Vaera
The Lubavitcher Rebbe on Parashat Vaera, read on Shabbat Vaera — with one of this week's three questions for the two of you.
Vaera contains the four leshonot ge'ulah — the four expressions of redemption: v'hotzeti, v'hitzalti, v'ga'alti, v'lakachti. I will take you out. I will save you. I will redeem you. I will take you to Me as a people. These four became the four cups of wine at the Pesach seder. The Rebbe, in many sichot, returns to a teaching that follows from this: redemption is not a single event. It is a sequence of four. Each stage is real. Each is a piece of the larger arc. The mistake is to wait for the fourth expression as if the first three didn't count — and so to miss the redemption that has already begun. Recognize the stages, and you see what has already been given.
Where in our life right now are we waiting for v'lakachti — the full, dramatic version of redemption — and missing the v'hotzeti that has already happened?
The full week — the passage itself with its source, the other two questions, and the closing verse of hope — lives in the app. Together Tomorrow on the App Store.