A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

It is one of the stranger stories in the Talmud: A harp was hanging above King David's bed. As soon as midnight arrived, a North wind came and blew upon it, and it played of itself. He arose immediately and studied the Torah till the break of dawn. After the break of dawn, the wise men of Israel came in to see King David and said to him: Our master, the King, Israel your people require sustenance! They need to live! He said to them: Let them go out and make a living one from the other.
They said to him: A handful cannot satisfy a lion, nor can a pit when un dug is filled up with its own clods of earth.  David said to them: Then go out in troops and attack the enemy for plunder.
This serene, perhaps mystical, scene is rudely intruded by the king suggesting Jews go to battle in order to gain a livelihood! From whimsical alarm clocks and King David’s mystical midnight spiritual service, from a vision of a king of yore being aroused by a harp, delving into the Torah for the remainder of the night, we come to waging war for economic gain. Really?
Let’s move to another mysterious text, but one of  far more recent vintage. After the Rebbe’s passing on Tamuz 3, 1994—which will be marked by world Jewry this coming Shabbat July 2nd—they discovered in a draw in his office three loose-leaf’s full of Torah writings, letters, and diaries.
One of the diaries is from December 1932. It records a dream that his father-in-law, the sixth Rebbe shared with him, in which his own father came to console him because he was broken-hearted. “My father appeared to me and said, ‘Why are you brokenhearted? In your home, there’s a light that shines in the dark of the night!’
“I woke up, and the moon was shining into the room. But I knew that this wasn’t the light he was referring to. So, I went to the house library and found you [the Rebbe] studying Torah. Then I understood what light burning in the night my father was referring to.
The generational span of three Rebbes gives a sense of the epic, of something historic in the making, and a premonition of the future. But what is it? What exactly happened here? Why was the Rebbe broken?
Perhaps, because only fifty days later, Adolf Hitler would assume the chancellor ship of Germany, ushering in the greatest, deepest period of darkness our people have ever known.
But it was King David’s midnight harp, and the Rebbe’s call to go and conquer the world, that kindled a light of hope and resolves on that dark night at the end of 1932.
In his book The Will to Live On, the great American novelist Herman Wouk relates a shocking historical tidbit to jumpstart his reflections on contemporary American Jewish life. He writes how he once came across a passage in the memoir of Rudolf Hess, the commandant of Auschwitz, that so startled him, that he had to write it down:
Eichmann was absolutely convinced that if he could succeed in destroying the biological basis of Jewry in the East by complete extermination, then Jewry would never recover the blow. The assimilated Jews of the West, including America, would be in no position and would have no desire to make good this enormous loss of blood, and there would therefore be no future generation of Jews worth mentioning.
As Wouk goes on to say, this understanding of the intent and design behind the Final Solution begs the question today: “Has Hitler won the war against the Jews?” The Holocaust, in other words, was meant also as a poisoned bullet whose insidious effects take hold over decades. The Nazis expected to take care of the physical destruction of European Jewry, and the spiritual decay of the remainder of Jewry to take care of the rest. Thus, the cogs of history already turning in 1930s Europe seemed to spell the wholesale destruction – physical and spiritual – of world Jewry. If the Jews of America were an intended target of the Holocaust, then what escape was there?
Perhaps it was this deeply melancholic vision of the future of his people, and the future of Judaism and Jewish life, that the Rebbe felt, and it broke his saintly and gigantic heart?
Only a few weeks before the Haman of our times, Hitler would ascend to power, and the shepherd of Israel is broken. Jewish life would be transformed forever. Hundreds of communities would cease to be overnight. 2000 years of Jewish life in Europe would go up in flames in five years. Six million would be reduced to ashes—and the world would remain silent.
So, his father comes to him in a dream and says: Wait! In your own house, a light still shines through the darkness! Despite the tremendous calamity facing our people, and the inconsolable tragedies they would endure, beyond what any quill can capture on paper or any mouth can convey in words, there is still some hope, even after the Holocaust. A light still shines.
But what light is this?
In the middle of the night, a Rebbe walks around his home. The Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak, the man who single-handedly stood up to Stalin and Lenin, the man who built 600 underground Jewish schools in Soviet Russia, and was sentenced to death in 1927 (a decree converted to exile), is now walking around his home, searching for the light.
And he discovers his son-in-law, in the middle of the night, sitting in the library, immersed in Torah learning. His son-in-law, Young Rabbi Menachem, a man of 30, is doing what he did for the first 48 years of his life: He sat up all night, alone, learning Torah, delving into the sacred texts and words.
And when a Rebbe saw the sight of this young man sitting and learning, he understood this was the light his father was alluding to.
Indeed, as May 1945 came around, and the enormity of the tragedy and the loss came to light, The Rebbe made it his mission to light up the darkness of G-d’s long apparent absence. What the Rebbe did in the post-war years will one day be told as one of the great acts of reconstruction in the Jewish history of mankind over 6000! Chabad centers all over the world to date. The Rebbe, whose 28 yahrzeit is commemorated this Shabbat, on July 2, refused to yield to despair. In the thickest of darkness, he kindled a light.
“From the day that I was a child attending [Jewish elementary school],” the Rebbe wrote in 1952 to the Israeli President Yitzchak ben Zvi, “and even before, the vision of the future redemption began to take form in my imagination — the redemption of the Jewish people from their final exile, a redemption of such magnitude and grandeur through which the purpose of suffering, the harsh decrees and, annihilations of exile will be understood with a full heart and cognizance.”
That was his mission: not only to bring back light to the darkness but to transform the darkness of the world into light.
As the former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks OBM commented, “If Hitler wanted to hunt down every Jew in hate, the Rebbe wanted to track down every Jew in love.”
Back to our Talmudic story.
Every story in Torah can be appreciated on many levels, the literal as well as the mystical.
This story, too, begins in the dark of the night; at midnight, the furthest point from sunset on one side, and sunrise on the other. As the world sleeps, the Shepherd of Israel, King David, has his harp playing.  
Despite the darkness of the night, in the home of the leader of the Jewish people, a light still shone, a melody still played.
David, the King of Israel, feels this wind, and his harp—representing the harp of all Jews—began playing the sweetest and holiest melodies. He sat all night, immersed in Torah. Outside, darkness may abound, but inside, the light of the Divine, the light of Torah, burnt brightly. The music never stopped.
It is a parable for Jewish history—even in the middle of our nights, there was a “hidden wind,” a concealed energy, a spirit, that could move our inner harp and ignite its apparent numb chords.
It is at this point, that the sages go into the king, saying: Our people need direction, guidance, inspiration. The people of Israel require sustenance! They need to be rebuilt, to be nurtured, to be re-inspired.
So, King David instructs the people to nurture each other; each Jew can offer support to his or her fellow; each and every one of us possesses vast reservoirs of inspiration and love. Each of us must be both a giver and a taker.
But the sages seeking the king’s advice are unsettled. Kings David’s advice seems to violate a basic law. A closed system cannot continue to sustain itself indefinitely, without an outside power source.
And here is the second part of the king’s instructions: send out the troops!
It is this second point that reflects the truly revolutionary attitude that the Rebbe brought with him, from the very moment he assumes leadership. Go out, he exhorted his disciples. Do not remain cloistered in your communities, satisfied with nursing your own wounds, desperately clinging onto a Judaism defeatist and defeated in the face of the outside world. Seek out the sparks of holiness that lie beyond your own borders. Enough with the defense, let’s invest in the offense. In every Jew, as far as he or she may seem, there is a Divine fire. In every human being, there is a Divine spark.
A head of a yeshiva in Jerusalem visited the Rebbe. During their meeting, the Rebbe urged him to get more involved in influencing others outside of his own community—by reaching out to care for and help all types of Jews.
As the conversation got more intense and involved, the Rebbe finally turned to him and said:
I have a question. Which is the most important limb after the brain?
“The heart,” he said.
And which is the more important side in Judaism? Right or left?
For sure the right, he said. Joseph is upset when his father places his left hand on the oldest son. The right is associated with more love, closeness, and vigor.
So, asked the Rebbe, why is the heart on the left side of the body?
The Rosh yeshiva remains silent.
I will tell you the answer, said the Rebbe. The heart is really to the right, not to the left.
You see, the heart of a person is made to feel, to emphasize with, to connect, to be there for another person, for another Jew. My heart was given to me to feel your pain, your needs, and your concerns. My heart was given to me to experience the soul and the heart of the person standing in front of me. My heart is here for you. And from your vantage point, my heart is on your right! …
My heart is not only about me. It is also about you—and from your perspective, it is on the right!
The following was told at a Chassidic gathering in Jerusalem by the Rebbe’s secretary the late Rabbi Binyamin Klein:
It was a winter morning in 1966, about 3:30 a.m. The Rebbe had left for home already—rather early, considering that there had been no private audience that night.
Just then a phone rang in the secretariat’s office. An employee picked up and asked, “Who is it?”
“Who is it?” he asked.
“My baby,” came a frantic woman’s voice. “He just fell—he’s been badly hurt.”
Apparently, the doctors were arguing over procedures because of the baby's critical condition.
“Please, can you contact the Rebbe for me?” she cried. “I need a blessing right away, and his advice.”
“I’m very sorry,” the secretary explained, “but the Rebbe has already left. I’m afraid this will have to wait until morning. But I promise—I’ll ask the Rebbe first thing.”
The mother pleaded, "It's a matter of life and death. I need an answer now."
Placing the woman on hold, the secretary stared at the phone, deep in thought. The Rebbe might already be fast asleep. And yet . . ..
At last, he decided to give it a try. If the phone was answered, he would ask forgiveness for calling so late.
He dialed uneasily.
The Rebbetzin answered. who is talking?
The secretary gave his name and immediately said, "I am terribly sorry for calling so late," and proceeded to give his forgiveness speech— “how it was a chutzpah (nerve) to call at this hour.”
Then he continued, “But there is a lady here in desperate need. She says it is a matter of life and death." He described her plight.
The Rebbetzin exclaimed, "Why on earth are you asking forgiveness? On the contrary, this is what my husband and I are here for. We are meant to serve Jews twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. For us, there is no ‘time off.’ By your calling us you are helping us fulfill our mission."  
Let’s hope each of us will fulfill our mission in life.
 
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky