Blog - Torah Insights - Chabad Lubavitch of Greenwich

Find Your Spark - לך לך

Friday, October 31, 2025 - 7:46 AM

Find Your Spark

“Lech Licha”, “Go to you”, are the very first words that G-d spoke to Abraham. “Lech Licha”, “Go to you”, is the beginning of the Jewish story, and the beginning of the story of each of our lives.

What exactly is the meaning of the words “to you”? Rashi, the primary Biblical commentator, explains that “for you” means “for your own benefit and for your own good”. The mystics explain “to you”, more literally. While Abraham was commanded to leave Charan and travel to “the land where I will show you”, the ultimate destination is “to you”, to Abraham himself. The journey is not merely a geographical one, but rather a journey of self-discovery. By experiencing the trials and tribulations of the journey, Abraham discovered not only new scenery, people, and topography, but also the deeper potential that was latent within his soul; Abraham discovered a far deeper love and commitment to G-d, and ultimately, he discovered his essential self.

Kabbalah teaches that every object and experience in this world has a spark of G-d hidden deep within it, and the mission of humanity is to ”elevate and refine the sparks”, by using the object and experience for a holy purpose. The soul of every person is related to specific sparks that they are called upon to elevate during their lifetime. In fact, the circumstances of one’s life lead the person to the specific sparks related to their soul and to their purpose.

G-d’s commandment “go to you” is the calling for each of us to realize that wherever we are in life, we are on a journey of self-discovery, a journey to reach our deepest potential, through realizing that we have a mission to achieve, sparks to elevate, a portion of the world to illuminate with Divine holiness.

An entry in Hayom Yom, a calendar of Chasidic teachings for each day of the year compiled by the Rebbe, presents this foundational Chassidic idea:

The Rebbe my father {Rabbi Shalom Ber, the fifth Chabad Rebbe} told someone at yechidus {a private audience}: Ever since G‑d told our father Avraham, "Go from your land etc." and it is then written "Avram kept travelling southward," we have the beginning of the mystery of “birurim” {refining and elevating the sparks of holiness}. By decree of Divine Providence man goes about his travels to the place where the "sparks" that he must purify await their redemption.

Tzadikim {the righteous}, who have vision, see where their birurim await them and go there deliberately. As for ordinary folk, The Cause of all causes and the Prime Mover brings about various reasons and circumstances that bring these people to that place where lies their obligation to perform the “avoda” {service} of “birurim”.

“Homo Sapien” or Communicator? - נח

Friday, October 24, 2025 - 11:02 AM

“Homo Sapien” or Communicator?

Homo Sapiens, the scientific name for the human race, is Latin for "wise man". Yet, in Jewish philosophy, the Human being is referred to as “Midaber”, the "Speaker". Indeed in the verse regarding the creation of Man, “and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul”, Onkelous, the early translator of the Torah into Aramaic, translates “Living soul” as “speaking spirit”.

Right from the beginning of Genesis, the Torah attributes great significance to speech. Creation comes about through Divine Speech, where each act of creation is introduced by the words “and G-d said”.

Just as G-d created the world with speech, man, too, creates and shapes his environment through speech. When the entire world became corrupt, causing G-d to bring the flood, Noah alone found grace in the eyes of G-d and was critical in the recreation of civilization. What was the secret to Noah’s spiritual success? What were the circumstances that influenced the person he became?

While the Torah does not address this question directly, there may be a hint in the verse that explains why his parents gave him his specific name (which is in itself an anomaly, as in most cases, the Torah lists the names without explaining the meaning of the name). The verse tells us:

And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty two years, and he begot a son. And he named him Noah, saying, "This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands from the ground, which the Lord has cursed." (5:28-29)

Unlike most of the names listed in the generations between Adam and Noah, which imply descent and moving away from G-d, the name Noah is exceptionally positive and extraordinarily ambitious. Growing up, every time Noah heard his name spoken, he heard that while the broader society believed that human beings could not escape the spiral descent of the negative inclination of man, he, alone, could bring comfort to the people around him, to the entire earth, and to G-d.

Judaism believes in the power of speech to express the hidden potential within reality. Words of kindness, compassion, and optimism have the ability to bring out the positive traits that are hidden within every soul. Ultimately, it was the spoken word that created Noah and saved civilization.

The Kabbalah adds a deeper dimension.

The deepest need of the human psyche, the key to meaning and joy in life, is the need for connection. Unlike the Greek philosophical model, where intellect is the greatest quality of man, Kabbalah teaches that the human soul, at its core, is spiritual. Every physical existence is defined by its properties and definitions, whereas the soul is comfortable only when it escapes its own character and connects to another person. The human soul, therefore, finds its greatest meaning, not merely in growth and advancement of the self, which is accomplished by the intellect, but rather by the power to connect to others, the power to interact and communicate, to transcend the self and create a deep relationship with others.

The Creation of Meaning - בראשית

Friday, October 17, 2025 - 2:28 PM

The Creation of Meaning

After the sixth day of creation, the Torah states that all of creation was complete:

And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, and it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. Now the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host.

Yet, the very next verse implies that the creation was completed not on the sixth day but rather on the seventh day:

And God completed on the seventh day His work that He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that He did.

Rashi offers two interpretations to resolve the seeming contradiction. The first is that the creation was complete at the last point of the sixth day, and therefore it seems that creation was completed on the seventh day.

The second interpretation that Rashi offers is that the world was indeed created on the sixth day, yet despite being complete, the world was missing something. The world was missing rest. The seventh day introduced the concept of rest and thus completed the creation.

In Rashi’s words:

And God completed on the seventh day. Rabbi Shimon said: {A human being of} flesh and blood, who cannot {exactly} know his times and his moments, must add from the profane to the holy [i.e., he must add some time to the Sabbath.] The Holy One, blessed be He, Who knows His times and His moments {exactly}, entered it {the Sabbath} within a hairbreadth, and it therefore appeared as if He completed it {His work} on that day. Another explanation: What was the world lacking? Rest. The Sabbath came, and so came rest. The work was completed and finished.

During the six days of creation, the physical world is created and completed. Yet, despite being complete in one sense, Rashi, quoting the Midrash, states that the world was still “missing“. Because the physical reality on its own is incomplete before its spiritual purpose is introduced. The same is true in our lives. During the six days we are invested in creation, we strive to advance, accomplish, grow, and succeed. On Shabbat, we stop the creative process in order to connect to the inner purpose of our lives. Because even the perfectly complete physical world is lacking until the inner purpose is introduced. The six days are incomplete until the seventh day emerges, the day of spirituality and holiness. For, indeed, “God completed on the seventh day his work which he had done”.

The Joy of Drawing the Water - סוכות

Monday, October 6, 2025 - 3:33 PM

The Joy of the Drawing of the Water

The holiday of Sukkot is referred to as “the season of our rejoicing”, as the Torah commands us:

And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities. (Deuteronomy 16:14)

The Mishna tells us about the joyous celebration that occurred in the temple in Jerusalem each night of Sukkot, “the Celebration of the Place of the Drawing”, in connection with the drawing of the water for the libation on the altar. The Mishnah describes:

One who did not see the Celebration of the Place of the Drawing of the Water never saw celebration in his days. This was the sequence of events: At the conclusion of the first Festival day the priests and the Levites descended from the Israelites’ courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard, where they would introduce a significant repair, as the Gemara will explain. There were golden candelabra atop poles there in the courtyard. And there were four basins made of gold at the top of each candelabrum. And there were four ladders for each and every pole and there were four children from the priesthood trainees, and in their hands were pitchers with a capacity of 120 log of oil that they would pour into each and every basin. From the worn trousers of the priests and their belts they would loosen and tear strips to use as wicks, and with them they would light the candelabra. And the light from the candelabra was so bright that there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illuminated from the light of the Place of the Drawing of the Water.

What is so unique about the joy of the drawing of water for libation, and why is a libation of water associated with joy more than the libation of wine, which occurs every day of the year?

Wine, which has a pleasurable flavor, represents joy that is based on reason. The Hebrew word “Taam” means both “taste” and “reason”. When the human mind grasps an idea, it is as pleasurable and delightful as taste. Wine, therefore, naturally awakens joy as the verse states, “wine brings joy to the heart of man”. The libation of wine, therefore, represents the joy that comes from contemplation and understanding the value and benefit of cleaving to G-d.

Water, by contrast, has no taste and therefore does not awaken joy. In fact, the Mishnah states that, since water has no flavor, one does not recite a blessing when drinking water unless one is thirsty. Libation of water, then, represents the joy the soul feels that is deeper than articulation in logical terms, a joy that is not limited to what the mind can comprehend. The deep thirst of the soul to experience the embrace of G-d, generates the powerful, overwhelming joy of the libation of the water.

Chasidic philosophy explains that “Joy breaks boundaries”. When people are happy, they do things that seem illogical, including what we call dancing, which, essentially, is getting up and moving their bodies in unusual ways, something they would not do in an ordinary context. Cleaving to G-d on Yom Kippur, breaking the usual boundaries between creator and creation, inspires intense joy that is beyond the limits of logic.

Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Lekutei Sichos vol. 2