The premise of Chassidus
By zevi770 · December 20, 2012
Chassidus is the wisdom – at least the foretaste – of Moshiach
What is so wise about Chassidus???
Presumably, before Chassidus, for thousands of years, we Jews knew there is a God, knew, we need to be good and kind, and additionally, many hundreds if not billons of people knew/know that too.
However all these people don’t penetrate the depth, for it is every easy for people to have the wrong paradigm of God – if nothing else, over a billion Muslims all fundamentally believing that Sharia law should be world-law should be enough to suffice, to prove this point.
To understand God, to understand why God made us, to understand what is really happening, this is the novelty of Chassidus!
So let’s begin!
Understanding God:
In the classic paradigm, God was an authority figure, a bit like a dad, concerned for your spiritual morality, but not necessarily all that concerned about you!
Chassidus changed that, in Chassidus, God has no ego, so every cell that is alive, every human of course, is only because he has unconditional love for you (it etc.) but far more importantly, the reason classical thinking took this view of God, is because it was limited in its ability to extrapolate; as man is limited in his abilities, hence, can only attribute larger powers to a larger “man!” Chassidus realizes that there is no limit on God’s ability, hence a basic idea of Chassidus is that each and everything that occurs is constantly reoccurring, only through an infinite power recreating, directing and ultimately as we will soon read more about, doing it for the sake of man!
The next question is, why God made us? and again, we see a fundamental difference in approach, for in the classical paradigm, God is interested in himself, hence almost akin (God forbid, but psychologically similar) to idolatry; we serve God, for he has an ego that needs to be rubbed!
Chassidus as we mentioned, postulates that ego is only within man, not within God! hence, the reason God made us, again, is God loves us (and though, how would he love us, prior to us existing? because the image of who we are existed in his mind, much as a mother may imagine her child and love that image!)
And finally, what is the reality of our existence!?
Again, based on this paradigm, the classical idea, again, would be for us to be of service to God!
Chassidus basing itself on the correct notion that God has no egoistical needs, hence is only a God of love, has thus created our universe, for our sake! not for his!! and what is the love that he bestows?! – Ah, this is where it gets real interesting, for now we are going away from theories into the actual reality of life!
You see, as Chassidus never tires to teach, it was the loving-kindness of God that propelled him to create us, as his desire is to unite with us here on earth!
So all of reality is in essence the three stages; to this marriage union:
First comes the separation, the creation, the individualism, hence, we people with our own unique identities, egos, instincts were born; then came the engagement, where on Mount Sinai, God gave us the wedding ring, or perhaps the engagement ring; the Torah, its Mitzvos, his love for us, leading us into a beautiful land, but all of the past, was only the preparation for the era of Moshiach – the era which began in 1990 as the Rebbe prophetically told us (and also based on the happenings in the world foretold for thousands of years ago, by the prophets, which the Rebbe accurately surmised, meant Moshiach had begun) and in the marriage, an intimate unity is/will take place, namely where God and us will merge as a married couple, sharing the same name, the same body, the same consciousness!