Chapter XXII · 1 min read
The Seventh Generation and What Comes After Completion
Seven completes; eight asks what completion was for
The Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke explicitly of Dor HaShevi'i, the seventh generation of Chabad.
The significance was not aristocratic.
It was functional.
All sevenths are cherished because the seventh completes a movement.
The task articulated in בָּאתִי לְגַנִּיBasi LeGani“I have come into My garden.” The maamar associated with the mandate of the seventh generation to draw the Shechinah downward into the lowest world.Glossary is to draw the שְׁכִינָהShechinahThe Divine Presence as it dwells. The word shares a root with dirah, dwelling — indwelling rather than visitation.Glossary downward, into the lowest world.
This matters enormously for Chanoch.
He too is seventh.
But his seventh resolves upward.
The seventh generation of Chabad is charged with a movement downward.
Chanoch, seventh from Adam, is taken from earth.
Dor HaShevi'i labours to make earth a dwelling.
The symmetry is almost impossible not to contemplate.
The ancient seventh shows the capacity of a human being to cross upward.
The later seventh insists that the purpose is to draw Elokus downward.
One establishes ascent.
The other labours for inhabitation.
This does not make them opposites.
They are two arcs of a single circuit.
Chanoch shows that the lower can return.
חֲסִידוּתChassidusThe Chassidic teaching, and in particular the Chabad discipline of bringing the highest concepts into a form that transforms the person contemplating them.Glossary reveals why the light must come home.