Am I a Follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe?

Two months ago, my father called me to tell me that they had found a box of my stuff in their home. Our family had moved homes around the time of my wedding, and they were shipping it to me. He said, "Look out for a box of some of your stuff. Not exactly sure what it is, but I know it's yours." I opened it up to a box of journals that I kept from the age of nine all the way through my seminary years, all of my growing up seasons. I have endless memories of sitting down to a paper as a child to process my inner world, but because I haven't seen the physical copies of these journals in so many years, I started doubting how young I actually started that practice of journaling, of sitting down to write. There was one journal in particular that gripped me specifically around this topic, which we're going to be exploring today, which is Gimel Tammuz, the Lubavitch Rebbe, what it means to be a Chassid, what it means to have a relationship with a Rebbe that you've never met. My journal from age 11 to 13, middle school years, has a title page, and I'll show it to you right here if you're watching. I don't know if you can see it, but it says, "My life as I see it, my thoughts on the Rebbe, shluchas, Moshiach, and life as a Chassid. Tanya Lazaroff, a shlucha of Houston, Texas." A lot of what I did in these pages, and I have very little recollection of writing in this particular journal and specifically about this topic, like this genuinely caught me by surprise, was try to figure out what it means to be a Chassid. Here's the first entry. "What is my life's meaning, my desires? What does the inner core of me want, and the outer one as well? What should I want? My goal in life to be the best Chassid and guid I can be." Unoriginal, I know. Here's a piece that kind of sums up the tone I want to have for this conversation, borrowed from my younger self. Do we have the right to call ourselves a Chassid? We definitely all strive to be there, but do we attain it? What makes you a Chassid? What kind of arrogance gives you a bit the ability to say, "I am a Chassid"? If anything, it's the true opposite of Chassid with true Chassidic humility. And I'm really bashing myself right now because, well, I do that. I don't say it, but I do feel comfortable thinking I'm a Hasid. But am I? Well, I try to be, I hope to be, I yearn to be. Have I reached that point? No, sadly. I still do things that I, as a Hasid of the Rebbe, daughter of a king, Hashem, should not do. I think I've come to some sort of conclusion. Our whole life we need to strive to be a Hasid, but it's never enough. We've never reached any level. We must constantly grow and strive, and it's different for all of us. A Hasid can't be a labeled or a stereotype or a Hasidic group of girls and then in caps, no, with like 10 exclamation marks. No, a true Hasid is a Hasid on his own, in his own way, with slight variations in their relationship to the Rebbe. In the pages that follow, I write about a recurring dream I have of attending a farbrengen with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I just want to sit there. I just want to absorb his physical presence. Another entry is the night of Gimmel Tammuz, where I'm bemoaning that I felt so disconnected, so tapped out, so unable to tap into the energy of the day, the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to feel and be inspired and connected, sad and grieving about this loss that I seem to have throughout those years of my life. I never felt like I was doing being a Hasid correctly, ever. At the beginning of my seminary year, they handed out these papers for everyone to set intentions for what they hoped for that year. And I remember writing very earnestly, "This year I will work on my hiskashrus. This year I will work on my connection to the Rebbe. This year I will feel something. This year I will be truly, I will become a Hasid." I recognize that I am more fixated person than most. I have the tendency and ability to gnaw on something for a very long time. This is a question that has sprung up deep inside of my soul and followed me for almost 20 years. Was Rebbe asking me to copy and paste what the generation before me experienced with him? Did he want me to yearn to be in his physical presence, to experience a farbrengen with him? Should I spend my time trying to engender a bond that mimicked the bond that the ones who lost him had? And it has extended for me, too. Ideologically, what was the Lubavitcher Rebbe asking of my generation? Does his vision extend in the exact same way to my generation as it did to the generation prior? Should I always be orienting primarily backwards to the life of a tzaddik who shaped this generation or is there a way for me to take what the gave the world and bring it forward, to look forward? And was that maybe always what the Rebbe was asking his Hasidim to do? These are big, honest questions for me, and they don't have easy answers. And today we're going to be exploring them with gentleness, tenderness, reverence, respect, recognition this is only one perspective, one point of view, and not the entire story. Through looking carefully at the Rebbe's own words towards the end of his life, through a survey that I did of the Human and Holy community to get a feeling for different people's relationship to the Rebbe pre- and after his passing, and ultimately trying to make sense of what Gimmel Tammuz means for someone like me who was born a few years after the Rebbe passed away and who only ever received the Rebbe as a gift, as a legacy, as the greatest, deepest, most meaningful invitation of my life. When I relate to the Rebbe honestly, there is no loss. There is only celebration. There is only the greatest ignition for the fire of my own and other people's souls. First, in 30 seconds, I want to talk to you about my background because for me the Lubavitcher Rebbe is not an ideology, is not a teaching. He's the womb that I grew up in. He shaped the way that I see and experience the world. This is why my parents moved to Houston, Texas before I was born. They were sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They chose between Houston and Hong Kong. Luckily, Houston went out and I'm a Texan, and they moved originally to bring the light of Judaism, the teachings of Torah, to the Rice University college campus. Their second daughter, unfortunately, was born ill. They became involved with the hospitals due to their own personal setbacks and struggles. They recognized a gaping need where many Jews were coming to the hospitals, did not have a place to stay, a place to go, guidance, food. They saw the loneliness. When my sister passed away, they began to bring challah to the hospital in her memory. And what snowballed out of that is now a massive production of a Bais Chabad, a hospitality house for Jews and non-Jews alike in the Texas Medical Center. Obviously, uniquely servicing Jews in terms of Torah offerings, a shul, kosher food, Jewish family to bond with and gain guidance from. My parents can connect people to doctors and so much more. This is the home I grew up in, a home completely fashioned by the Rebbe's vision, that shaped me so fundamentally to the point that I cannot honestly say the Rebbe's teachings changed my life. Through learning the Rebbe's Torah, I am inspired, I'm invigorated. I was born and raised on shlichus, which means to some degree I feel like I was the Rebbe's child, like he brought me up, like I imbibed my his messages with my mother's milk, and there's no way of clearly delineating between my own sense of self, identity, mission in the world, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's teachings, which shaped me so fundamentally from a very, very young age. If I could point to the core idea that growing up on shlichus gave me, it's that any gift of education, connection, and love that I have for my Judaism is not mine to hoard, but mine to share. So, that upbringing gives me the sense that to be a chossid means to be awakened to a personal, deep, spiritual aliveness and sense of mission through the vision of a tzaddik. Before we hear from our community and get to the fascinating survey responses that hundreds of people submitted their answers to, I I to bring in a point of view that I honor so completely. And that is the people who lost the Lubavitcher Rebbe in their lifetime, specifically people who had some type of in-person relationship with this tzaddik. If you are someone who experienced the trauma and grief of Gimmel Tammuz in real time, the pain does not go away. You viscerally feel the loss in this world, which is a real loss and a real lacking. To have something physically in your physical presence and then to not have it is something that no time can erase. I feel extremely empathetic to those who experienced this loss. I think especially as I got older and had friends who were older than me, so I just kind of saw them as peers, but they described their own experiences, the trauma of the day, the grief, the loss, how they yearned just to go and get an answer from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to share their thoughts and feelings, to have that in-person interaction and seeing that they used to. Because it didn't seem like such a generational gap, it was like my peer, my friend before me, shaking with the trauma and grief of loss. I recognized that when someone loses a loved one, the grief never goes away. And obviously this grief of a leader, of someone who shaped you, guided you, a tzaddik, is a crushing loss that never goes away. And when I talk about experiencing a very different relationship to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to his life, to the future of his legacy and leadership, it is not even remotely a critique on the way the previous generation mourned and mourns Gimmel Tammuz. It is a story that is valid, real, alive, threaded with love and soul and purpose and deep connection, and it's a real, magnificent story. And I also know very deeply that story is not my own. That my experience and understanding of what it means to be a Chassid is very different from the generation that came before me. And I also know that my ideas about the Lubavitcher Rebbe in a post Gimel Tammuz world and this generation's purpose for bringing Moshiach is fundamentally shaped by my lived experience of being born into the world view of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, questioning for many, many, many years if I could even call myself a Chossid, and sometimes trying to manufacture the yearning to experience the Rebbe's physical presence, and over time coming to a more settled perspective through the Maamar of Ata Tetzaveh and the teachings towards the end of his life that helped me understand who I am as a Chossid and what my mission is in this world. I asked questions in our community to get a pulse on people's connections to this topic and how they relate to the Rebbe. Just poll results, 64% of our audience wrote that they have only known the Chabad world since Gimel Tammuz. 36% wrote that they have memories of the Rebbe. And I think in this percentage you see a younger generation emerging, finding their place in the story of Chabad and the Rebbe's leadership, and you'll hear those voices in these questions, the voices of those who have only known the Chabad world since the Lubavitcher Rebbe passed away. But this was another poll result that I thought was really fascinating. When Gimel Tammuz comes around, you feel mostly grief and mourning, or mission and appreciation? Listen to this stat. 79% chose mission and appreciation. 21% chose grief and mourning. Which was radical to me and obviously is shaped by the fact that there is also more of a majority of people who never met the Rebbe, so therefore it's more unlikely that they would experience grief and loss. But it really highlights a hunch that I had about a generational shift and really a new way of relating to the physical loss of the Rebbe. And it bears noting that I flipped through these names that voted in the poll, and there were quite a few names that I recognized who chose mission and appreciation who were alive and aware and in relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe when he passed away. So that pointed to me to the fact that it's not only a younger generation who doesn't primarily feel grief around the Lubavitcher Rebbe's passing. There's something that the Rebbe transmitted that transcends his loss. There's something that the Rebbe gave that allows us to experience the anniversary of his passing not as this crushing experience of grief, but as this opportunity to really reflect on who the Rebbe was, what he gave us, and what he's continuing to ask of us after his lifetime. Another interesting one was the question, "Did he ever feel any cultural pressure, subtle or not, to feel the Rebbe's loss even if you didn't personally experience it?" And the options were yes, no, not really, not pressure but tried to feel it when I did it, and I just felt disconnected from the idea. 54% of people said no, not really, I never really felt pressure to experience the loss of the Rebbe. 18% said yes, point blank. 18% said no pressure, not pressure necessarily, but tried to feel it when I didn't. So, that brings us to 36% of people who felt that they should feel some type of loss, either from people around them or from within themselves. This feeling of I don't feel loss, but I should, which is definitely an experience that I personally relate to. For the questions, I can only share a tiny sample, but I'm going to share the answers that I think bring an interesting thread. This was one of the questions. How do you think your relationship with the Rebbe differs from someone who knew him in person? Here were two threads that I saw here. Those who feel that they're able to connect beyond the physical limitations of the Rebbe's body, who may have felt pressure at a certain time in their life to mimic that personal connection, but have ultimately experienced an influence from the Rebbe that is less about the physical person and more about what his spirit and life and teachings embody. And then there were also a few, but not many, messages of people who never met the Rebbe but experienced him in their lives in a visceral way. Here are some examples of a bond that transcends the Rebbe's physical life. I get to connect to him whenever I want, there are no bodily limitations. It's also hard to relate to him as a person sometimes. Someone else wrote, "I always felt pressure to relate to him in the way my parents did. I struggled with it a lot. Only years later as an adult was able to cultivate my own relationship that really feels genuine." Another person wrote, "I feel more connected through learning the Rebbe's teachings as opposed to watching videos, as in it's not so much about the physical person, if that makes sense. Another person wrote, it becomes transcendent and knows no bounds. Another person wrote, I think I grapple with being a baal teshuvah and connecting to the Rebbe in a way that's personal to my experiences, trying to identify where the Rebbe's influence is from in a non-tangible way, not having family members that had yechidus, dollars, or one-on-one encounters. And then there are those that describe a bond that is pretty similar to the one that they would have if the Rebbe was alive or the Rebbe specifically as person showing life. For example, one person wrote, the Rebbe saved my life through a dream. Another person wrote, I never met him, but through his shliach he saved my life and in his letters he speaks to me. The next question, it was, what is a teaching of the Rebbe that actually changed the way that you live? And by a long shot, by a long, long, long shot, almost every single message I received in response to this question was about the Rebbe empowering people to give to the world, to see their own souls, to recognize the significance of their talents, to be empowered as women, to teach what they know. And here's a sample of some of those answers. It's our duty to tap into our talents, which means we have to be aware of them. Another, the focus the Rebbe had on empowering women just as much as men. Another, the empowerment almost obsessive towards my mission and duty to give. Another, the importance of the individual. And then another, like a slight thread that I saw were a couple others that were about positivity, compassion, love of other Jews. I personally find it fascinating that personal empowerment was like the loudest thread, like clamoring for attention. It just like jumped out at me. Almost every single response pointed to that teaching or that feeling from the Rebbe's words and ideas coming through for individuals who feel connected to him and his teachings. I asked the question, would you call yourself a chossid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe? What does the word chossid mean to you in this context? Does it mostly feel true, performed, inherited, or complicated? Obviously, if you were born into a home of chassidim of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, then there is a certain inheritance of the chassidus. But does it feel true to you? Does it feel complicated for you? What does it look like for you? Do you as an individual call yourself a Hasid? One home wrote, and I thought this was very interesting, "For me, it's like being a grandchild of the Rebbe." Another person wrote, "Every decision I try to make through the Rebbe's view." Another person wrote, "I try my best to earn that title." "It's humbling to even think about this question, let alone say yes." And another wrote, "Yes, but complicated. At this point, it means I consider the Rebbe an influential teacher." Some historical context. The Lubavitcher Rebbe passed away on Gimel Tammuz, June 12th, 1994. The last Maimer, which means the last piece of Torah that the Lubavitcher Rebbe edited and distributed with his own hands, was distributed on February 1992. A little over 2 years before the Rebbe passed away. Most people in Chabad consider this Maimer to be the Lubavitcher Rebbe's last will and testament to his Hasidim. The thing that we most needed to hear. I have been learning this Maimer for years, over and over and over again. And trying to mine this brilliant, beautiful, earth-shattering, generational-shifting piece of Torah, where the Rebbe clearly delineated between two generations and set forth a distinct path for mine. I find enormous comfort in the foresight and vision that is embedded in this last piece of Torah that the Rebbe gave. One masterful ability I feel that the Rebbe had was the ability to penetrate to the core of a cultural moment and orient it towards Hashem and towards its highest potential. Every generation has its shadow, and I want to say that up the bat. The generational shift that the Rebbe describes in this Maimer has its potential shadow, and it takes work to try to avoid its pitfalls, and it's something that I work on every single day. But far worse than needing to be mindful of the shadows of your generation's strengths is pretending that you are not who you are. Pretending that your generation isn't what it is. The Lubavitcher Rebbe flipped feminism on its head to say this is the generational shift of femininity rising towards Moshiach. He looked at the hippie movement and said, "These are people who are sick and tired and fed up with a way of life that isn't true, fulfilling. They want raw honesty." A lot of weird, crazy things went down in the hippie movement, but the Rebbe penetrated to the essence of what these young people were seeking and said, "This is what it looks like if you express that in its highest way." This is what the Rebbe was doing with Atah Tetzaveh, explaining that this generation's natural sense of self is not the blockage towards Moshiach, but actually the route towards it. And it's not about fighting our natures, but channeling it. The maamar is based on a line from Parshas Tetzaveh, Atah Tetzaveh es Bnei Yisrael v'yikchu l'cha shemen zayit zach, katis l'maor l'haalos ner tamid. You shall command the children of Israel that they bring the pure olive oil which is crushed for the light to cause the lamp to burn always, tamid, constantly. He zooms in on the word Tetzaveh to say, "Tetzaveh doesn't just mean command, it means to connect." So, the tzaddik connects Bnei Yisrael to themselves, to their own souls. V'yikchu l'cha shemen zayit zach, and then they return to the tzaddik and add something to the tzaddik's mission that the tzaddik cannot do on their own. Katis l'maor, crushed for the luminary, the person from within their own selves through their essence, and through their essence and neshamah being ignited, they themselves feel the lack of godliness within their own identities, families, connections, relationships, and within the world. So, it's not an imposed mission from someone else telling it to them, or even from the essence of their own souls telling it to them. It's this very natural human experience of I want this world to be a place where God's light is revealed. L'haalos ner tamid, this is how we have an everlasting light. This is how the flame never goes out. When the tzaddik awakens a person's own soul so that that fire can burn from within the person. Not, again, not just not imposed by anyone else, but not either imposed by the person's own self. And this is how we will experience the everlasting lamp. This is how we will move towards Moshiach. So, those were the shortest cliffhanger you're ever going to receive on this Mimer, and now we're going to dive into a couple of the particular points and answer some of the massive questions that this Mimer really answers. How did the Rebbe conceive of what his role might be in the life of someone like me who never met him? What is the role of a tzaddik in a person's life? What is the subtle shift of my generation's mission that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was outlining? Should we look back nostalgically to what was or shake ourselves awake to a shining reality before us? Is it possible to do both? Can we do both? Is that what we're being asked to do? Let's talk about it. First, one of the genius things that happens in this Mimer is that the Rebbe outlines a clear generational shift. He says the previous generation was needed for one thing, this generation was needed for another. The way he describes it is that the previous generation generation experienced oppression, this generation experiences religious freedom. When you experience oppression, the essence of your soul arises and wants to defend itself and fight tooth and nail for its Judaism. When you experience religious freedom, you don't have that overriding system of the essence of your soul, so then you have to reach for a sham not from this transcendent self, but from where you are actually at. And that is a more everlasting way of calling out to your Judaism, calling out to your neshama, calling out to Hashem and Torah. It's quite radical. The Rebbe says that the Friediker Rebbe's generation, the previous Chabad Rebbe, they experienced a ton of mesirus nefesh in Russia defending Judaism underground chadorim, kosher, matzah, and then many of them moved to the US and lost their spark and fire, lost their connection to their Judaism. The reason is is because that connection to Judaism was born of oppression, which means it was actually an imposition of the essence of their souls fighting for survival. In a time of religious freedom, we don't have that imposition. As a result, a generation that has the ability to explore, that has religious freedom, obviously we're facing rising anti-Semitism. We are still living in the golden age of Jews where we do have religious freedom, where we could practice, where no one has to hide underground to be connected. As a result, when we reach for Torah, when we reach for mitzvahs, it's as who we are. It's us as people wanting to be connected, wanting to be connected connected to our neshamos. When you feel a lack of Hashem's presence in a world that is amenable to your Jewish practice, it means that you feel and experience a genuine lack within your own self and within your own identity, within your own relationships, and you are broken by the fact that the divine presence has not yet revealed itself completely in your life and in the world. It is this natural springing up of the soul that happens from within you, happens through the specific shape of who you are. In the words of the Maimer, This crushing that a person experiences, this seeing this really feeling the lack of Hashem's presence in our life and in the world that comes from within the own person is higher than the level of someone who experiences the revelation of their soul through mesiras nefesh, through self-sacrifice. Now, this being the last piece of Torah that the Rebbe distributed before he passed away, there's no question to me that the Rebbe was looking at our generation dead in the eye and saying, "The generation before you was self-sacrifice. The generation before you was transcendent mission. Your mission is something else. And don't look back trying to mimic what was, not because that wasn't the most incredible, beautiful thing, the highest call of that generation, but because what Hashem needs from you, what I need from you to move towards this Jewish vision of Mashiach, it's going to be seemingly less transcendent, but not even remotely less godly. Do not look away from what your particular mission is." Before we get back to what exactly did the Rebbe outline as the generational shift, let's look at how the Rebbe describes in this Maimer the purpose of a tzaddik is not to be connected to the tzaddik full stop, it's to be connected to your own neshama. The word "tzavah" means "tzavtsa", to connect, to connect every Jew to their own soul's essence. And that connection to your own self and your own soul doesn't require the Rebbe's physical presence to sustain. It's inside you. It was always inside you. It was always about awakening your own neshama. If you've never met the Rebbe, you don't have to meet a tzaddik to be awoken through his neshama's vision to your own neshama's power. Let's read it in the Rebbe's words. Avodasai le'arer u'legalos es hamuna shel kol achdus Yisrael shemi'tzad etzem haneshama heba'ifen acharkach ya'avdu avodas bekoach atzmam. His work, meaning the tzaddik's work, is to awaken and reveal the faith within each and every Jew from the essence of their soul in a way that afterwards they will do their own work through their own strength. Sha'acharkach, that afterwards, ya'avdu avodas bekoach atzmam, through their own strength, not through borrowed fire, not through the Rebbe's presence, through what the Rebbe unlocks inside of us that is now genuinely irreversibly ours. I think this idea points to that it's not one or the other. It's not We shouldn't look back and gain enormous inspiration, guidance, teachings, neshama awakening through the Rebbe's Torah, guidance, vision, leadership. This principle doesn't contradict the classic routes of engendering hiskashrus if you feel called [clears throat] to that or connection to a tzaddik through hearing stories, learning their Torah, watching videos, visiting the Ohel, whatever your routes of connection are. But I do think that it points to asking ourselves these questions around hiskashrus and the orientations we have about how we try to engender that within our own selves and the next generation, which is this question of is this practice engendering nostalgia or a sense that I'm fundamentally lacking or a sense that the golden age is in the past or is this motivating me forward towards carrying out this vision of Mashiach that the Rebbe outlined so magnificently? Is this doing what the Rebbe out to do, which is looking forward towards a vision and empowering each of us to do our avodah, yavdu avodas am b'choach atzmam, with our own strength. The Rebbe's Torah and life is there to awaken me to my neshama, my mission, and this fundamentally has to be in my mind the orientation of hiskashrus, of a connection to a tzaddik, which is I'm not outsourcing my mission, I'm resourcing my mission so that I can do what God needs of me. And these are ideas I learned straight from the Lubavitcher Rebbe in some of the most chilling words, which I'll bring in a second. But first I want to talk to the generational shift that the Rebbe was describing. He talks about how there was a generation of self-sacrifice, and now there's a new generation, a generation that serves Hashem from a different place within, not a transcendent essence, but an experiential essence, but an essence that is who I am. I think the Rebbe was predicting the cultural arc before it was happening and giving us insight into how to respond. Which is, this is a generation of self-reflection, self-awareness, the desire to be self-actualized, connected with your life choices on a real, embodied level. Some people interpret our generation as self-oriented to our detriment, and that would definitely be its shadow side, but I think what the Rebbe really saw was that this was an orientation towards geulah, towards redemption, that if the self-knowing was utilized as an actual channel for connecting to Hashem, because Hashem's light is quite literally expressed through the precise particularities of who each person is, then it would create a light in this world that was infinite, unchanging, not transcendent, but actually fused with who we are. Meaning, it would create the ner tamid, the everlasting light of redemption. The experience of mission in today's day and age as a chassid is no longer about the experience of the deeper, transcendent you that you wish you were, but never are. It's about you in the most immediate, tangible, felt sense of the word, and bringing the expression of your essence through the specificities of who you are. This is the Rebbe's message. The specificity of who you are is your mission. And these are the words of the mind more. The revelation of the essence of the soul as it is rooted in the essence of Hashem. Through this even the particular form and shape and specificity of the revealed powers of a person who had him at some becomes one with the essence. means the specific forms of your revealed powers, meaning your particular personality, your particular interest, your specific gifts, your specific desires, your exact way of showing up. The mind more says that this generation's call is for the essence of the soul to be revealed not in a way that flatters your individuality, but in a way that fuses with it. Your particular shape of being is not an obstacle to the deepest thing or mission. It is the deepest thing and mission. The particularities of who you are express the particularities of the divine light in this world. I think that this journey of self-discovery, this path of self-awareness, of inner recognition, of having a healthy sense of self, a connection to myself, of knowing who I am, of knowing who I want, hearing my inner voice. All of these are remarkable tools and channels and vehicles for expressing a specific embodied light of Hashem in this world that cannot be done without that inner knowing. It cannot be done without that orientation to the self. This is the essence and truth and divine longing in a generation that wants to know themselves, that wants to express themselves, that wants to be themselves, that wants to live a life that's true to who they are. We don't want to bypass Judaism. We know, we feel deep in our gut and this is what the Rebbe was saying. We feel deep in our gut that the time to express the particular light of Hashem that comes through the particular channel of who I am is now. And this is the path towards Moshiach that nobody else can walk for us because it has to come from the deepest part of who I am. The Rebbe says that the Mosha of the generation reveals the essence of the soul of every Jew and gives them the ability to accomplish the rest on their own. The Rebbe cannot carry us towards Moshiach. Only we can. Only you can do it through your particular vessel because you hold a particular light of Hashem that the world needs. In the Devar Moshiach, in the first line of the Ma'amar, "They clean a lecha shemen zayis zach." And they bring pure olive oil. The Rebbe writes, "It's not that the tzaddik accesses something that we can't access on our own. It's that the tzaddik wakes up the neshama and then the person, through their own effort, accomplishes something that the tzaddik can't accomplish on their own which then brings the tzaddik to the completion of their own vision and mission. And this parallels, the Rebbe says, how the relationship between Mosha and the Jews is like the relationship between the head and the feet. The feet are able to bring the head a place where it couldn't reach on its own. What this means to me is that by taking the awakening that a tzaddik has to our neshama and being an actual leader and answering the actual call of the Rebbe's teaching and Torah we are enhancing the Rebbe's own mission which was always to create leaders. In Tashan Nun Beis, the Rebbe gave a radical talk where he says, "Every person needs to be a Rebbe." He writes, "Every single person in the Jewish people was given the strength to be a channel of light like a Rebbe. To be a channel of light like a tzaddik." To me, those words are not a metaphor. They are a description of what the Rebbe's teachings are designed to produce which is a Jew who leads from the specificity of their own soul their own place, their own assignment not a uniform, their own particular soul-shaped path. It means being willing to innovate, willing to take risks, willing to be brave, and honestly, it means being willing to be who you are for the sake of Hashem. It means trusting that you are not a mistake, the way that you were created and your interests and capacities and explorations, none of it is a mistake and all of it all of it can be utilized for your divine mission. Two years before the Rebbe passed away, he delivered a talk on Parshas Mishpatim which shook the Chabad world. And this is what he said, in tears, "Even when people cry out Ad Masai, until when will we will we remain in exile, they do so only because they were told to. If they had sincere intent and earnest desire and cried out in truth, Mashiach would surely have come already." That line, they do so only because they were told to. And in Vov Tesha Vov, where the Rebbe says, so that you could do it for yourself, so that it's a desire that springs forth from your own neshama, so that you want it because you want it, because you go you go forth with your mission because this is your mission, because this is yours, because you've internalized this to such a degree, because I've woken you up your neshama to such a degree that this mission is now your own. This mission is now bound up with your sense of self. This mission is not in service just of being a Chassid. This mission is yours because this is your mission and purpose and plan and path forward for the world. The Rebbe continued, "All that I can possibly do is give the matter over to you. Now do everything you can to bring Mashiach. I have done whatever I can. From now on, you must do whatever you can." The Rebbe was clearly passing on the baton. Everyone always asks, why was there not another Chabad Rebbe? The Rebbe clearly stated it in his closing words to us. "You be an Admor. You be a Rebbe. You internalize the mission. You be the source of light. You be the leader the world needs. You, exactly as you are, awakened to the mission. Not because it's my mission, but because it's yours, is what's going to bring Mashiach." The Rebbe was begging us, I think, to internalize this message through the self. When the Rebbe was saying they do so only because they were told to." He's saying, "Don't repeat what you are told. Don't transcend. Wrestle, baby." A 2026 Hasid means, "Who are you in all of this?" It means the particularities of your soul are not a mistake. They are a very, very, very specific language of Hashem's light that is waiting to be expressed in this world. Bring your full self to your Yiddishkeit. Your desires and how you want to give to the world are not a mistake. We can channel this cultures and this personal emphasis on the self not by running away from it, but by using it. By using the self-awareness, inner knowing to give to the world from a deep, real place within. This is what creates the Ner Tamid. This is what creates the everlasting light of Moshiach. The Lubavitcher Rebbe completed his job. He did everything he could. That was his mission. The only piece left is what the Rebbe couldn't do, which is what we have to do, which means bringing the particularities of our soul to the mission. These words on Chof Ches Nissan of 2026 is not a leader abandoning his people. It's a leader completing his job. "I've given you everything you need to reveal the essence of your soul. I've given you everything you need to have access to your own strength. And now, take this strength and light up the world with it. Take this strength and be a force of good and empowerment and leadership in this world to bring the world towards Moshiach in the distinct way that only you can. There's no model for a sgos Rebbe. There's no one way of being a Hasid. And you don't have to be Chabad to answer the Lubavitcher Rebbe's call. The Rebbe's parting message invites every single one of us to look in the mirror, to be awoken to who we are, and to give not as anyone else, but from the exact circumstances that make up our lives. Leadership does not always happen on the public stage, and I think giving of ourselves sometimes can mean being willing to be perceived, being willing to be seen, sharing what we know, who we are with other people, being willing to be a force of light in this world, to not let our fears get in the way of that. There's so much there in the practicalities of this and figuring this out in our own lives and wrestling with it is where this really gets interesting and where we really begin to shape the world. I want to go back to the question of the survey, which was, what do you think the Rebbe meant towards the end of his life when he said, "Every person has the title Rebbe. Every person has the capacity to be an odd more." Here's what people said. Pure empowerment. Someone said, "I think it's because the Rebbe was about influence and not power. He saw the greatness in the soul of every Jew. He saw our potential." Another, "Every Jew carries something that they can teach someone. Their purpose is to be someone's Rebbe." Which, by the way, if the definition of a Rebbe is to wake someone up to their own soul, not to create followers, but to wake someone up to their own soul, then every one of us can be those lamp lighters, can be those leaders to wake other people up to their own power, their own neshama. Not because being a lead- being a leader does not mean having followers. Being a leader means waking people up to their own power within them. Another person wrote, "We have to do the work." And my favorite one is, "The answers are within." There's part of me that doesn't know if I'm really allowed to think this, but I'm been sitting with it for years and I can't let it go. It's the question of maybe the Rebbe's passing was itself the greatest teaching. That he left us so much Torah that points to that the generation that needed to find its own strength couldn't fully find it while he was still here to find it for them. I am not a follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I am a leader created by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And to me right now, that is what it means to be a Chassid. You are the path. Do not run away from yourself. This generation's transcendence is through the individual path of your neshama. This is where we will find the unity of all Jewish people and Hashem's presence in this world. That is how we will give something back to a leader who needed what we have to give, which is our particular essence. Draw from the Rebbe's strength and mission and vision, not because you're missing out on anything, but because we're moving forward. And his wisdom can awaken our neshama to bring Moshiach. We need those teachings integrated, made alive, whole, and real through exactly who you are. Exactly who you are. I'll end with my version of the Rebbe's "We want Moshiach now." And it's this. I deeply desire a world where each of our divine souls are awoken. Where we can see Hashem within every encounter, every circumstance, where every human being has access to the truth [music] of divine unity beneath the surface of reality, where the brokenness of our lives [music] is suffused by the light of Hashem's presence. I yearn for an inner world where I recognize that nothing that happened to me was a mistake, >> [music] >> that Hashem is always present and with me in everything, that all I need to do is open up to who I already am, to face the blockages in our struggles and brokenness that I do have, and also [music] to be unafraid of the beautiful shining light within me. I yearn for a consciousness where I recognize how every specific [music] piece of my character and voice and talents are waiting to become channels for Hashem's light. And I desire that inner experience and consciousness for every single person. [music] I yearn for a global reality where we can see the divine essence and worth in every person and protect it, where we can recognize our shared humanity >> [music] >> and divinity, where we can support each other in that quest through physically protecting each other, emotionally building each other up, spiritually offering all that we have and know to one another, where we can share our resources in loving and generous ways so that we can build healthy whole reality where [music] our entire lives can be oriented towards Hashem's presence unity consciousness that is flowing through us at all times >> [music] >> and towards a life spent expressing that unity completely without blockages through the language of Torah and mitzvahs with joy full expression connection [music] and genuine deep personal meaning and aliveness. >> [music] [singing] [music and singing] [music] >> That's it. That's my personal Mashiach desire. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's topic. I would love to hear from you your thoughts feedback your alternate readings on the Rebbe's words. Every one of us has unique perspective and experience and it would be such a delight. So leave a comment on this episode wherever you're listening. I read every single one and feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you want to share more of your thoughts. Find us on Instagram at Human and Holy. New episodes come out every Sunday morning on YouTube Spotify Apple podcast wherever you listen. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a single episode. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next week. Bye.