It's pouring

Last night I remembered some more of what Rabbi Manis Friedman said, and I'll relay it to you right now. Oh yeah, and if anyone has any theological problems, please remember that generally it's not nice to shoot the messenger. With that said...
The Jews got the Torah. Hashem himself told us the first two commandments. Forty days later they worship a calf. What's up with that? And think about it. The only two commandments which they broke were the first two! The two that they heard directly. (Fine, so what about Rashi? That's why I said, don't shoot the me. Please.) What was the problem? Hashem wanted to tell all the commandments to Moshe, and then he would relay them over to the Israelites. The Israelites weren't too pleased with this; they wanted to hear from Hashem himself. So Hashem said fine, if that's what they want. After two though, they couldn't take it anymore, so Moshe continued. Why couldn't they take it? Because they weren't keilim, they weren't vessels. They couldn't deal with G-d himself talking. So what happened? They broke these two commandments. The lesson for us? You've got to have a Moshe. Without a Moshe there's no hope. Heck, even with a Moshe we sometimes have problems.

Another great little thing that I heard in the name of the Rabbi, though not straight from the horse's mouth (as it were) was a little question from some dude to the Rabbi. "Is your Rebbe the Moshiach?" Obviously this question is one of the more controversial things to have ever hit Lubavitch in the last, oh, let's say sixteen thousand years or so. Rabbi Manis answered, "Have you ever seen what it says about Moshiach in the Yalkut Shimoni? It says that he's a leper, bound in chains, degraded, suffering public humiliation and private torments, a broken body, a destroyed physique, (etc). Do you really think I want this for my Rebbe? Now Shach maybe, he would be a good candidate. After all, Menachem Shmo."

And thus was the empire forged.