Let me just mention that Herzl predicted that the State of Israel would arise 50 years after the Basel Congress.

I’m really astonished.

A person comes and points to a world-historical event,
gives the day, gives the year, and describes a certain spiritual-religious situation.
And all this about 500 years before it happened…

What are the chances that this is not divine revelation?
The probability that a person would hit this exactly is very far from common sense…

Where’s the logic?

The logic was explained above, at least in part. What you’re missing is probably a bit of thinking and statistical skill. See also Nostradamus. Good luck.

A question for the questioner:
I looked online at the book in question at this link:
https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/reader/reader.aspx?sfid=57993#p=1&fitMode=fitwidth&hlts=&ocr=
on page 23,
and I didn’t see that it says there the year 5708 or the 5th of Iyar. What it says there is only that the phrase “lie down until the morning” is a hint to the redemption. Where did you see that he mentions the year 5708 or the 5th of Iyar?

In addition, more generally, I think the Rabbi means that in order to say that a person predicts correctly, it is not enough to bring one prediction of his that came true; you have to bring all his predictions and see what percentage of them came true. For example, if the Ari gave many different predictions about many events, what people tend to highlight and talk about is only the predictions where he was right, and not the ones where he was wrong. That creates a situation where it apparently looks like a prophet is involved, but in practice it’s a statistical result of many predictions, one of which eventually hit.

The 5th of Iyar is simply in his words about “Foundation within Glory,”
which is the 5th of Iyar (in most prayer books this is printed under the counting of the Omer for each day — which sefirah it is).
(In the edition you sent, the print is corrupted, and I also don’t see “Foundation within Glory” 😳 but in all the editions I’ve seen until today it appears as “Foundation within Glory.”)
He ends about the time that cannot be written… but in any case he concludes with the code “lie down until the morning,” and this is the secret of the redemption.
A simple opening-up of “lie down until morning” shows = 5708.
“The morning” = 5708.

After all, there are 3 situations:
1. There are not enough merits and good deeds (most were secular?) — there is a certain end, “as the Lord lives.”
2. It is on the 5th of Iyar.
3. It is in the year 5708.

That “lie down until the morning” is the year 5708 is something known in Kabbalah books even before the 5th of Iyar 5708.
For example, I saw a Kabbalah book that came out on Hanukkah 5708, and instead of writing the publication year 5708 in the usual way, it wrote the year of publication as “lie down until the morning.”

In short, once you check, the matter starts getting complicated. Interpretations this intricate drain this prediction of its content. I can always combine what is written in various books and create predictions. In my past experience, that is usually what happens with the “absolute” and “convincing” predictions brought up in discussions like these. That’s why I usually don’t bother checking these things in depth (aside from the fact that they don’t interest me all that much).

The book is Brit Olam by Rabbi Amram Aburbeh,
printed in Jerusalem on Hanukkah 5708.
It refers to the publication year as “lie down until the morning.”

To dear Oren,

Even in the print you brought (the words are a bit blurry), it appears there explicitly:

“Foundation within Glory”…
Foundation is the heh of tiferet (glory),
and then he concludes: “and there is here a great hint…”

In editions with regular print it’s simply clearer.

With God’s help, 1st of Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5783

The most explicit vision of redemption we have found is in Ezekiel’s prophecy: “But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are soon to come.” And this was fulfilled magnificently in the year 5708, when the gates of the Land were opened to the immigration of millions of Jews, who made the land bloom and continue to make it fruitful after it had been ruined and desolate for thousands of years.

But the first third of 5709 is also the “fifth hour” of the sixth millennium, in which, according to the Ari, there is a glimmering of the holiness of the Sabbath. Indeed, it seems that in the “beginning of the ingathering of the exiles,” which also brought about the revival of the world of Torah in the Land of Israel, there is “great preparation” for the “day that is entirely Sabbath,” speedily in our days, amen.

With blessings, Menashe Barkai Buch-Trager

In the fifth hour India was also freed from British rule, and this was the “beginning” of the dismantling of the empires that ruled the world. Around the sixth hour, midday, near the year 5750, the Russian empire also collapsed and the “Iron Curtain” fell. Perhaps by the year 5792 (the seventh hour), China, North Korea, and Iran as well will join the processes of freedom.

Tzaddik Yesod Olam, the kabbalistic commentary on Ruth, is a Sabbatean book, and absolutely not from the Ari, may his memory be a blessing. People keep making this mistake, including Rabbi Sherki.

To Yehoshua,
Regards from the classroom bench in a master’s degree program at the college…

A Sabbatean book…
A. If he knew how to write, and hundreds of years ago wrote specifically the 5th of Iyar, specifically 5708, specifically when most were secular,
“as the Lord lives” — it will not be delayed — then he hit the mark exactly.
What difference does it make if he was a Sabbatean?
Bottom line, he identified something.
B. I don’t know what your skills are in Kabbalah books,
but to “accuse” a Kabbalah book from hundreds of years ago of having certain Sabbatean ideas is exactly like accusing a standard Jewish law book from our own day of having certain Orthodox ideas…