We’ve been learning about Akedat Yitzchak, and I think the segulah, the power that Akedat Yitzchak gives us, is that when we follow those ways and bring them into our own lives, this gives us the power of that great act. The main accomplishment of Avraham Avinu at that time was to be a happy participant in fulfilling that mitzvah (commandment), not just doing it out of necessity because Hashem told him, but being happy about it and fulfilling it happily. That was the main power. Hashem found Avraham’s heart trustworthy. He found that He could trust Avraham’s heart. That was Avraham’s main accomplishment during those tests.
When we can incorporate that in our lives, we’ll be following the Torah with happiness, with happiness in our observance. This gives us the power to invoke the story of Akedat Yitzchak and to merit the zekhut (merit) that it gives us.
Let’s turn to page 126, where we’re continuing in the prayer that follows the story of Akedat Yitzchak. We started by praying that, just as Avraham overcame his natural tendency to feel mercy for his son and did Your will with a full heart, as we explained, so may Your mercy overcome Your anger. We explained that anger is the natural, expected system we should be under. Hashem should be angry with us. Why should Hashem be angry with us? Because we commit many sins. Therefore, it only makes sense that Hashem is going to be angry with us. That’s the natural course of the world; that’s the way it should be.
However, out of His great, abundant mercy, Hashem created the merciful system. He created a system that allows time to repent and allows actual repentance. It also means that the strict system should not bring destruction; it should be tempered.
So we’re asking that even though the natural reaction we should be under is the strict system, where there should be nothing left of us, just as Avraham overcame his natural tendencies, Hashem should overcome His natural tendencies, so to speak. The mercy should overcome the strictness. We were in Asia.
As we explained, it’s a mirror effect. Everything we do in this world can be reflected back to us. All the great concepts we hear about and discuss from the Torah—how Hashem does this and that—the power source behind those things starts from us. It has to come from us. We are the ones who have to take the first step. We live in the world of deed, the world of action. Actions have to come from here, down here. When we start on that road, that’s when we get the power back. It’s a mirror effect.
Hashem has said that it is according to how much we look and anticipate toward Him. It is also according to this and according to that. This is the power God has given us. We have to be the first to act. We can’t just talk about these words; we have to say them ourselves and take action.
We ask that the anger subside from Your nation, Your city, Your land, and Your inheritance.
The anger Hashem is in, the state of anger Hashem is in, is over the people of Am Yisrael (the nation of Israel), over Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), over Yerushalayim, and over Eretz Yisrael in general. Hashem is in a state of anger right now. He’s been in a state of anger for 2,000 years. We have to understand that the galut that we’re in, the exile, is a state of anger. We have to feel it that way. We have to feel that Hashem is angry with us.
The Gemara says that any generation in which the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) was not built in its time is as if it was destroyed in its time. In the same way that Hashem was angry at that time, enough to destroy the Beit HaMikdash, that state of anger continues as long as the Beit HaMikdash is not rebuilt. If that state of anger subsided, the Beit HaMikdash would be back. So the situation that prevents the Beit HaMikdash from being rebuilt—the situation that was in effect 2,000 years ago, when the Beit HaMikdash was actually destroyed—continues to be in effect because it has not been rebuilt.
It doesn’t mean that now we have to get better and that we’re better than them, but just not good enough to get rebuilt. No. It’s the same thing. Either the Beit HaMikdash is here or it’s not. The fact that it was destroyed means it wasn’t worthy of being here. The fact that it’s not here now means we’re not worthy of having it here now. So we’re in a state of anger, and we’re praying now that this state of anger should subside. We’re hoping that Hashem should release His anger from His nation, His city, and His land.
Now we get to a series of pesukim (verses), one after the next. We’ll explain them one at a time, and I want to show you something very interesting that comes out of these pesukim. Let’s pay attention. Hashem will fulfill for us what He promised us in the Torah through Moshe (Moses).
What’s the first pasuk (verse)? Hashem says, “I will remember the covenant I made with Yaakov, Yitzchak, and Avraham, and I will remember the land.”
First of all, we have to know what Hashem remembers. What does it mean that Hashem remembers? Hashem doesn’t forget, nor does He remember. Hashem doesn’t have emotions. He doesn’t have a mind that lets Him forget or remember something. So we’re asking Hashem to remember something. What does that mean? Hashem promises, “I will remember.” We have to understand that “remember” doesn’t mean He forgot. It means that He will view the situation in a certain context. He will review it in a certain way. He’ll see the covenant of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov in a certain context.
The context here is the pasuk earlier in the Chumash, where it talks about the rebukes of the Torah, one bad time after another. At the end, it says that Hashem will remember the covenant of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov.
After the long, bitter exile, after 2,000 years in which the land of Israel has been barren for so long, without the Beit HaMikdash, without Torah, and without the open revelation of the Shekhinah (Divine Presence), after all those years and all that time, Hashem will look at the land and the nation in the context of how long it has been. Hashem will start yearning for the presence of the Shekhinah to come back.
We find something similar in Mitzrayim (Egypt), in this week’s parasha that we’re about to learn. After 200 years of servitude in Mitzrayim, Hashem tells Moshe, “I remembered, I remembered the promise I made to Avraham to take them out of Egypt.” What does it mean that He remembered? Again, Hashem saw that the time had arrived. After all the suffering, the time had arrived for us to come out of Egypt. It’s called remembrance because He is viewing it in a certain context, seeing it in a certain way.
The first step of the redemption—the first step—is that Hashem views the exile in a certain context. He remembers. He remembers that we are children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and that He made a deal with us: He is going to remember us and bring us back.
We have to know that the redemption process, the geulah (redemption), the final geulah, the Mashiach (Messiah), is gradual. It could be; it’s brought down that it could be, and apparently it’s happening that way. It’s a gradual process, not necessarily something that happens overnight. Some parts do happen suddenly. There is a concept of pitom, of sudden. There is a suddenness to it, too.
But the maturation of the world—which is what it will all add up to, when everything comes to its culmination and completion—is not a sudden transformation. The maturity of the world, the maturation, I should say, not the maturity but the maturation, is a gradual process, with subtle changes over many years and generations. You can see the world metamorphosing, if that’s the right word, toward a certain goal. As you’re going through it, you’ll feel the differences because they’re so subtle. Even over your own lifetime, you won’t necessarily see anything, because it’s so subtle. But if you look back in history over the last couple hundred years, you can see tremendous change that went on in the world. You can see a direction, a pattern.
You see the pesukim now. I’m going to show it to you. The way the Sidur (prayer book) lays out these seemingly random pesukim in a certain order—you can look back over the last couple hundred years and see a pattern. You can see what’s going on here. It’s very interesting.
The first thing that happens is that Hashem remembers. The next pasuk. V’ne’emar (and it is said) also says, “When they are in the land of their enemies, I will not be disgusted with them, and I will not be repulsed by them, so as to destroy them or break my covenant with them, because I am Hashem their God.” Hashem says that even during the exile, even while they are still out there in the land of their enemies, He will not destroy them. So nothing has happened yet. No changes have happened. So far, we haven’t felt anything or seen anything. We’re still dispersed among the Gentiles, dispersed among the nations of the world.
Being dispersed among the Gentiles means not only that we live among the nations, but everything that entails, including all the persecutions, troubles, pogroms, and anti-Semitism we’ve had over the generations, over all the centuries. Of course, the major thing we had was the Holocaust, obviously. Hashem promises that He will not destroy us. If you look back, even under the worst calamities, even in the worst of times, we were not destroyed. We got close. One time we got close. Entire communities were wiped out. But we weren’t destroyed. We’re still here to tell the story.
If you look at the big picture—and obviously, for individual communities and individual people, it’s a calamity you can never describe. I’m not saying it wasn’t so bad; I’m not saying that at all. Obviously, we can never fathom what they went through. But from a national point of view, if you look back in hindsight, they touched us, but they didn’t destroy us. We’re still here. We bounced back in incredible numbers.
We say this every night in Arvit. If you want to see it, turn to page 57. On page 57, you can see it: “He redeems us from kings. He redeems us from the hands of all our oppressors. He takes us away from our troubles. He repays all our enemies. He brings us to life. He gives life to our souls. He doesn’t let our feet get destroyed. He allows us to walk on the graves of our enemies, and He uplifts our names above all our enemies.”
There was a Torah dedication a couple of months ago—a month ago—in Germany. The procession for the Torah dedication was being led down the street named after Hitler. The same street. Where is he? And where are the Nazis? They’re gone, and we’re still here. We walk upon their grave. This is the story of our exile. Hashem promised that we would not be destroyed. As much as we endure, as much as the persecution hurts, we don’t get destroyed.
Even when we’re in trouble, sometimes we can’t see out of it. It’s so severe and overwhelming that it seems so bad. Where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? What we have to do is look back at history and remember the pasuk: Hashem says we will not be destroyed.
By the way, this applies personally, too. This is not just national. The personal troubles a person goes through are also part of the galut. We’re Jewish people, just as we are nationally the nation of Jews; we are individual Jews as well. The promise Hashem made us—that throughout the exile we won’t be destroyed—applies to the individual as well. So if a person is going through an individual trouble that seems overwhelming and very difficult, and starts to think, “How am I going to get out of this? How is this going to end? I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” remember: Hashem promises that we will not be destroyed. We have the power to endure and to come out the other side. We have to keep the faith and realize that it can and will end. We will come out the other side.
Even though I know sometimes the end is not the way we’d like it to be, and sometimes we hope for a better outcome, people have troubles that don’t end in a great story of deliverance. But if a person looks back, even after that bitter end, even after a bitter end that you endure, you can see in hindsight how you did come out of it. I speak from personal experience. Unfortunately, as I look back in hindsight, I see that Hashem’s promise came true. There was no destruction. We could all see ourselves in the same situation. We have to remember this pasuk.
So this is the next step of the redemption: throughout the calamities, there is no destruction, and we continue to endure.
The next pasuk: “I will remember the original covenant: I took them out of Egypt in order to be a God for them. I am Hashem.” Hashem says the next step is, “I will remember how I took them out of Mitzrayim,” in front of everybody. Why? What was the purpose of our exodus from Egypt? For Hashem to be our God. Hashem is going to remember that during our exile now.
The purpose of the exodus from Egypt, the purpose of Yetziat Mitzrayim (the Exodus from Egypt), was for us to become a nation to Hashem: to stand at Har Sinai, receive the Torah, and become Hashem’s nation. Being Hashem’s nation is up to us. We have to be the nation of Hashem. Hashem is what He is. Hashem doesn’t need us. Hashem has all His glory. We can look at that another time. Hashem doesn’t need us; we need Him. It has to start with us. We make Hashem the God. We make Hashem our King.
Through our commitments and our dedication, through making Hashem our God, Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim so that we could stand at Har Sinai, accept the Torah, allow it to sink in, and make Hashem our God. For us to make Hashem our God.
These days, too, the final redemption is going to be very similar. Just as the purpose of the redemption from Egypt was to make Hashem our God, the purpose of the final redemption is also to make Hashem our God. Again, it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not a sudden transformation where all of a sudden I don’t want to be religious. It doesn’t work that way. It’s a gradual process.
If you look back over the last decades—50, 60, 80 years, since the Holocaust, really—the teshuva (repentance) movement, the amount of Torah learning we have, the uprising, the absolute metamorphosis that this nation has accomplished over the last half a century or more is remarkable. Even though it looks like the divide between the religious and non-religious is getting wider, there is still an uprising of commitment to the Torah. You see Torah learning like there never was before, classes everywhere, Yeshivot (yeshivas) everywhere. That’s what’s going on. There’s an inspiration. People are realizing; people are waking up. It’s been going on for a while.
The teshuva movement, the thirst to become closer to Hashem, is happening in front of our eyes. One day, the entire nation is going to be thirsting to be closer to Hashem.
The next pasuk. V’ne’emar. Hashem will bring back all your people, and He will have mercy on you. He will gather you from all the nations among which Hashem dispersed you. In the next pasuk: “If you’ve been pushed away to the edges of heaven, Hashem will gather you in from there and bring you home.” He will bring you in.
The next step is the ingathering of the exiles. Notice that it doesn’t say how Hashem is going to do that. What is the process? It also doesn’t say where we’ll be gathered. It doesn’t say. All it says is that we’re going to be gathered in. We had this picture in our minds of communities miraculously flying to Israel. I don’t know where that came from. It doesn’t say that here. It doesn’t say that we’re going anywhere, not yet, at least. First there’s an ingathering, and it doesn’t say how it’s going to happen.
If you look back at the last 150 years, we were everywhere. We were in Europe, every country in the world. We were in Africa, the Middle East, South America, the Far East, and North America. I saw a couple of months ago that 93% of Jews live in either the United States or Israel. So there’s an ingathering of the exiles.
Unfortunately, some of it happened in a way we would rather it hadn’t: through persecution, the Holocaust, and the wiping out of communities, or just through immigration—or who knows what the reasons were. People died out. It didn’t have to be a mass exodus. People could have moved away, and then the people left just fizzled. Now everybody’s in the United States or Israel. It’s remarkable to see what happened over the last 150 years, how the entire concentration of the Jewish people changed completely, and how you didn’t even realize what was happening. All of a sudden, you wake up 100 years later, and everybody’s in one place. That’s Kibbutz Galuyot, the ingathering of the exiles. That’s the ingathering of the exiles. That’s exactly what it is. It doesn’t have to happen miraculously. It’s subtle, gradual.
G-d will bring you into the land that your fathers inherited, and you’ll inherit it. G-d will be good to you, and He’ll increase you. He’ll multiply you more than your fathers, more than your forefathers.
Then we finally go to Israel. Going to Israel is the last step before the redemption. That has already begun, too. There were a million Jewish people living in Israel, more than there ever was. There were never that many. The fact that we have to inherit the land is another story. That’s getting controversial and political. We don’t view the current government of the State of Israel as inheriting the land; the Torah doesn’t view it that way. That’s a secular government. It doesn’t meet the Torah’s standards of inheritance. It’s just that people live there, and that’s part of this, part of the ingathering of the exiles: that we should all live in Israel eventually. The fact that half the Jews in the world today live in Israel is part of the process. That process has begun. It’s already in the middle. But we still need the step of inheriting the land, which we have not gotten yet.
We need Mashiach, Sanhedrin, and Beit HaMikdash. Until we get that, there’s no Torah view of control of the land of Israel. The people in Israel are still in galut, and they pray just like we pray, using the same words, asking for the redemption. Even though they live in Israel under a Jewish government, they are still in galut as well. They pray for Mashiach just like we do. So there’s no difference between us and them. It’s just a step in the process.
I believe that the fact that they live there is an undeniable fact that you can’t deny: the Jewish people live in Israel. So we’re getting to the end. There’s no question that we live in Mashiach times. It’s not that Mashiach is around the corner and will be here soon; the process has already begun a long time ago. It’s very gradual. If you’re smart and know what to look for, and know how to look and discern, you can see things happening. Sometimes, if you pay attention, you can understand current events in this context, too. I don’t want to go into that. That’s a class for another time. But there’s plenty there to see.
Now we move to the Prophets, to the pesukim from the Nevi’im (Prophets). The first pasuk is from Yeshayahu: “Hashem will grace us because we hoped for Him. We will shine forth in the morning, and we will even be saved during our troubles.”
This pasuk refers both to a time toward the end of the exile and all the way at the end of the exile. The morning, b’karim, means the morning. The end of time, when Mashiach finally comes, is described as the morning, when the sun shines forth in all its glory. It’s a strong sun, a very bright clarity that’s referred to as the morning. When Mashiach comes, it will be like the morning, when everything is so bright, clear, and beautiful. At that time everything will shine forth. All the troubles and all the salvations we’re looking for will shine forth at that time. It’s going to be open and clear for everybody to see. It’s going to be like the morning.
Meanwhile, before we get there—even before we get there—we will still have salvation in a time of trouble. It’s going to be a more hidden type of salvation, as we’ll see soon in a couple of pesukim. That will describe it a little better. But we’ll have salvation even before that. That’s called Et Tzara, the time of trouble. We’re going to have salvation, but it won’t be like shining forth in the morning the way it will be at the end of time, when Mashiach finally comes.
V’ne’emar: “It will be a time of trouble for Yaakov, and from there we will be saved.” This also refers to a time when there will be a lot of trouble for the Jewish people at the end of time, referring to Gog and Magog, what they call Armageddon. At that time there will be great trouble for the Jewish people, but we’re going to be saved from that as well.
V’ne’emar: During all the troubles of the exile, our salvation comes through malach, the fact that it’s hidden. What does that mean, through malach? Malach always refers to the fact that it’s hidden: the salvation comes in a hidden way, where it looks natural, where it looks like it’s not a miracle. All of a sudden, things turn around and work out better. But at the end of time, when Mashiach comes, we’re going to have the love and mercy of Hashem. He’s going to save us. He will take us and uplift us forever. That refers to the time of Mashiach itself, personally. It refers to the idea that it’s going to be supernatural, open, revealed.
Just as we find with Mitzrayim, which is described in the Haggadah on Pesach. If you remember the Haggadah, it’s not in this book. We describe the Yetziat Mitzrayim as Hashem doing it by Himself, without any intermediaries, without any angels. It’s personal. How do we understand that? What does that mean? The answer is that it’s a certain system of openness that Hashem performed in Mitzrayim, so that it was obvious Hashem was doing it Himself. It was begaluy: it was revealed, it was open miracles, supernatural. This is what we call Hashem Himself.
The other system, where it’s hidden, is called through malach, through an intermediary, through the natural way of the world. It seems like something is happening by itself, with no miracles, but it just kind of happens. That’s all through an intermediary, through an angel. But when Mashiach comes, it’s going to be open, just as it was in Mitzrayim.
Our job when we read these prayers is to remember and yearn for the final redemption. That’s what this is all about. We’re sitting here asking Hashem to redeem us. We’re asking Hashem to fulfill all these pesukim, to fulfill the promises He gave us.
You have to remember that in Mitzrayim a lot of Jewish people didn’t get out. A lot of Jewish people didn’t get out, and we know that. Why didn’t they get out? Because they didn’t really want it so much. There was something missing from their desire. Of course, they all wanted to leave Egypt, but they didn’t have this burning, deep desire. They weren’t yearning for it so strongly. If you don’t want something, if you don’t really, really want something, you don’t get it. You’re not zocheh (worthy) to anything that you don’t really want. When you really want it, that shows you respect it and appreciate it. Then you get it.
The power source of our prayers here is to really yearn for Mashiach, to really want it and look forward to it. It’s such a deep yearning. Now you have to know: what is the purpose of Mashiach? We’ve been promised, you know, a glory life—a glorious life, no troubles, no stress, no problems. Right? That’s what everybody looks forward to: a great life. The truth of the matter is, we don’t know what life is going to be like at that time. There are too many different opinions. It’s not even clear.
According to the Rambam, there’s no difference. The natural course of the world is going to be the same. The only difference is the government: we’re going to have our own government. How great is that? You know what the greatest thing is going to be? We’re going to have the Beit HaMikdash. We’re going to have the Sanhedrin. The rule of law is going to be governed through the Torah. Hashem’s presence is going to be open. The Shekhinah is going to be obvious. It’s going to be easy to grow spiritually. We’re going to have open miracles in the Beit HaMikdash, just as the first Beit HaMikdash had ten open miracles every day. All the open miracles. We’re going to have that in the next Beit HaMikdash, too. These are the things we want.
We pray in the Amidah. We pray for Hashem to redeem us. Why? For Your name. It’s not for the great life we might have. That’s not what we’re looking for. We’ll take it as a side benefit, but that’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the glory of Hashem’s name to be revealed to all, so that the whole world should understand what we know. The whole world should understand and see clearly the presence of Hashem and how Hashem runs the world. Hashem will be king over the entire world, not just the Jewish people. Everybody will understand. The nations of the world will say, “Hashem is the king.”
That’s what we’re looking for. We have to develop a deep yearning that Hashem’s name should be revealed in the world. That gives power to this prayer. We want it so badly. We have to want it for the right reasons. If we want it for the wrong reasons, we need to develop the correct reasons within ourselves, the correct purpose. First we have to learn the correct purpose for wanting Mashiach: to bring Hashem’s name into the world. That’s what we want. That’s the only thing we want. That’s what we’re praying for, and that gives us the power to make this happen for us.
We’re asking Hashem to let our eyes see when His Shekhinah comes back to Yerushalayim. We want to see the Shekhinah in Yerushalayim. It’s not the glorious life we’re looking for. We want to see the openness of the Shekhinah. Why do we want that? Because we’ll be able to grow better. We’ll be able to grow better, more easily, more strongly. We can never reach the great heights they reached in those times today. We just don’t have that spiritual energy of the Beit HaMikdash. When the Beit HaMikdash is rebuilt, we’ll have that spiritual energy, too. We’ll be able to grow to greater heights, even higher than we are now—much higher, much more easily. That’s what we want.