012 - 8th of Nissan - Menashe & Cheshvan

After the elevated energy of Tishrei, Day 8 brings us into stillness. Simplicity. Subtlety.

Today we align with the tribe of Menashe and the month of Cheshvan—a month with no holidays, no fanfare, and no outward spiritual peaks. It’s sometimes even called Mar Cheshvan—“bitter Cheshvan”—because of its quiet emptiness.

But what if that emptiness isn’t bitter at all?

What if it’s the exact space where something deeper settles in?

Menashe was the older son of Yosef, born in the depths of exile. His name comes from the root nasha, to forget—yet he is the one who remembered. The one who carried spiritual legacy even in galut. The one who anchored his identity in quiet faithfulness.

And Cheshvan is that same energy:
The holiness of what no one sees.
The sacredness of the ordinary.
The quiet return to the rhythm of life after the intensity of Tishrei.

If you’ve been craving magic, this day reminds you: it’s already here.

In your sink.
In your hands.
In your hallway.
In your breath.

Geulah isn’t waiting for a lightning bolt.

It’s the shift that happens when you begin to see everything—truly everything—as holy.

In Hayom Yom, the Rebbe explains the verse from Chavakuk:

“A stone will cry out from the wall, and a beam will answer from the wood.”

This isn’t metaphor. It’s the essence of redemption:
When even the stones of your life speak of G-d.

When you wake up to the fact that everything is constantly being sustained by Divine life-force—chayus—and nothing is truly mundane.

The Geulah consciousness doesn’t lift you out of life.
It deepens your presence inside it.