By Rabbi Aharon Lindenblit

In the days of the Chozeh of Lublin, the official town’s rov was known as the “Eizene Kop” — a sharp-minded misnaged. Reb Yaakov Yitzchok of Peshischa, known as the “Yid HaKadosh,” maintained a warm relationship with him despite their differences, and he would always visit the misnagdishe rov whenever he came to see the Chozeh in Lublin.

Once, the Eizene Kop challenged him: “You chassidim are crazy, and your rebbe says the strangest things! I heard his vort on ‘Voekach es avichem me’ever hanohor’ (lit: I took your forefathers from the other side of the river) — he said that Hashem takes ‘avichem’, your desires, ‘me’ever’ from aveiros, ‘hanohor‘ and transforms them to light. What kind of interpretation is that?”

The Yid HaKadosh became animated. “That’s what the Rebbe said? That’s incredible!” he exclaimed, and then explained:

“Chazal teach that Hashem counts a machshava tova (a positive thought) as an action, but not a machshava ra’ah (a negative thought). When a Yid does teshuva mei’ahava (teshuva out of love), his past aveiros turn into mitzvos — but since only the deeds were counted, not the sinful desires behind them, they aren’t transformed into merits. The Chozeh meant that Hashem promises, ‘I will take your desires too’ — I will elevate even the passion and energy once misdirected, and make it shine with kedusha.”

The lesson is powerful. What we may see as our deficiency (our “me’ever”), can itself become the source of greater light (“hanohor“).

Every Lubavitcher chossid grows up with the dream of shlichus. Yet many of us, through hashgacha pratis, find ourselves not on a distant front but in an Anash community — working, raising families, living as balabatim. Sometimes that feels like a missed calling. But perhaps the opposite is true.

We’re standing at a very serious crossroads in history. If we look back over the last couple of hundred years, the frum world’s response to modernity was often defensive — we built walls, we reacted, but we didn’t always inspire. The painful result was that when the winds of change came, ninety percent of our people were swept away. We like to romanticize the old shtetl and pretend it was all warmth and chassidishe light, but the truth is, many of the youth back then felt disconnected and uninspired. That’s the real history.

And now, here we are again — facing a new kind of test. Not the Enlightenment or persecution, but comfort. Complacency. Technology that fills our heads but empties our hearts. The lure of a comfortable, bourgeois lifestyle. The challenge is different, but the danger is the same: losing the fire, the sense of mission, the chayus that makes us who we are.

In 2025, our shlichus is to prove that America is “nisht andersh.” That a Chossid can live here — fully immersed in business, technology, and modern life — and still radiate chayus, hisorerus, and hiskashrus.

A shliach draws strength from his mission to inspire others. But we, the balabatim, must inspire through living Yiddishkeit with warmth and joy amidst the darkness of golus. Our very challenge — that tension of not being on shlichus — is itself our deepest shlichus: to illuminate our corner of the world with authentic Chassidus, transforming even “desire” into light.