DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Baty on her birthday next week. Wishing you a wonderful year, Baty, with continuation of your amazing work in Australia!

Yud Shvat (the 10th of Shvat) which we mark on Shabbos, is the yohrtzeit of the Frierdike Rebbe in 1950, and it is the day when the Lubavitcher Rebbe took over the leadership one year later.

Always linked to Yud Shvat, is the last maamer which was said by Frierdike Rebbe, called Basi Legani, which is based on the teaching that this world is a beautiful garden, and it is the ultimate place where Hashem wants to dwell.

This is an amazing revelation, especially when we understand how vast is the universe, and how tiny and insignificant is the earth in relation to the whole universe, and how great and beyond our understanding, is Hashem who created it all!!

And yet Hashem has selected our world for his ultimate dwelling place.

Even more than this, the Baal Shem Tov taught us that DIVINE PROVIDENCE in this world, does not only relate to man, but also to all of creation including animals, vegetation and even the inanimate.

The Alte Rebbe explains this from a source in Gemorra Chulin page 63a, where it says that Hashem's judgement is in the deep, in relation to the bird called a shalach, which dives deep into the sea to pull out a fish.

This is not just any fish, but it is a particular fish as decreed by Hashem.

So in relation to the above, I saw some beautiful extracts from the Frierdike Rebbe in Likutei Diburim volume 1, p177, which I would like to share in relation to Yud Shvat:

'One day in the summer of 1896 (he therefore must have been 16 years old), I was strolling with my father (the Rebbe Rashab) in fields in the country resort of Bolivke near Lubavitch. The crops were almost ripe and the grain and grass were nodding in a gentle breeze. "Behold G-dliness!" said my father.. (I have left this piece out because it is complicated). As we walked on we found ourselves in a forest. Deep in contemplation of what I had now been told concerning Divine Providence, and overwhelmed by the gentleness and earnestness of my father's explanation, I plucked leaf from a tree that I passed by, and held it for a while in my hand...(the father had to explain to the son how important was every leaf in creation, and how more care should have been demonstrated).'

'The concept of Divine Providence, as it is explained by the Baal Shem Tov, is well known - that even a whisper of straw and a plucked leaf that kick about in the open are governed by a Divine ruling that determines how many times they are to turn about and where they are to be thrown around. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that the Holy One Blessed be He, arranges sets of circumstances of various kinds in order to implement the Divine Providence that governs a minute creation, in order that the fallen leaf that has been rolling about since last year in some backyard or other, or a bit of straw from a stalk which someone used when thatching a cottage roof a few years ago, should now be moved from their places to somewhere else. To accomplish this a storm wind breaks out, shaking heaven and earth in the middle of a warm and sunny day- and thereby brings to fulfilment the Divine Providence that governs the little stray leaf and the old wisp of straw.'

And how much more so, must Hashem be considerate of us human beings!

Gut Shabbos to all.