Q&A: Questions about Exile and Redemption
Questions about Exile and Redemption
Question
I would like to ask about the sufferings of exile up until about 70 years ago, which some see as a fulfillment of prophecies such as “and among those nations you shall find no repose,” etc., and also about the redemption now. Both seem to me to contradict the prophecy in a very severe way. Not only can one not prove from them the fulfillment of prophecies, but quite the opposite.
For me this is a real question, because throughout this bitter process of exile I do not, broadly speaking, see the prophecies being fulfilled. At times it even seems to stand in opposition and severe contradiction to the prophecy and the covenant, and almost also to the logic of God’s justice, though with that one can always somehow manage.
Let us pay attention:
There were many periods of terrible decline during the Second Temple era, and no famine or persecution by enemies is mentioned in connection with them.
After that, in the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim, there were periods of unparalleled flourishing in devotion to God’s word, and on the other hand, bundles of suffering, also without parallel.
And so too in the period of the medieval authorities, and in the decrees of 1648–49.
So it is very difficult: where is it mentioned in the Torah that even when the people keep the commandments in exile they will suffer such immense troubles? There is a clear covenant here that troubles will come when they do not keep the commandments, and the whole section is said in one continuum: if they keep them, things will be good, and if not, then all the evil mentioned there will happen. Where can one find there the intermediate state—that even when the time for redemption has still not arrived and they remain in exile, yet they keep the commandments, and then too all these terrible troubles will come, sometimes even more forcefully?
Nor can one say that all those sufferings were not punishment, but only that God did not help them so long as they were not worthy of redemption, because there is no trace in the Torah of such a move. In the Torah it says that the sufferings come because they do not keep the commandments.
Especially since many of the sufferings came precisely because of the people’s devotion to keeping the commandments. Where is it hinted in prophecy that the covenant nation would suffer specifically because of its desire to keep the covenant?
So it comes out from all this that while one might think the Torah’s prophecies and the reality of the Jewish people are clear proof of its truth, since there is something wondrous here—the hatred of the gentiles, the return to the land twice, etc.—
yet when one examines the unfolding of history in a logical way, the picture that emerges is not one of fulfilled prophecies, but of a process of wisdom: a people that goes with God—if it succeeds, it is a model for imitation; and if not, it is despised by the nations. And with the emphasis that if it does not succeed, that does not mean it was not sufficiently serving God, but mainly that it did not know how to manage in reality.
And seemingly that is exactly what happened. I do not see in history that the troubles came specifically when they did not heed God’s voice, as written in the Torah. They came in torrents when they did not know how to manage. Christianity inflicted the overwhelming bulk of its terrible sufferings precisely when the Jewish people served God with all their heart and soul, only they did not know how to manage all that well in earthly reality, along with internal quarrels that arose out of seriousness about keeping the Torah. True, that can deteriorate—but can we understand that as the gravest thing?
So it is hard to see in Jewish history prophecy and a miraculous historical process in which it is evident that God’s hand is directing all this. That is, even if there is something wondrous here, prophecy there is not. The two great things, the hatred and the return to the land, are not written in the Torah: the hatred is written there regarding a people that does not heed God’s voice—and the people did heed; the return to the land is written regarding a people that heeds God’s voice and returns to Him—and twice they returned without heeding His voice. (There is no need to elaborate in rejecting the bizarre claim that God has now returned us for His name’s sake—based on Ezekiel. God acted for His name’s sake, and what came out in practice was Independence Day, which is entirely a disgrace to His name.) If one does not find the matter in explicit prophecy and we are left only with the wonder, then the events came about with considerable logic: the Jewish people, who cling (in their inner code, which even the off-the-yoke crowd also has) to the Infinite beyond the world, will necessarily appear insane when things do not go well for them; they will arouse intense hatred that keeps surfacing from underground for all kinds of reasons. They will preserve loyalty to something beyond—to Torah and the land of the fathers.
Regarding the matter of returning to our land without repentance, and with an outright raising of the banner of heresy, one must ask: this contradicts the rules of the Torah’s covenant in the crudest way imaginable. The matter of the Land of Israel and returning to it is not some side detail in the covenant, but rather the destruction of the entire covenant from its foundation. It seems to me that no one would have thought that returning to the land in a situation as good as ours would be included under “for the Lord had not said that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven… and there was neither bond nor free.” If it is included, then that destroys the whole covenant and its seriousness. For it is understandable that God avenges Himself on the nations even if they do not repent, but to return them to the land without repentance—and even without most of the people recognizing at all that it was God who brought them back—that is the collapse of the whole idea of covenant.
Nor does it seem plausible to say that Ezekiel’s prophecies are the solution. It is very hard to see the return to the land as a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s verses, where it says that God will act for His name’s sake. Was the return of secular Jews to the land for His name’s sake? And if we gained a few Christians who acknowledged the Jewish people, is that for His name’s sake? The return here happened with the proud assertion of independence, and there was no sanctification of His name in the plain sense.
Note: the question about the sufferings of exile is not at all part of the broader topic of “the righteous who suffers,” which concerns the individual. The question here is about the people as a whole, for which there is therefore a covenant in the Torah stating that the sufferings come because Torah and commandments are not kept. And this is very difficult in light of all the sufferings under Christianity in the era of the medieval authorities, etc.—whole generations upon generations.
Where is it written that once the exile begins, many, many generations will be punished for past sins—“shall the sword devour forever?”
Notice that through most of the exile there were truly righteous people.
Of course the question is not about particulars or about one or two generations who kept the Torah with self-sacrifice. Look at the whole process and you will see how the great men of our people over many generations searched for sins under every stone, even turning to dream-questions and receiving the answer, “This is a decree of the Torah.”
Answer
It’s hard for me to answer all these examples. In general I’d say that it is hard to bring proof from the fulfillment of prophecies, for several reasons. On the other hand, reconciling things so that reality does not contradict the prophecy is fairly easy. So I don’t have a great deal of interest in this.
I saw that one of the site’s participants has dealt with this quite a bit, and you can contact him: cinterpretation@gmail.com
Discussion on Answer
This too is a question that has troubled me and still troubles me, and seemingly undermines the Torah’s whole historical-national theology as a Torah from Heaven. For it seems, on the face of it, that there is no connection at all between keeping the commandments and exile and redemption. Throughout those 2,000 years of exile the Jewish people suffered and kept the Torah and commandments with devotion and extraordinary faithfulness, and also repented in masses, in many forms and variations—and despite all that, it had no connection whatsoever to the return to the land. What brought about the return to the land was not repentance, as Judaism claims, but simply correct political and statesmanlike conduct that led the people to make the effort and return to the land. If so, how can we continue to believe the words of the prophets as before? Are our prophets truly prophets of truth and justice, or did our forefathers inherit falsehood—at least in part?? I would be glad to hear the Rabbi’s response and/or that of additional commenters who might shed light on the matter. Thank you, and more power to you.
These facts also bother me מאוד, especially since the Torah emphasizes that first there will be a return to God and only afterward the ingathering of the exiles, whereas here the descendants of the Jews gathered together מתוך rebellion against God, returned to the land, and built a state.
Likewise, in the end-times prophecies the kingdom of Edom appears at the end [the one that existed in the time of the Sages…], and there is no hint at all of such a lukewarm period of the return of the kingdom of Israel while the messiah still has not come. Where did this creature come from?
The history of the Jewish people is unique: there is no nation in our condition that survived as we did[1], and there is also no nation that stood out in its achievements as we did. There is no nation more dispersed throughout the world than we were[2], no nation more hated and persecuted[3], and no nation that returned to its land after such lengthy processes of exile.
These great phenomena are exceptional, and without divine intervention they are inconceivable. Their combination only multiplies the wonder. But the most astonishing fact is that all of them were foreseen in the Torah, unambiguously, in a textual corpus that presents itself as prophecy about the future. This testifies to divine intervention in history, to our being a chosen people, and to the divine origin of the Torah.. We have seen the precision of the prophecies speaking about exile, and now we will present the precision of the prophecies about redemption.
5. The return to the land
As stated, we went into exile about two thousand years ago and underwent terrible suffering. And nevertheless we returned, from all over the world, back to the land. The process of the “Return to Zion” has been unfolding before our eyes for about 170 years. More and more joined the exceptional few who had gone up to it, until three years after the greatest blow the Jewish people ever endured—the Holocaust—a Jewish state arose here. From that moment, the Jew ceased to be a symbol of weakness and became a symbol of power. After two thousand years in which we were prey, we established an army and struck back against all who rose up to destroy us. Many gentiles see the Return to Zion process of our generation as the return of God’s Presence to be revealed in the land, and they come of their own initiative and seek out its doorstep, some even volunteering for public needs.
For hundreds of years the land was nearly desolate, like a lonely woman. The Torah declared this desolation in advance:
“And I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be desolated by it” (Leviticus 26:32).
Reality corresponds very well to the words of the prophecy. Nachmanides, in a letter from 1268, describes what his eyes saw in the land: “And what shall I tell you concerning the land? Great is the abandonment and great the desolation. In general, the holier the place, the more ruined it is; and Judah more than the Galilee.” The American writer Mark Twain visited the land in 1867 and recorded his impressions in his book The Innocents Abroad, and this is what he wrote there about the condition of the land: “A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful expanse… a desolation which not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely… We never saw a human being on the whole route… There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”
And now, after the land had been desolate for two thousand years, it returned to flourishing. For hundreds of years no one succeeded in making the Land of Israel bloom[27], but the pioneers succeeded in overcoming the desolation. The land returned to yield its produce like a woman whose lost husband has returned to her, as Ezekiel said: “But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are soon to come” (Ezekiel 36:8).
The ingathering of the exiles is the greatest miracle in all human history. There is no other nation that returned from an exile as long and difficult as ours. The Jewish people are the only people in history that, after about 2,000 years of exile, returned (for the third time![28]) to their historic homeland. All this despite the fragmentation and dispersion in which they lived throughout all the periods.
The prophecy of return
The ingathering of the exiles is the central end-times prophecy written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. Already in the Torah it is written:
“And it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you take them to heart among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it, and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. And the Lord your God will place all these curses upon your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and do all His commandments which I command you today. And the Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your land, for good; for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers; if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes written in this book of the Torah, if you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 30:1–10).
The announcement of the return to the land is not only in the Torah; it is a recurring motif throughout the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). We will bring only one source[29]:
“Old men and old women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:4–5).
Anyone who has walked once in Jerusalem has merited seeing the prophecy fulfilled. This evidence is the strongest proof of the truth of the Torah and prophecy, of the book of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and of the God of Israel, giver of the Torah, who also sends the prophets. There is no need for hidden proofs. The sight before our eyes is enough: “For eye to eye they shall see when the Lord returns to Zion.”
The wonder of the Return to Zion is agreed upon by all. True, there are stubborn people who claim that the prophecy was not fulfilled in the manner stated in the Torah, because the Torah placed returning to God before the return to the land, whereas in reality the return happened first and the process of repentance is still not complete. Thus it says in Scripture: “And you shall return to the Lord your God… then the Lord your God will return your captivity… and gather you… and bring you into the land which your fathers possessed… and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring” (Deuteronomy 30:2–6). According to the order of the verses, Israel’s return—“and you shall return to the Lord your God”—comes before the return to the land—“then the Lord your God will return your captivity”—whereas in practice the people who returned to the land have for the most part not yet merited to return to keeping the commandments!
However, further reflection shows that this objection has no basis:
A. Returning to God begins before full repentance to commandment observance
If one looks at the verses, it is easy to see that three stages are described here: A. “And you shall return to the Lord your God.” B. “Then the Lord your God will return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will gather you… and bring you into the land.” C. “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring.”
It is simple and clear that the third stage speaks of returning to keep all the Torah’s commandments. But if that is the third stage, what is the meaning of the first stage? One must say that the meaning of repentance in the first stage is not specifically a return to commandment observance, personal repentance, but rather a return to the land, national repentance.
So many have strained this verse away from its plain meaning, intentionally or not, and interpreted it as referring to the commandments, until its plain meaning was forgotten[31]. The very question we raised stems from the mistaken assumption that the meaning of the word “repentance” in the Torah is identical to the meaning we are used to attaching to it—the correction of one’s deeds in accordance with the 613 commandments of the Torah. But in the plain sense of Scripture, the desire to return to the land is the general repentance, and it was fulfilled in that the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora began to seek Zion[32]. According to the plain meaning of the verses, exile is not only a punishment; it is also a collective sin. Since exile is a sin, that sin must be corrected and one must repent—namely, repent toward the Land of Israel, on our own initiative, as a move of general repentance.
According to this reading, the first stage is the people’s desire to return to the land, the second stage is the return itself, and the third stage is the time when the people will return to living a religious way of life. If that is so, then historical reality matches exactly what is written in the Torah.
B. The order of the verses is not the order of the events
In addition, the rule is known that “there is no earlier and later in the Torah,” and it could be that here too the order is not chronological. More than that, sometimes Scripture gives a general statement and then details it; so too in our verses. The verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God” is a heading for the passage, and only after it are the matters arranged in their chronological order—return to the land, ingathering of exiles, and finally repentance[33]. Support for this interpretation is Ezekiel’s prophecy in chapter 37, where he explicitly prophesies the return to the land, after which repentance will come.
C. The earliest immigrants were the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov
In the historical consciousness about the beginning of the return to the land there is a distortion (intentional or not). The immigration called “the First Aliyah” was definitely not the first; the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov and the disciples of the Vilna Gaon preceded it and had already come up to the land in the 18th century. These immigrants, by taking hold in the land, formed the hard core that made it possible for the entire Zionist enterprise to stand on its feet. Had it not been for their settlement in the land, and their being a living example of the feasibility of an established Jewish settlement in Israel, all those tens of thousands who came in the later immigrations would never have come. They constituted the beginning of the Jews’ return to the land after long years of exile. These immigrants were righteous and Torah-observant, who came up out of repentance and in order to hasten redemption. And from now on, the prophecy shines forth in its plain sense.
The process of repentance is not yet complete. The time will still come when all will return to live lives of holiness, and then God’s providence will be revealed before the eyes of all, and there will no longer be any need for external proofs that the Torah and the prophecies are true.
The leading authority on the topic is the humble and encyclopedic Rabbi Yehoshua Inbal on the Ratio website. On the site “To Know to Believe” you can also find an article on fulfilled prophecies, but whoever wants to quench his thirst should go to the spring itself, like a little kid. The spring of the Renaissance man, Rabbi Yehoshua Inbal, may he live long.