Q&A: The Beginning of Redemption
The Beginning of Redemption
Question
Does the Rabbi see our times today—after the establishment of the State—as a time of the beginning of redemption and an emergence from exile?
Answer
There certainly was an emergence from exile here. Is it irreversible? I have no idea. Concepts like the beginning of redemption, the footsteps of the Messiah, and the like—no one understands them anyway, and no one knows how to say anything meaningful about them. Just empty verbiage.
Discussion on Answer
In my humble broad opinion, it is reversible and depends a great deal on our actions.
If we act to advance the redemption, to increase goodness and light, then it has a chance to continue until complete redemption—the Temple, prophecy, etc.
But if, God forbid, we do foolish things and crown over us as leader of the people someone accused of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, and listen to rabbis who do foolish things and are crazy and unhinged,
it can deteriorate into yet another full-scale destruction.
And may God help us return in complete repentance from corruption and baseless hatred that have brought us down into Bibi-ist degradation, and may we quickly return to being a light unto the nations.
Amen.
*that brought us down, etc.
https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=57993&st=&pgnum=23&hilite=
It is worth looking carefully at his wording there (I’m attaching it here for the public benefit, and because it would take a long time to find it).
The Ari, in the book Tzaddik Yesod Olam on the Book of Ruth
on the verse:
“And if he will not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you; as the Lord lives, lie down until morning.”
He swore in the name of the Lord that there is a date for the redemption, and by the life of the Lord it will not be delayed.
And the date is Yesod within Tiferet (the 5th of Iyar, as appears in every prayer book in the counting of the Omer, a counting for each day).
And this too is in a situation of “then I will redeem you” — a redemption that I will do for My own sake, because there is no merit (most of them are secular).
And this is the secret of the redemption:
“Lie down until morning” — 5708 in gematria, when the hey is counted in the thousands.
So we have here already from about 500 years ago in the name of the Ari, or at least from his disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital about 450 years ago,
an oath in the name of the Lord that the date of redemption would not be delayed beyond the 5th of Iyar, 5708, and even that most of them would be secular.
Now, to say that this is complete redemption—this does not seem so.
Apparently it is the beginning of redemption.
Now the question is: once it has begun, must it continue, or can it, God forbid, go backward?
In my humble broad opinion,
it is re