You Can Change the World
Throughout history, the people who changed the world were not always those with the greatest resources or the most advanced technology. They were those with the greatest vision.
A visionary sees what others overlook. They recognize possibilities hidden within the ordinary and find ways to make extraordinary ideas accessible to everyone.
Think about the innovators who have transformed our lives.
Marc Andreessen helped make the internet practical and accessible to the general public. Larry Page and Sergey Brin organized the world's information so that answers once buried in libraries could be found in seconds. Charles Schwab lowered the barriers to investing, opening opportunities that had long been reserved for the financial elite. More recently, Sam Altman helped bring advanced artificial intelligence into everyday conversation, allowing billions of people to benefit from technology that once seemed reserved for researchers and engineers.
What do they all have in common?
They took something that was complex, expensive, or inaccessible. They simplified it, scaled it, and made it available to ordinary people. Their lasting contribution was not merely inventing something new, it was translating an idea into a language the world could use.
That is the essence of vision.
Visionary Thinking Is for Everyone
It is tempting to think that vision belongs only to geniuses, inventors, entrepreneurs, or scientists. Judaism teaches otherwise.
Visionaries do not simply react to the world as it is. They imagine the world as it can become, and then dedicate themselves to bringing that future into reality.
Every parent who sees potential in a child, every teacher who uncovers hidden talents, every entrepreneur who solves an overlooked problem, every community member who brings people together is practicing visionary leadership.
The greatest visionaries help others see possibilities they could not yet see themselves.
Moses: Translating Eternity
This week we begin the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), Moses' final address to the Jewish people.
The Talmud teaches that Moses translated the Torah into seventy languages.
At first glance, this seems unnecessary. The Jewish people spoke Hebrew. Why translate it?
Because Moses was not simply translating words.
He was translating purpose.
He foresaw generations of Jews scattered across the world, living among different cultures, speaking different languages, and facing challenges he himself would never experience.
His message was profound: the Torah belongs everywhere.
Its wisdom should never remain locked within one language, one culture, or one era. Every generation has the responsibility to discover how eternal values speak to contemporary life.
Moses understood that progress would continually reshape civilization. Rather than fearing change, he prepared us to translate timeless wisdom into every new reality—to bring Torah into our homes, businesses, communities, technologies, and relationships.
The greatest leaders are communicators. They connect eternal truth with present reality.
The Rebbe's Vision
This same spirit defined the leadership of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Emerging after the devastation of the Holocaust and decades of Soviet repression, many saw only loss and survival.
The Rebbe saw renewal.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once described asking the Rebbe to help him recover the ability to cry after losing his father in Buchenwald.
The Rebbe answered:
"That's not enough. I shall teach you to sing."
The Rebbe was not dismissing pain. He had experienced unimaginable suffering himself.
But vision always looks beyond the present.
He believed the Jewish future would not merely survive—it would flourish with joy. He empowered ordinary people to become extraordinary leaders, teaching that every individual could illuminate the world through one more mitzvah, one more act of kindness, one more Torah study, one more Jewish home, and one more soul inspired.
Like Moses, the Rebbe translated eternity into everyday life.
Shabbat Chazon: Learning to See
This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Chazon—the "Shabbat of Vision."
Its Haftorah opens with Isaiah's vision warning of Jerusalem's destruction, events commemorated on the fast of Tisha B'Av observed this coming week.
Yet Judaism refuses to let destruction define our reality.
The Jerusalem Talmud teaches that on the very day the Temple was destroyed, the soul of Moshiach was born.
Within every ending lies the seed of a new beginning.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev taught that on Shabbat Chazon every Jew is shown a vision of the future Third Temple.
He compares it to a father who lovingly prepares a beautiful garment for his son. After the child repeatedly damages the garments prepared for him, the father creates a third garment but only reveals it from time to time, saying, "When you are ready, it will be yours."
The vision inspires the child to mature until he becomes worthy of receiving it.
Likewise, on Shabbat Chazon our souls are shown a glimpse of the perfected world; not merely as a dream, but as a mission. Even if we do not consciously perceive it, that vision shapes who we become and how we live.
Becoming Visionaries
This Shabbat, let us embrace that vision. Let us perform one more mitzvah, give additional charity, put on Tefillin, affix a Mezuzah on our home and office, study more Torah, provide quality Jewish education to our youth, and pray for the safety of our brothers and sisters in Israel and throughout the world.
May our shared vision hasten the fulfillment of the prophet Zechariah's promise that the fast of Tisha Beav will one day become "joy and gladness and cheerful festivals."
May we merit to celebrate together in Jerusalem with the coming of Moshiach, speedily in our days.
