These parshiyos (read together in many years), contain the 42 journeys of Bnei Yisroel in the midbar prior to entering Eretz Yisroel.  These 42 journeys represent our sojourn in golus (both collectively, and individually).  Upon completing these journeys, the birurim of exile, we find ourselves holding at “Yarden Yericho” prepared to enter the land.

This is also the final reading from sefer Bamidbar, upon which the custom is to say “Chazak! Chazak! V’Nischazek!” (a declaration something along the lines of “be strong”).  The Rebbe connects “chazak” (strength) with the concept of “chazaka” — something which, after three times, has permanence and is unchanging.  This is connected with the 3rd Beis Hamikdosh which has the ultimate “chazakah” of being eternal.  In fact, “the intent and purpose of the churban and the golus (the purpose of the days “bein hameitzarim“) is in order to come to the level and perfection of the building of the future Beis Hamikdosh and the future Geuloh…emphasizing the inyan of “chazakah” — the 3rd Beis Hamikdosh and the 3rd Geuloh.”

The journeys in the midbar, the birurim of exile, represent the avoidah from below to Above.  As expressed in the earlier sichos, the process from Above to below is instantaneous but ephemeral (it does not last), whereas the process from below to Above can take time (according to the pace of those below), but it has permanence.  Our sages tell us that already, at the splitting of the sea, it was possible (if Bnei Yisroel would have merited) they would have gone straight into Eretz Yisroel and achieved the true and complete Geuloh, which has no golus after it.  From this the Rebbe derives that “there exists also now (after the churban and the exile) the inyan of the eternal Geuloh and the eternal Beis Hamikdosh in a way of strength and permanence (חוזק ותוקף), except that their strength and permanence are only from Above, and thus in the world of below (there can be and) there is a situation of churban and golus.”  Again the Rebbe is telling us how all the elements and revelations from Above are already in place, all that is needed is for us to become suitable recipients.

Fitting with this the Rebbe makes a dramatic statement.  During the prior years of the Rebbe’s leadership, the Rebbe would frequently repeat the statement of our Sages that the cause of the golus was senseless hatred (שינת חינם) and therefore the way to rectify this and end the golus is through “senseless love” of our fellow Jew (אהבת חינם).  In this sicha the Rebbe, astoundingly, states:

It should be added and emphasized the connection between Ahavas Yisroel and the future Geuloh — not (only) that the nullification of the golus is by nullifying the cause of golus (which came about due to the opposite of Ahavas Yisroel), for our situation after the completion of our deeds and our avoidah over the course of golus, and after completing all the 42 journeys in “the desert of the nations”, we find ourselves already “at Yarden Yericho” (the level of Moshiach, who judges by sense of smell [the word “to smell” shares the same root as the name Yericho]), on the threshold of the Geuloh.  Certainly the reason for the golus has already been rectified[emphasis added], and therefore, the emphasis on Ahavas Yisroel is — as a foretaste and beginning of the true and complete Geuloh which is connected with the point of unity [shared by all Yisroel] which is above differentiation, which is the same by every Yid, for it is a spark from the soul of Moshiach, the Yechida Klolis.

This “blockbuster” statement is one of many in these sichos where the Rebbe says “straight out” that a state of reality that existed for thousands of years no longer exists!  To be sure, the Rebbe is not saying that we are released, chas v’sholom, from acting with Ahavas Yisroel.  The Rebbe is telling us that our Ahavas Yisroel is no longer a corrective measure (to fix the cause of golus), but rather and expression of our current (but hidden) and future (to be revealed) state of oneness with every Yid!  Learning this should make it virtually impossible for us to demand anything less from ourselves than complete “Geuloh-dik” Ahavas Yisroel for every Jew — after all, we have already rectified the problem of “senseless hatred”, so why should it be difficult now to show “senseless love”?

The Rebbe closes the sicha by saying:

Simply — that in addition to the fact that we have already finished all the details of the 42 journeys in the desert of the nations during the time of golus, and that we are standing already at “Yarden Yericho”, “on the other side of Yarden Yericho to the East” [verse 34:15], we are crossing the [river] Yarden westward and entering Eretz Yisroel.  And in Eretz Yisroel itself we are going westward — to Yerushalayim the Holy city, and to the 3rd Beis Hamikdosh, until the Holy of Holies (on the west side of the Beis Hamikdosh) in which are found the Aron and the Luchos.

We can make no mistake where the Rebbe is placing us: on the gateway to Geuloh, with no turning back!