When Everyone Can Win an Argument: Truth in the Generation Before the Messiah

“And the truth was missing.” Opening There is a well-known lesson from the world of economics. When a government prints money without limit, the money loses its value. It does not lose value because it shines less. It loses value because there is too much of it. What makes something valuable is that it is rare. My brother, look at what is happening in our own generation. New technology can produce, within moments, a convincing argument for any position at all. It can argue for every side, every school of thought, every dispute. It “prints” persuasion without limit. And what happens when persuasion becomes a cheap product with no end to the supply? Exactly what happens to money. It loses its value. For thousands of years, the world was ruled by people with clever reasoning, by gifted speakers, by the sharpest minds. Today, clever reasoning is everywhere. The rare and precious thing that remains is no longer “the better argument.” It is reality itself. It is the truth itself. The Root of Every Argument: Not the Mind, but the Will Here we have to stop and ask: why couldn’t we see this before? Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains something that touches the raw nerve of every human argument. People do not disagree because one of them is missing information. They disagree because they want different things and have different character traits. The mind, he says, is not an independent “judge” who sits in court and rules according to the truth. The mind is a “lawyer.” Its job is to justify what the heart has already decided. When the animal soul, the part of us drawn to the physical, wants something, it recruits the mind to give it a nice-sounding excuse. The divine soul does exactly the same thing, only for the good. Now you can understand. As long as persuasion was rare and expensive, we could think that whoever had the “stronger argument” must be right. Technology has shattered that illusion completely. It has shown everyone what Hasidic teaching has always taught: reasoning does not decide the truth. What we want decides our reasoning. “Brazenness Will Grow”: Not a Lament, but Good News Our Sages described the time just before the Messiah, when we can already hear his footsteps. They used words that sound like a lament: “Brazenness will grow,” and “The truth will be missing.” But the great Hasidic master of Lubavitch explains that these signs are not only a curse. They describe a process that Hashem is directing on purpose. Step by step, generation after generation, Hashem is taking apart every false authority. When every argument sounds equally weighty, when every opinion “is based on evidence,” when persuasion loses its power, the generation is pushed into a corner. It is forced to ask one question it cannot escape: Who gave you the authority? That is the question of redemption. Not “Who is winning the argument?” but “Who has the right to decide at all?” And once this question is asked for real, only one answer still stands: the One who created reality. The One who gave the Torah. The One whose authority does not come from being “convincing,” but from being reality itself. Closing: Putting It to Work Whether you are a young married man or a working man with a family, you live inside this sea every day. You read, you listen, you scroll. From every side, arguments come pouring down on you: “facts,” “studies,” opposite opinions that all sound “logical.” It is confusing. It is exhausting. But the lesson here is not “Go find a stronger argument.” The lesson is to step out of the game entirely. The task of this generation is not to “win.” It is to connect. Do not hunt for the “convincing proof” of faith. Live by accepting Hashem as King, a commitment that does not depend on being convinced at all. Our Sages teach: “Set aside your will before His will.” They do not say “Convince yourself.” When you are connected to Hashem’s will, you stand on ground that no “inflation” of arguments can shake.