Parashas VaEschanan - Nachamu, Issue #2157 - By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
OPEN MY EYES and I will see the wonders of Your Torah” (Tehillim 119:18). Dovid HaMelech wrote those words, and they’re even more profound than they already sound. In fact, they explain why Moshiach “isn’t here” yet, and the explanation is both shocking and inspiring.
First, the Gemora says that there will be no difference between this world and the Messianic Era other than the oppression of nations and the yetzer hara (Brochos 34b), the former being the function of the latter. The question is, even though the Gemora seems to downplay the transition of the world once Moshiach is here, won’t a world without the yetzer hara be a very different world?
There is a different Gemora that talks about the war between Assyria and the Jewish People during the time of Chizkiah HaMelech (Sanhedrin 94a). The story is in Tanach (II Melachim 18:13), but the Gemora says that God had wanted to make Chizkiah the Moshiach and Sancheriv and his united nations army Gog and Magog, but the Attribute of Justice objected saying, “Dovid HaMelech who recited songs and praises of You You did not make Moshiach, and Chizkiah who did not You want to?”
What does that mean? Was he Moshiach or not? The war was already over and Chizkiah and his army had won against astronomical odds, making it an obvious and messianic miracle. Sancheriv had 185,000 troops built from many of the nations of that time. It WAS a war of Gog and Magog, and Chizkiah HAD BEEN Moshiach, so what is the Gemora saying? And what does it mean that the incredibly righteous Chizkiah didn’t say shirah after his wondrous victory?
Open our eyes so we can see the wonders of Your Torah…and Your Moshiach.
You know why the world won’t change much with Moshiach? It won’t have to. It is already messianic and has always been. The problem is not the world. The problem is us, and our limited vision and inability to see God even when we look right at Him. We’re too busy looking with our physical eyes to see clearly with our mind’s eye.
But once the yetzer hara is gone, our egos will be reduced to their “proper” size, and the veil will be lifted from our eyes, and we will marvel at how what we always saw we never really did see. With the body silenced, we will be able to look at the world through the eyes of souls, and the exact same world will look totally different.
In other worlds, though the Messianic Era may be in the future, the Messianic World is already here. We just can’t see it. When we finally do, which is what the War of Gog and Magog is for, to reframe history in terms of the final redemption, we will look back at all the events that led to it and kick ourselves for not recognizing what they really were. But sometimes we need an actual, physical, and frightening war to “inspire” the necessary mentality shift.
That’s what the Gemora means regarding Chizkiah and his war. It already had all the components to be an End of Days’ war. It just had to be seen in that light and it would have been exactly that. It’s not that Chizkiah had not profusely thanked God for the great victory. He had. It was that he failed to realize the extent of the victory in terms of history, and that prevented it from being the War of Gog and Magog.
Because that is what Shirah is, which learned after the crossing of the Red Sea. It’s what the Jewish People “sang” once they had miraculously crossed the sea and the Egyptians had miraculously drowned in it. It wasn’t just thanks. It was a very high level of realization, one they had yet to know until that time, expressed in words.
This is why Rashi adds that even a simple handmaid saw more at the splitting of the sea than some the greatest prophets later in history. The prophets would be great people and they would have great visions, but none of them would ever match what even a simple Jew saw, experienced, and comprehended when God split the sea. It was tantamount to God tearing open all seven heavens and giving them all a glimpse at the heart of Creation and history.
So, as we move on from another Tisha B’Av and mourning to the “Seven Weeks of Comfort,” take comfort by focusing on this. Moshiach is here. He is in every generation. The Messianic Era is all around us, already. Both are just waiting for us to see them to make them real to us as well.
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Zoom class on Tisha B’Av (July 23), 3:30 PM Israel time, b”H: Third Temple, Or First One Third Time? It will livestreamed to YouTube and recorded, b”H. Meeting ID: 845 2800 4795 / Passcode: 202071.
I am very pleased to announce that Volume 3 of Sha’ar Hagilgulim has now been published through Amazon. This completes the comprehensive re-edit and re-publication, b”H.
On the same topic, Series Two of the “Sha’ar HaGilgulim Course” continues this week, b”H. For more information or to register, go to: https://www.shaarnunproductions.org/Sha-ar-HaGilgulim-Course.html.
Have a great Shabbos Nachamu.
Pinchas Winston
Thirtysix.org
Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Shabbat Shalom
