LPI is devoted to helping am Yisrael discover a new way of engaging with our tradition. The Redemptive Remedy BY ALL ESTIMATIONS, our generation is experiencing the final era before the coming of Moshiach. This special time is known as “ikvisah d’meshicha,” “the heels of Moshiach,” as those with discerning ears can already begin to hear the approaching footsteps of the final redemption. However, the words “ikvisah d’meshicha” hold a secondary implication as well. Like the heel, the souls of our generation are particularly susceptible to spiritual numbness and emotional detachment. But there is yet a ray of hope, shining through the darkness of our times. In His overwhelming mercy and love, Hashem sent the remedy before the disease set in. In the early 1700’s, Hashem brought an exalted soul into the world to illuminate the darkness of a broken and battered European Jewry. This soul was Rebbe Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, “the light of the seven days of creation.” Following many years of intense Torah study and prayer, the holy Baal Shem Tov began to reveal deep and liberating Torah teachings he had received from the upper realms, eventually founding the Chassidic movement whose various tzaddikim and dynasties would revolutionize European Jewry in the coming decades. Two generations later, a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, continued the work of his forebear by re-establishing the spiritual foundations of Chassidus that had become somewhat obscured by the garments of institutionalization over time. It was the teachings of these exalted masters that would support a spiritually exhausted Jewish nation as they took the last few steps toward the finish line of history. It was the consciousness these tzaddikim yearned to foster that would prepare am Yisrael for the final redemption. Just a few short years ago, the term “Chassidus” was a fairly uncommon expression. There were certainly “Chassidim”, and various “Chassidic courts,” but Chassidus as a philosophy, as a comprehensive path toward closeness with Hashem, had not yet risen to the forefront of our consciousness as a community. Today, all of this has changed. Looking past the externalities of a cultural experience to tap the eternal spirit of the masters and teachings which sit at its core, many thousands of Jews from all walks of life have begun to taste from the bubbling spring of the holy Baal Shem Tov. Across the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy, there is a deep thirst for the teachings of Chassidus and the life-giving waters of clarity, depth, beauty, and relevance that flow forth from the foundational works of the early masters. Searching for the Lost Princess of Connection IN THE EARLY 1800’s, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov began telling his legendary stories with a uniquely beautiful tale, “The Lost Princess.” The tzaddik’s tale tells of the long and glorious journey of a viceroy who devotes his life to locating a princess abducted from her father’s palace and returning her home. The Breslover mashpiim explain that the princess represents the soul, faith, passion, inwardness, and wonder of youth that have become lost over time in the murkiness of the modern experience. The viceroy represents the souls of our generation, wandering through the post-modern darkness on a mission to reclaim the passion of youth. R’ Yaakov Klein founded the Lost Princess Initiative in May […]

The post Are We Ignoring Hashem’s Remedy to Our Struggles? appeared first on The Yeshiva World.