– Like healing leaves in a generation sick with despair…
– An injection of chizuk so desperately longed for in this world of instant gratification or ‘I give up…’
– A miraculous cure in this day and age where the psychiatrist’s office is sadly such a common address for all sorts of depressed patients…
…The Rebbe’s sefarim are full of hope!
Anyone who is zoiche to open any of the Rebbe’s sefarim feels automatically revived – their terrible thirst begins to get quenched with the heilige words of hischazkus. The cry of אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל! that penetrated the universe 200 years ago continues to proclaim in all its intensity: אידישע קינדער! זייט אייך נישט מייאש!!!
More and more neshamos are waking up to enable the Rebbe’s words to envelope them and embrace them in a calming, soothing, healing way – to wash away the yetzer hora’s despair with pure drops of refreshing, inspiring, life-giving dew, and thus allow the neshama to shine forth and reach closer to our Tatte in Himmel.
“אם אתה מאמין שיכולין לקלקל – Most of us have no problem at all dwelling on these types of thoughts; I’m just NO use! See – the same thing happened again!!! That’s it for me! I’ve tried hundreds of times and yet still see no hope…
Our avoda is not just to float along with these natural thoughts forever, but to listen to the amazing eitzos of the heilige Rebbe and just as strongly as we believe the first part believe the continuation – "תאמין שיכולין לתקן!" and reprogram our minds with: Amazing! I succeeded in controlling myself that tiny bit more than last time… My every smallest tefilla splits all the heavens!!! My tiniest movement is connected to Hashem! I have endless higher Kochos and potential hidden inside me to enable me to be misgabeir… I can! I’m tied with ropes of love to my Father in heaven, NO MATTER WHAT I’ve done in the past… I can begin from now again!!!
R’ Nosson writes that all the tzaros together cannot even compare to the terrible tzarah of someone who cannot hope for the good anymore, and is convinced that ‘that’s it’. When we go through difficult moments, they somehow seem to invite along all our other worries from different aspects in life, in order to intensify the despair of this present moment and make us feel like it’s just impossible to continue anymore.
David Hamelech says in Tehillim ‘בצר הרחבת לי’ – in my distress, You brought me relief. R’ Nosson tells us that it’s a fact that there is never a tzarah without any רווח - relief attached. The yetzer hora tries to hide it and that is the biggest tzarah – when it seems like there is just no hope chalilah. Yet a believing Yid always knows how to search for the relief – the spaces of yeshua inside the tzarah.
You can ask very logically, what does it help me already to find a little relief inside a huge tzarah? You need to understand that the relief is not competing with the tzarah as to who is bigger. The relief is reminding me that Hashem is here with me, עמו אנכי בצרה and that is enough to show me that this pain isn’t going to swallow me alive, and I can now open my mouth and daven for a complete salvation. Once you’re zoiche to find the relief, the tzarah begins to crumble apart instead of intensifying its strength in your mind, and you can take a step further as well. Expand the relief by הרחב פיך – thanking Hashem for it and reminding yourself that never ever am I given more than I can bear! Allow another ray of light to shine into your life and through this chizuk you’ll have the strength to go on until the yeshua arrives. As the song goes,
ס'דא האפענונג פאר יעדע איד
פאר יעדע איד,
ס'דא האפענונג פאר דיר אויכעט...
ברודעניו! הער זיך איין –
און פאר דיר אויכעט!
An example of this is seen with David Hamelech – מזמור ... בברחו מפני אבשלום בנו. Why does he start with mizmor – a praise? In such a terrible situation of having to escape from his own son?! But David Hamelech found the relief here: that his pursuer is his son Avshalom and after all, a son will have pity on his father…
I know a really special lady who became more frum than her family before she got married. Not long afterwards, her husband was tragically killed in a car accident. While she was sitting Shiva all alone in the world – no family support from anywhere around, she got a phone call from Rav Wosner ztz”l. He called to comfort her, and wished her a son and daughter! She wasn’t so young anymore, and at present, a childless widow, - but listen to the end of the story: she was zoiche to get married to one of the most chashuve Breslover Chassidim in Yerushalayim, and after a time she called up Rav Wosner ztz”l with the amazing news that she just gave birth to her first children, twins - a boy and girl!!!
There is always hope! Even in the seemingly most hopeless situations. Look through all the generations throughout history, how many Yidden didn’t give up and went through such terrible wars and concentration camps with such strong and unwavering emunah, remembering in every situation that ‘even if a sharp sword lies on one’s neck, he shouldn’t despair of mercy.’
There was a man lying in hospital unable to use most of his body. His children asked him, ‘Tatty, how can you still be happy?’ He answered, ‘You can all fulfil אשירה לה' בחיי while I can accomplish אזמרה לאלקי בעודי! As long as Hashem gives me life I thank Him!’
Now with Shabbos Shirah coming up, let’s learn from the Nashim Tzidkanios who took drums along with them from Mitzrayim because they were so convinced that there would be a geula. So many times when we think back, we exclaim, ‘Who would’ve believed that so and so would ever reach this present stage of life?!’ But the challenge is to believe and hope in the beginning, not after it happened…
I know one mother who patiently said brachos word for word with her Downs syndrome child that couldn’t speak, every single time she gave him to eat. I kept myself back from asking her, ‘Why do you bother?’ Yet unbelievably, after all those years, her teenage child began to say brachos on his own!
So as we taste the fruits of חמשה עשר בשבט this year, let’s keep in mind the lesson of the nuts and their shells which we Yidden are compared to; just like nuts don’t get spoilt when they fall into the mud, so too we Yidden; even when we fall into bad desires and middos, our inside isn’t affected. Even while it looks like the bad is overpowering and the outer shell is filthy, yet hidden inside the nut continues growing from day to day. So too, Hashem makes the yeshuos all the time even while we can’t see it with our eyes.
Remind yourself how wheat and barley need to ferment – the waiting time after kneading the dough, in order to rise and become appetizing bread. So too, we Yidden need to be able to wait patiently in order to reach Yishuv Hadaas and not demand to see instant results.
Think of the pomegranate, so full of seeds. As Chazal say, ‘even the sinners amongst the Yidden are filled with mitzvos like a pomegranate’. See to rejoice with every seemingly little mitzvah that we are able to do, as the Rebbe teaches us in, ‘Azamrah’ and be mechazek yourself with the tikvah that every Yid always has.
The olive symbolizes the nekuda tova that is always there deep inside every Yid, which is called ‘pure olive oil’. If we bring along this nekuda to the Tzaddik, it will be able to receive the light of the Tzaddik and light up our neshamos.
ראש השנה לאילנות As the sap of the trees begins to rise, let’s allow the words of the heilige Rebbe to seep through ourselves with a true hischadshus and believe in the sweetness and pleasantness of our deeds, - ,פירותיך מתוקים allowing ourselves to become a strong and confident tree כעץ שתול על פלגי מים, אשר פריו יתן בעתו... וכל אשר יעשה יצליח!
