Basi L’gani – 5719 –
Beis Moshiach presents the maamer the Rebbe MH”M delivered on Yud Shvat 5719, in accordance with the custom established by the Rebbe to review each year a section of the Rebbe Rayatz’s Hemshech “Basi L’Gani” of 5710. • This year we focus on the ninth section of the profound and foundational Chassidic discourse. * The complete maamer.
Translated by Boruch Merkur
THE EPIC ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE 7th GENERATION
1. “I have come/returned to My garden, My sister, My bride.” In his maamer, my revered father in-law, the Rebbe, explains, based on the Midrash Rabba: “‘To My garden (l’gani)’ – to My bridal chamber (li’g’nuni), to the place where My essence was revealed in the first days of Creation,” for the Ikar Sh’china (the essence of the Divine Presence) was manifest then in the lower realms, in the physical world itself.
At the time of genesis, the world was created in its entirety, complete. But with the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, the Sh’china departed from the earth to the first firmament of the heavens. Subsequent sins caused a further withdrawal of the Sh’china, casting it away from one degree to the next, until it reached the seventh heaven.
Afterwards, righteous people arose, tzaddikim, who drew the Sh’china back towards the world, a process that began with Avrohom, the first of these righteous men. Avrohom drew down G-d’s presence from the seventh firmament to sixth, etc., until the advent of Moshe Rabbeinu, leader of the seventh generation [from Avrohom Avinu], and “all sevenths are beloved.” Moshe Rabbeinu’s monumental accomplishment is that he completed the process of drawing the Ikar Sh’china back down to the psychical plane, bringing it from the first firmament of the heavens to the earth.
Thus, G-d told Moshe, “Make for Me a Mikdash (a Sanctuary) and I shall dwell among them.” The function of the Mikdash, which is synonymous with Mishkan (Eiruvin 2a, end), at the literal level of interpretation, is for G-dliness to be manifest below, in the earthly dimension. Moreover, our Sages learn from this verse that the Mishkan establishes a personal connection to each Jew: “Here it does not say ‘within it’ but ‘within them,’ meaning within each and every Jew.”
Given that the mission of every Jew is to become a personal Sanctuary to G-d, a lesson is encoded in the very construction of the Mishkan as to how that is to be accomplished: The maamer explains why the Mishkan was made of atzei shittim, acacia wood. The word “shittim” here is derived from “hetia – deviation,” as in the verse, “shatu ha’am – the nation went out [of the encampment]” (B’Haalos’cha 11:8). A hetia is a divergence fr"http://www.beismoshiach.org/process/CreateJournalEntryComment?moduleId=15330986&entryId=36149126">
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The Rebbe. "Basi L’gani – 5719 –." Beis Moshiach, no. 1150 (January 17, 2019).