Rebbe Rebbe

I remember sit-
ting right by him
during an after-
noon drasha, and
the Rav was ex-
pounding on
what our Sages
explained in re-
gards to the cre-
ation of the
world. The Rav
explained how when Hashem created the world, he infused within it the trait of judgement. Hashem then saw that the world would not be able to exist without some sort of mer- cy, so he incorporated a complementary aspect of mercy into the creation.

The next sentence by the Rav was something that has a last- ing affect on my heart and mind. With tears in his eyes he said “What do we see from here? We see that Hashem really wanted judgement”. For a while I was trying to understand the profound meaning in Rebbi’s statement and I believe that I have finally understood it.

Rebbi was all love and all kindness and it was an almost impossible task to draw a few words of fire and fury out of him. With his statement I believe that Rebbi acknowledged that the true will of Hashem was to implement judgement and judgement alone in the world which was the opposite of Rebbi’s own personality. This is the exact midda of Rav