidut. To basically focus on one idea that is interesting and attractive to the individual and mentally think about it until slowly you begin to sense it emotionally. We are simply obligated to allow ourselves the pleasure of chassidic meditation. Finding the ideas that resonates with you and you connect with this would ensure that we stay focused on the idea there is no point in accumulating more and more knowledge unless we learn to connect with what we already are familiar with. We owe it to ourselves to learn to enjoy meditating. At the time of meditation you forget about everything else while focusing on one idea only , to be able to be captivated and absorbed by the idea completely to be totally present to the point where you are able to create the deep emotions in your heart of love for Godliness. Its evident that each one of us will find a different idea attractive to him that’s the Ideas that are designed for you to focus on and its inevitable that after a while we will develop emotional connections to those ideas, they would also connect us to Godliness and as a result we would experience pleasure in being chassdim and submit to the rebbe shlita.

In order to meditate properly you have to go about it the right way to start off with a two minutes mediation , as the comfort level increases you progressively add more and more time to the meditation time you can possibly feel comfortable with one full hour of meditating. Before davening you choose your meditating idea as we discussed earlier and use that same idea during davening. In chassidut it is explained that the most effective time to meditate is during davening it helps with connecting with you inner self it happens specifically during davening this enables each one to successfully connect to Godliness to even manage to connect his animalistic soul to Godliness. When we incorporate meditating with the davening we start to feel the chassidut we learn not only intelectually but be able to transmit the Godliness that is in our intellectto our heart.

The famous Mashpia Harav Shlomo Chaim Kesselman AH tells a story that when he was in a yechidut with the rebbe king Moshiach he told the rebbe about this young men in yeshiva that meditated before davening the rebbe was very moved stood up and repeated what he heard Harav shalom Chaim say that this young men Bentzion meditates before davening for ten minutes that brought so much nachos to the rebbe we can learn from this story that each person is important to the rebbe and also is important to the rebbe that each one of us thinks chassidut and lives chassidut.

Even young Bochurim are able to meditate in easier concepts of chassidut or just concentrate on the meaning of the words in davening. Later on as they practice they will be able to combine the meaning of the words of davening with concepts in chassidut for instance “hodo al eretz veshamaim vayarem keren leamo” meaning “his beauty is revealed on the earth and in the heavens, Hashem will increase the glory of the jewish people. Chassidut explains that for the creation of the world heavens and earth Hashem uses the power of internal light ohr pnimi which is like a ray from the creator’s but the way he creates the jewish people Hashem uses from the encompassing light ohr makif which is the essence of Hashem. Glory which refers to that which is above and surrounding the head. There is much that can be learned from this but the point is to live with it to feel and sense it that Hashem cares about me even more than he cares about the whole creation.

In our generation when we find ourselves so close to the redemption, meditation gets doubly important, in the sicha of Dvar malchus of parashat Balak 1991 the rebbe not only asks us to learn all topics of Moshiach and redemption but also to meditate on it which brings about daat of Moshiach and redemption. In the kuntrass of prayer it is explained that even if a person meditates in chassidut many hours throughout the day he wouldn’t achieve Daat and the sensing of Godliness. To achieve Daat and awareness it can only be done during davening. Prayer is the time the mind expands and is in a state that it can combine understanding and emotions.

Now more than ever we understand why is meditation important in order for us “to live Moshiach” its a simple and clear request as it was explained earlier it reflects the essential part of chassidut. To learn in order to understand is no longer enough, we have to apply What er learn t in our daily life it should affect the way we serve Hashem specifically we need to learn and meditate on Dvar Malchus as the Rebbe Shlita expressed himself in that Sicha “to know and recognize that we are already entering the days of Moshiach”. In the Dvar Malchut sichot the Rebbe is teaching us how to meditate and to be able to know and identify that we are already proceeding to the days of Moshiach, that the world is ready for the redemption with examples and wonderful commentaries.

I heard from the famous Mashpia Harav Mendel Futerfas that he said that throughout the years he learned regularly the Maamarim of the years 1941-1943 and in the year 1993 he changed his habit and started learning the Dvar Malchus from the years 1991-1992 this is an amazing story . If we would look into it for the years of the Rebbe’s king Moshiach”s leadership Rabbi Futerfas was learning regularly the Rebbe Rayatz maamrim and he completely lived them but in 1993 he understood that now the times are different and we have to switch gears and start learning the sichos of Dvar Malchus and use those for our meditation in davening.

It’s important to know that prayer is a ladder that help us live Moshiach. Prayer helps us open our heart to Godliness, to Moshiach to connecting to the Rebbe to everything. To help ourselves internalize the instructions of the Rebbe in Dvar Malchus we have to meditate on them during davening life unfolds during davening. If we want to live moshiach.

We have to slow down our davening and take our time without rushing, prayer can be compared to open heart surgery. So we can alter our heart from sick to healthy.

We have to learn well the sichos and review as much as possible to summarize the Dvar Malchus and rephrase it in our own words to verify that we actually understood the materiel well to be able to rephrase in our own words and be able to encapsulate to one point as for example how did the Rebbe in this Sicha teach me to live as if the redemption is present in actuality. When we meditate about this during davenning time over time for a while suddenly this point which we have been thinking about during davening for a while start to shine during the whole davening and during the whole day as well. We start living truly and sincerely in a redemptive way in an internal honest fashion.

In Dvar Malchus parashat beshalach 1991 the Rebbe shlita explains that in our generation davening shouldn’t only be done with great discontentment and longing for Godliness, most importantly we should feel we already achieved unity with Godliness, in the Rebbe’s words in the Dvar Malchus parashat vayakhel “the start of the work is to know that the person would know that he is part of Hashem’s essence. This feeling would result in connecting and rejoicing in Godliness. This is the way davening looks like in the time of Moshiach. To be aware Godliness is shinning a light in our heart, all the way down below when we take the time to Dave in a lengthy way this reflects a personal geulah. In order for us to apply the life lessons learned In Dvar Malchus we have to seriously invest time and effort in the way we Daven, specifically to open our eyes to submit to the Rebbe simply stated we have to engage regularly in the way we daven.

May we live and merit to see our father and leader when he finally reveals himself completely for everyone to see as the king Moshiach and we all will declare in unison the holy declaration:

!ive our master, teacner and rebbe, king moshiach forever