Reb Neuberger: ACHAREI MOS-KEDOSHIM – FIRE!

 

Is this the end of Corona? Is life returning to “normal?”

 

We all desire a normal existence.

 

But it seems clear that Corona, like the Plagues of Ancient Egypt, came into the world to accomplish something, and we must ask: has that been accomplished?

 

I have often repeated the Chofetz Chaim’s words that “we can learn about the end of our [current] exile from what happened at the end of our exile in Egypt.” The culture of Mitzraim had to be destroyed before Am Yisroel was able to reach Mount Sinai and receive the Torah. And now … we are clearly in the days before Moshiach.

 

I saw an interesting corroboration in the Siddur. Right after we say the “Shirat ha Yam,” the Song that the Children of Israel sang at the Sea after they left Mitzraim, our Rabbis placed the prophesy from Ovadia Hanovi, which tells about the day when “saviors will ascend Har Tzion to judge Esav’s mountain,” which refers to the Final Redemption. The Sages linked the Egyptian Redemption to the Final Redemption. So today, when we see the culture of Esav crumbling, it should remind us of what happened in Ancient Egypt.

 

If we are seeing the end of Corona, it is not clear that we are seeing the end of the Plagues. In Mitzraim, Paro did not want to believe that the plagues came from Hashem, so he regarded each plague as accidental: “It just happened.” And that is why he kept hardening his heart to the words of Moshe Rabbeinu.

 

We are anxious to get Corona “over with” so we can return to “normal,” but things are far from normal. The surrounding culture is tampering with the very foundation of Creation, and therefore that culture, the world of Esav, is at risk of total disintegration.

 

Who gives mankind the right to assert that men and women are the same?

 

They are arguing with the King of the Universe. It won’t work.

 

“Fools, when will you gain wisdom!” (Psalm 94)

 

He who fights G-d destroys himself. If an entire culture fights G-d, then the entire culture will destroy itself, just as the world destroyed itself in the Great Flood. Mankind rebelled in those days precisely as the culture of Esav is rebelling in our own days. They also claimed that men and women are the same, and they were all swallowed alive in scalding water.

 

Where do we find this prohibition? In this week’s Parsha!

 

The Torah commands: “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman. It is an abomination.” (Vayikra 18:22) The result of this sin is expulsion from the Land of Israel, G-d forbid! Listen to this graphic language: “the Land became impure and I recalled its iniquity upon it, and the Land vomited out its inhabitants!”

 

The Land of Israel becomes physically sick from this abomination!

 

Is this applicable only to Jews?

 

Not at all!

 

This prohibition applies to all mankind, as one of the Seven Mitzvos given to the Children of Noach, the punishment for which is death.

 

My friends, the world is playing with fire.

 

In 2008, my book “2020 Vision” was published. The story opens with a simultaneous terrorist attack on the United States and Western Europe, during which an Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb (EMP) is detonated over the United States, knocking out the entire electronic grid. All circuits are disabled, meaning that the United States is disabled.

 

Is this fantasy?

 

Here are some facts.

• The U. S. Department of Homeland Security, in a statement released several years ago, states that “High altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks using nuclear weapons … may permanently damage or disable large sections of the national electric grid and other critical infrastructure control systems.”

• On April 4, 2021, Arutz Sheva published an op-ed in which the writer stated that China has been working for approximately twenty years to develop a targeted EMP device which could disable an entire U. S. Naval Carrier Battle Group. The writer stated that “any American war with China over Taiwan could possibly be over before it began with America the catastrophic loser.”

• A few days after President Biden was sworn in, Reuters reported that “a U.S. aircraft carrier group, led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt … entered the South China Sea … at a time when tensions between China and Taiwan have raised concern in Washington.”

 

My friends, let’s not pretend. The world is on fire.

 

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the wicked people and all the evildoers will be like straw, and that coming day will burn them up, says Hashem, Master of Legions, so that it will not leave them a root or branch.

 

“But a sun of righteousness will shine for you, who fear My Name, with healing in its rays, and you will go out and flourish … and you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on that day that I bring about, says Hashem, Master of Legions….” (Malachi 3:19ff)

 

Hashem said, “I lit the fire in Tzion, as it says, (Eichah 4:11) ‘He lit a fire in Tzion which consumed [the Temple’s] foundations.’ And I [will in the] future build it [again] with fire, as it says, (Zechariah 2:9) ‘and I will be for it … and a wall of fire all around and for glory will I be in its midst.’” (Bava Kamma 60b)

 

May we see the Final Redemption soon in our days with the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid and the rebuilding of the Bais Hamikdosh.

Fire

 

 

GLOSSARY

Mitzraim: Ancient Egypt

Noach: Noah

Ovadia Hanovi: Ovadiah the Prophet

Paro: Pharaoh

Possuk: A sentence in the Torah