The two hundred and fiftieth "cheder" in the Hayom Yom hall.
Wednesday, 3 Menachem Av, 5703.
Lessons: Chumash, Devarim, Revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, on the third day of the month, we recite from chapter 18 up to and including chapter 22.
Tanya: On this day, one studies the entire chapter 11 of Iggeret HaTeshuvah, from the beginning of the chapter with the word "V'amnam" until the conclusion of the chapter on page 100, which ends with the words "l'ein ketz."
The daily teaching was said by the Rebbe Rayatz at the farbrengen of Pesach in the year 5694. At that same farbrengen the Rebbe Rayatz related that every year, at the morning meal on the eve of Yom Kippur, his father — the Rebbe Rashab — would speak about a matter connected to Chassidus and to the service of Hashem. Usually, so he says, the subject was how the service of the eve of Yom Kippur will look at the coming of Mashiach.
He relates that on one occasion the Rebbe Rashab said that when Mashiach comes, there will be here in the physical world, openly revealed, that same G-dly revelation that exists in the world of Atzilus — literally in physicality. In the physical world the true face of the world will be revealed, and the Etzem will become manifest within it, both in time and in place; and every person will have a true intellect through which he will be able to understand everything and to see precisely how it is from the standpoint of truth.
Continuing along these lines, he brings the daily teaching. The source is in Yiddish, and in translation: "From the talks of my revered father and teacher [the Rashab]: Then, when Mashiach comes speedily in our days, amen, people will yearn for the days of exile. It will be then that they will feel remorse over why they did not engage in 'avodah.' Then they will already feel the great pain of the absence of avodah." In other words, when Mashiach comes, we will look back and understand how powerful the days of exile were.
"Right now, the days of exile — they are the days of avodah to prepare for the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days, amen" — the loftiness of the time of exile, as the Rebbe explained the saying over the years in various farbrengens, is that today the avodah is to nullify the darkness and to nullify the concealment and the hiddenness; and this avodah reveals and brings the very Essence of the Creator here. We do not reveal it now — the revelation will be in the time to come — yet the matter is already happening today: today we connect to the Essence of the Creator through this avodah, only that we do not see it. And when Mashiach comes, we will understand how powerful this avodah was, and then we will wonder why we did not act.
And it is specifically mesirus nefesh — as the Rebbe says in another sichah — the avodah with mesirus nefesh is revealed today; for when Mashiach will be revealed, the avodah will already be easy, everything will be in light, and there will be no mesirus nefesh. Today is the time.