CHAPTER 8
ISOLATION AND REDEMPTION
Bilaam said of the Children of Israel, “am levadad yishkon … Behold, it is a nation that will dwell in solitude and not be reckoned among the nations.” He was an evil prophet, but he was a prophet, and he declared the truth.
We are a nation apart.
We were not meant to be a part of any nation, and yet we have contracted a sickness in which we desperately try to ally ourselves with our enemies, as if we need them in order for us to feel that we can “belong” to the nations of the world.
This sickness is potentially fatal. There is only one place we belong, and that is ensconced in our unique and direct relationship with the King of the Universe.
Only through this unique relationship can we survive. All history has taught us this. What we call “anti-Semitism” is a message from our Father in Heaven, who pushes us away from this poisonous relationship with the empty nations who hate us.
It is all coming to an end now. Soon we will have been rejected by every nation and every individual among the nations. The entire world is rejecting Israel and each individual Jew. We are an outcast. Hashem is sending this upon us to force us to wake up.
The rabbis of the Talmud discuss how the Children of Israel will repent before Moshiach comes, and this is what they say: “Rabbi Yehoshua said to [Rabbi Eliezer], if they do not repent, they will not be redeemed?! [Yes, they will repent, but how will it come about?]
“[Hashem] will appoint a king over them whose decrees will be as harsh as [those of] Haman, and the Jewish People will repent, and in this way [Hashem] will bring them back to the right [path].”
We cannot dismiss this, because this is Torah.
Anti-Semitism is bitter medicine, but it is apparently what we require to cure our sickness.
The events of Biblical Egypt occurred in order to separate us from the Egyptians. Their hatred pushed us away from them. So too today: the violent hatred in today’s world is apparently necessary because we are so attracted to
these nations that we do not know how to extricate ourselves.
Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, shlit”a, Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, said in February, 2019, “the ejection from America has begun.”
The Jews have been ejected from many lands. Rabbi Chaim Volozhin is quoted as having said that the “last stop” for the Jews before Moshiach would be America, and now we are being ejected from America. The next stop is the Final Redemption.
The Modern Age is founded upon “technology.”
Technology has become the pride of world culture and is considered the path to the “new paradise.” It has also become the addiction of world culture. It is very hard to believe that the downfall of world culture will not be accompanied by the downfall of its idol.
Technology is about to disintegrate along with the culture that idolizes it.
We have to prepare for this. We have to understand that we are completely alone in the world. There is nothing to save us besides the King of the Universe. All our toys will soon be taken away and nothing will remain but Reality.
This is the place to repeat the words of the late Rabbi Shimshon Pincus:
“We live in a ‘modern’ world, but with all its technological advances … the results are shockingly poor. everything is put to use for the bad. the world was a more beautiful place without modern cameras and their streams of indecent images that now flood the world. and so it is with technology’s other products. There is no modern invention that did not do harm to the world, without exception.”
This was written decades ago, before the situation became much worse.
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt”l, said, regarding the Internet, “Since Creation, the evil inclination never had such a powerful, destructive tool.”
Rabbi Chaim Yisroel Belsky, zt”l, quotes the verse, “And I have created a weapon to wreak destruction,” as referring to the Internet.
Mankind have gone far toward destroying the earth and heavens. So far, we have not reached much beyond our own solar system, but we leave a path of pollution and destruction everywhere we go. Ever since we were expelled from Gan Eden for rebelling against Hashem’s laws, we have proceeded to destroy the earth progressively more and more, and in the last two centuries, since the “technological revolution,” that destruction has speeded up, so that, today, it is out of control. It is taking over from us and has become our master, so that “cars driving people” is not an exaggeration.
Indeed, those who cling to the “god” of technology are becoming robots: mindless and heartless. Today, people walk down the street with metal clips in their ears, reminiscent of the Biblical slave who chooses to remain attached to his master and is bound by Torah law to pierce his ear with a metal awl. People stare with empty eyes at electronic screens and walk across the intersection oblivious to the car that is bearing down on them. This world of the living dead is the “paradise” we have created.
Let us remember how life on this earth began. Hashem created a perfect world, where everything coexisted in harmony. There was no death, sickness, or pain. There was nothing missing, spiritually or physically. All food was supplied with no lack of anything, and nothing had to be killed so anyone could live. Nothing was wasted.
When I say “nothing was wasted,” there was no litter. There was no plastic. There were no garbage dumps because there was no garbage. Everything that was consumed was used completely. When you ate fruit from the tree, nothing was killed, and the tree was “happy” because it was created so you could pick its fruit. It was like a mother nursing her child; the mother is happy and the child is happy. All is good and nothing is wasted or destroyed.
When mankind was expelled from Gan Eden, immediately there was trouble. Kayin killed Hevel out of jealousy. When it came time to eat meat, animals had to be killed. When man put on shoes, animals had to be killed for their hides. Meat was permitted so that man could survive, but in order for a man to eat, another creature was killed.
Eventually we come to the modern age, where we are buried in our own garbage, and we have poured concrete over the earth in our restless obsession with building and travel. Since we were expelled from the Garden, we are constantly unhappy. We run around the world desperately looking for a paradise which we cannot find.
Was there “technology” in Gan Eden?
For what? The world was perfect.
But now that man has come to believe there is no G-d in the world, he tries to create his own version of Gan Eden, his own version of perfection, his own idea of paradise. From his seething brain, which thinks only about physical needs, he comes up with countless inventions, and each one makes the world worse. We now have weapons which can kill people around the world with pinpoint accuracy or reduce the entire planet to a radioactive junk pile, killing and maiming the entire human race and destroying the beautiful and perfect world which Hashem created for us.
As we said in the previous chapter, each blade of grass his its own angel which tells it, “Grow! Grow!” and watches out for it. What do you think the grass feels when the bulldozer is destroying the field, with all the trees and plants and animals that Hashem created? It is screaming to its angel and saying “Save me! Save me!” The field and the plants and the animals are screaming to Hashem to save them from the bulldozer, the shopping center, the highway, the skyscraper, the factory, the heavy boots of foolish men who are polluting the world – even the oceans! — with garbage.
Now you know why, when Moshiach comes and saves the world from mankind’s destruction, “the heavens will be glad and the earth will rejoice and say among the nations, ‘Hashem has reigned.’ The sea and its fullness will roar, the field and everything in it will exult. The trees of the forest will sing with joy before Hashem, for He will have arrived to judge the earth….”
The earth itself and all of Hashem’s creations are praying for Moshiach to come, to save them from the ravages of depraved mankind.
Mankind is reversing the order of Creation which was instituted by the Master of the World. What He created, we are trying to reverse. Soon we will reach the point where it all began, “when the earth was astonishingly empty, with darkness upon the surface of the deep….”
We are returning the world to a state of utter chaos.
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