Following the Footsteps of Moshiach in 5778

Some footprints of the Rebbe in action are easy to spot.

Today’s deserves mention. Today is
י׳׳ט כסלו תשע׳׳ח.

World events after all stem from Torah - the blueprint of the world. So let's look at secular developments to see how Torah life renders a refreshing perspective.

Today President Trump announced that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish People! As far as America and most of the world was concerned, Israel was a country without a capital until now.

Today is Yud-Tes Kislev! Yud-Tes Kislev is a rather new chassidic holiday. An ancient primordial brightness, unbearable for mankind to have seen over the course of most of its history, until recently, is now finally becoming easy to behold. Chabad had turned this day into a Rosh Hashanna of Chassidus. This holiday is in commemoration of the Alter Rebbe's emancipation from certain death at the hands of the KGB in Soviet Russia. His freedom had vindicated his efforts to further disseminate the wellsprings of Chassidus.

That is, permission was granted from on high to spread these hidden aspects of Torah wholesale worldwide. Thereafter, with every Chabad Rebbe, these teachings gushed forth and burgeoned even more. That primordial bright light they were disseminating - is the new light of Moshiach!

The Alter Rebbe spurred his chassidim to “live with the times!”. He meant, put your heart into study of Torah as apportioned by the week and by day of the week.

Under the Rebbe MH”M this idiom transformed to mean that all you see, feel, hear and interact with should consider the imminence of Moshiach or his presence as its backdrop; The Rebbe urged us to always “think Moshiach!”

So, let's think Moshiach. Today is Yud-Tes Kislev. What does the industrious talmid find in today’s portion of Chumash (parshas Vayeishev, in the 4th section, being that today is Wednesday)? He learns the segment about Yehuda and Tamar.

In perek 38, possuk 15, says the Baal Haturim:

לזונה. ב' במסורה. ויחשבה לזונה. איכה היתה לזונה (ישעיה א, כא). מה תמר בבזיון ולבסוף בכבוד אף ירושלים סופה בכבוד, כדכתיב (זכריה ב, ט) ולכבוד אהיה בתוכה. וזהו זאת קומתך דמתה לתמר  (שה"ש ז, ח

Translation: Just as Tamar had to compromise herself (for the sake of lawful progeny) stooping to apparent humiliation in order to serve a future glorious cause, so too Jerusalem must first suffer disgrace before it can exult in its return to dominion.

This the Baal Haturim learns from a 5-letter word that repeats itself only twice in all of Tanach (see image of search results - 2 "hits" in all of Tanach), once in reference to Tamar; the other in reference to Jerusalem. This same word in both places suggests an association can be made between Tamar and Jerusalem.

(This connection, between Tamar and Jerusalem, is also alluded to by King Solomon in Shir Hashirim (7:8) - זאת קומתך דמתה לתמר.)

By coinciding Yud-Tes Kislev with the day Trump made his epic announcement, the Rebbe shows the association is operative for the era of Moshiach. If we "live with the times", then today’s Baal Haturim bespeaks of worldly events -- happening today in our times!

Here’s another "living with the times" nuance:

This week's days are among the shortest of the year. Midday is therefore close to noon, unlike the midday on any other summer day. Were we to make the Jewish calculation where each of "God's day" counts as 1,000 human years, then we are presently already into Friday, or Erev Shabbos. That means by the year 5778 we are plenty past 12 noon already (ie, past 5500)! The timing of glorifying Jerusalem on a day when Shabbat enters earliest seems significant. It suggests the rapid advance of The Era of Ultimate Redemption, the days of eternal Shabbat.

Hope to dance with you all in Yerushalayim, very soon, in our days!

UPDATE (12/24/17):
Just discovered too that last year on this day, on Yud-Tes Kislev 5777, Monday, December 19, 2016, Donald Trump won the electoral college vote (-- which counts -- as opposed to the popular vote, which doesn't count) and became President of the USA! So here we have yet another of the Rebbe's imprints.

The Fall of Islamofascism

Just when the Islamofascist venom infected the bloodstream of Western society, causing convulsions in Europe and threatening to destabilize other Western societies, a miracle, being forged for the Jewish people, runs well-hidden behind this specter. Paradoxically, though Arab peril seems to be waxing, Yishmael's downfall is, in fact, in the making.

The Purim miracle, unlike that of Chanukah's for example, wove itself through the fabric of day-to-day events without breaking Nature's rules. An observer of daily events in ancient Persia would never have noticed the many "coincidences" that intertwined to produce the one big miracle. In ancient Jerusalem, on the other hand, this observer would easily have spotted the miracle of the rout of Rome's huge, well-equipped army by a handful of Maccabees, or that the Temple's one day's supply of oil lasted 8 full days.

Of the two sorts of miracle (let alone that Nature itself is an ongoing miracle), the Purim-type is the "greater" miracle (as if God needed extra effort to camouflage the miracle within regular, day-to-day events.)

We now have a Purim-like miracle transpiring for the Jewish people. Let's step back to scan the unfolding picture. The birth pangs of Moshiach brought us from the holocaust back to our Holy Land, after some 2,000 years. Jews continued to suffer, mostly from Muslim terrorism, because the labor contractions can continue a while longer, even after birth.

The all-powerful Soviet Union vaporized and hundreds of thousands of captive Jews fled for freedom and opportunity.

Israel's hostile enemies, the Arab and Muslim dictatorships, are beginning to fall. Iraq's sadist despot, Saddam Hussein, was overthrown, captured and hanged. Tunisia, who many years gave Palestinian terrorists refuge, recently collapsed.

Egypt went next. Although the country appeared stable, the economy suffered horribly because most of its money went into boosting military might. It exploited the "peace" with Israel by spending billions on armaments, including hundreds of F-16s, Mirage 2000s, Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, scores of missile ships, thousands of American artillery canon and tanks (including the Abrams, which ranks with Israel's Merkava), modern anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as sophisticated systems for electronic warfare and surveillance.

Mubarak encouraged international incitement against Israel and turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip. With Mubarak gone, chances are high much effort will shift to improving the lot of the citizenry and economy. Perhaps a form of democracy too will sprout.

Much of Libya's huge wealth was channeled into support for terrorist organizations. The Pan-Am disaster over Lockerbie was a Libyan initiative. Reagan called Quaddafi "the most dangerous person in the world". Enormous amounts of armaments were purchased. He bought more tanks and artillery than his own army could deploy; He promised to transfer these to those who would war against Israel (as he did during the Lebanon War, and as he helped Egypt during the Yom Kippur War). For this purpose he also had long-range missiles in place and developed the capability of aerial refueling. Libya too no longer poses a threat to Israel.

Syria's aggressive tyrant will also soon fall. He fostered strong ties with Iran. He set up a nuclear reactor (that Israel later destroyed). He armed the Hezbollah in Lebanon, built an anthrax production facility and runs a big army. The protests he now tries to quell are in major cities, like Damascus and Halab. Even army officers and soldiers are rejecting orders. Syria's revolution would bring a severe blow to Hezbollah, being that Syria served as its conduit for arms from Iran. Iran too would suffer because Syria today is its only ally in the Middle East. In a heartbeat, the peril at Israel's North border that had approached the flashpoint for conflagration has dissipated.

A short while ago, fear mounted that Turkey and Syria might join forces against Israel. And now, just as Turkey rattles its sabers against the Jewish state, Syria's strong relations with her neighbor suddenly deteriorated, because Syria was killing many Moslems as he tries to crush the revolution, to the point where Turkey threatened to go to war unless Syria stops the killings.

Iran too has miraculous "coincidences" to take note of. The huge protests there, violently suppressed, reflect the little faith the populace has for its leadership party. As for Iran's nuclear aspiration, significant delays mark its progress. Many of their centrifuges became dysfunctional by the Stuxnet virus, and important nuclear physicists are dropping like flies.

Many more Arab dominoes have yet to fall.

What Torah lesson might these facts refer to? The last words of the last verse of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, regarding Yishmael's ancestors, literally reads, "... on the face of his brethren he fell". The first words of the next verse, the first verse of portion Toldot, reads, "And these are the chronicles of Isaac...". The famous commentator, the Ba'al Haturim, reveals the significance in juxtaposition of these two verses. "This comes to teach us that when Yishmael will fall at the end of exile, that's when the son of David will emerge" (Gen 25:18). In other words, once Moslem dominion begins to decline, the Jews and Moshiach will be on the ascendancy.

In a nutshell, what we are witnessing is the terrorism support base of the Middle East disintegrating, all while the redemptive process for which we eagerly look forward to stealthily waxes. We are witnessing the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Happy 5772! Moshiach now!!