This Call’s For You – Please Pick Up

Dear friend – you’re being called to greatness!

Yes, I know life doesn’t always feel that great … and we don’t always feel that great about ourselves … so what’s up with the cliche about being “called to greatness”?

Let me ask you a question – can you have life without purpose?

Of course, you can.

But it’s like having a job without productivity. Or like having a meal without taste. Or like having a house but not a home. Or like having sex without intimacy. Or like having money without magnanimity. The act is there but the spirit is not. You can move through the motions of life without seeing a purpose – but you’re not really alive. Life will never feel great when you just go through the motions.

If, however, we begin to appreciate the true meaning of the Jewish belief in Divine Providence – that each and every circumstance of our life down to the tiniest detail is ordained by G-d for a specific reason as part of His Grand Plan, then we begin to see ourselves as His emissaries in order to fulfill that mission He entrusted us with. With that belief in hand, we’re motivated to search and discover the purpose of life at any given moment – and then fulfill it.

Sometimes it’s easy to know what your purpose is, sometimes it’s hard to find the purpose. Sometimes it’s easy to accomplish what we know we need to accomplish, sometimes it’s more difficult than we imagined. But regardless of ease or difficulty, the very knowledge of the fact that the purpose is there – lurking just beneath the surface – makes a world of difference and is itself a motivation to help us overcome the obstacles in our path of life.

After all, if you’ve been called to greatness – and what can be greater than being an emissary of G-d Himself – who would not want to answer the call?

68 years ago tonight, after a year of reluctance and hesitation, the Rebbe finally accepted the mantle of leadership of the Chabad movement. In a profoundly ironic twist, the Rebbe quickly turned the tables on the group of Chassidim who thought they were celebrating the fact that the Rebbe finally answered his call to greatness.

“According to Kabbalah”, the Rebbe began his inaugural sermon, “every particular element of creation is simply a clue, a link, to something beyond what you actually encounter at that given moment. It’s the responsibility of every individual to follow the clues and bring all the links of life together …” The Rebbe spoke for hours, expounding on this theme of personal responsibility. And then concluded with this:

“So, dearest Chassidim, do not think that you’ve now chosen a leader who is going to do all that work for you. Each one of you is an emissary of G-d, blessed with an abundance of talent and resources to make great things happen. What are you waiting for?”

And with those words uttered 68 years ago, the Rebbe sparked the greatest renaissance of Jewish life in history.

68 is the numerical value of the word “Chayim”, which means life. Find your purpose and not only will you feel alive … but you’ll feel great. In the literal sense of the word.