A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת לך לך. In פרשת לך לך we find a pasuk that Hashem told Avraham Avinu that he's going to have a child, he's going to have children. And one of the things it says there, ויוצא אותו החוצה, he took him outside, and he said to him, \"Look, you see the stars, you can't count the stars, so much will be your children, you won't be able to count them.\" And Rashi has different peshatim what it means he took him outside. And one of the things that Rashi says is like this: Hashem said to Avram, \"Go out\"—he took him outside means \"Go out,\" he said to him, \"of your astrology. You see in the constellations that you're not going to have a child. So I want to tell you, don't worry about that. Why? Because what you see is that Avram is not going to have a child, but I'm changing your name to Avraham, so Avraham could have a child. Same thing with your wife. You see in the constellations that Sarai will not have a child, but now that I change your name to Sarah, Sarah will have a child. So I call you with another name, and your mazal will change.\" Now, we have to understand, what is the connection between these names, the name Avraham that was changed, and the name Sarai, to the birth of Yitzchak? Because the meaning of these names is, as Rashi says, to show that Avraham and Sarah are, so to speak, the boss over the whole world. Rashi says, what does the word Avraham mean? כי אב המון גוים נתתיך, that I made you the father of all the nations. So the word Avraham shows that Avraham is the boss of all the nations. When it comes to the name Sarah, when Sarai was changed to Sarah, Rashi says on the פסוק לא תקרא שמה שרי, so Sarah, Sarai, but called Sarah, Sarai means my princess. So it's mine, not to anybody else. Sarah, stam, means a princess, you are the princess on everybody. So here we're talking about Avraham and Sarah becoming the boss over all the nations of the world, that's what these names represent. So what's the connection between the meaning of these names, and this is an introduction to the birth of Yitzchak? Now Yitzchak is the first-born Jew. So basically, to a certain degree, he is the beginning of the Jewish nation of Am Yisrael. So what does the name Avraham and Sarah, which represent that Avraham and Sarah are the boss over the world, what does it have to do with the birth of Yitzchak, which was the beginning of Am Yisrael? Now, in simple peshat, you can't ask such a kushya, because the whole reason he changed his name was so the mazal would change, and therefore it makes no difference what the name represents, as long as there is a new name. So which it means is that what you see in the mazal is that this person cannot have a child, but if you change his name, it's a different person, so the mazal will not be the same. So in that case, there is no difference what the name means. But we always have to look at things deeper, and since this was an introduction to the birth of Yitzchak, there must be some connection between the meaning of these names that were changed from Avram, Avram to Avraham, and from Sarai to Sarah, has a connection to the birth of Yitzchak, which seems the opposite, that has to do with the whole world, not davka with Am Yisrael.

So the Rebbe explains it like this: the Chazal tell us, the Chachamim tell us, Rashi brings it in the beginning of Parshat Bereishit, that the whole world was created בשביל ישראל, for the Yidden. In other words, the purpose of the creation of the world, of the whole creation, is for the Yidden. Not only that, the Yidden are commanded to influence the whole world and make them better. And the Rambam actually says, this is the לשון, צוה משה רבינו מפי הגבורה, משה רבינו was commanded from השם, לכוף את כל באי העולם לקבל מצוות שנצטוו בני נח, to force the whole world to accept the mitzvot that the goyim were given. So it's the obligation of the Yidden to influence the whole world, and the creation of the whole world was because of the Yidden.

So that's the connection between these names as an introduction to the birth of Yitzchak, who's the beginning of Am Yisrael, was changing the names of Avram and Sarai to Avraham and Sarah, that represents the idea that the Yidden are in the control of the whole world, that Avraham and Sarah are the control of the whole world. So that brings out the mission of Klal Yisrael. The whole world was created because of Yidden, so they have this mission to influence the whole world. Therefore, before Yitzchak was born, the Oibershter made that they should have a possibility of being the boss controlling the whole world, and that's the introduction to the birth of Am Yisrael, because that's the job that the mission and the mission that the Yidden have, to control the whole world and bring the whole world to see the true light of Hashem, and this will be Materialize in simple way when Moshiach will come, when the whole world recognize it, but it all is based on the fact that we bring this light into the world.