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Need to Know – By Pinchas Winston
THE FINAL REDEMPTION is not a foreign topic to the Zohar. This is one example:
Just as a person prepares himself on the sixth day after the sun begins to descend for the beginning of Shabbos, likewise will the world be rectified in advance of the seventh millennium, “the day that is completely Shabbos.” (Zohar, Vayaira 117a)
Kabbalah teaches that the six millennia since Creation are really just a historical amplification of the six days of Creation.
All that will have occurred during the intended 6,000 years of history will have had its spiritual root in an event that occurred at a corresponding moment during the six days of Creation.
Take the explosion of scientific knowledge during the “Age of Enlightenment” (1685-1815) for example, which resulted in the Industrial Revolution around 1760.
From a secular perspective, it was just progress. From a Kabbalistic one, it was destined:
The “Lower Wisdom” and the “Upper Wisdom” will open. (Zohar, Vayaira 117a)
The “Upper Wisdom,” it says, is Kabbalah. The “Lower Wisdom,” it is now clear, is science and technology.
Both were predicted to become far more accessible, in preparation for the Final Redemption, “after the sun begins to descend.”
That is noontime, or 5500 in terms of the sixth millennium.
Another example is the perceived acceleration of time.
The earth does not noticeably rotate faster or slower than it has in the past, nor does it revolve around the sun in more or less than 364 and a quarter days.
Yet, days, weeks, months, and years just seem to come and go much quicker.
A major reason for this is distraction.
There is just so much to focus on and to experience that people pay less attention to the passage of time.
It is just a modern-day application of the old saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun!”
It’s perception that counts though. People do not live or make decisions about life except based upon their perceptions of reality, which can often be quite different than the actual reality.
For all intents and purposes, PERCEIVED accelerated time will impact people and their consciousness just as REAL accelerated time would.
The Zohar predicted this too:
Since the verse says, “I, God, will hasten it in its time” (Yeshayahu 60:22), part of the [redemption] process also includes time acceleration in advance of Moshiach’s arrival. Just as a person must work faster on Erev Shabbos to be ready for Shabbos on time, [so will they have to work faster to be ready for the Final Redemption]. (Zohar, Vayaira 117a)
The upshot is that even though EVERYTHING since Creation has been working towards
the Final Redemption, the events of history from 5500/1760 onward in particular are towards that end. Billions of people will be born and billions of things will occur since then, seemingly just as a matter of historical progression, but it isn’t true.
All of them, and all of it, will be to facilitate the end of history as we know it.
And, just as the work becomes increasingly more intense as sundown on Erev Shabbos approaches,
so too will the redemption process become increasingly more intense as the Messianic deadline approaches.
We may not know its precise moment, but everyday that passes automatically brings it closer.
We are now in the last quarter of the sixth millennium.
It is very close to Moshiach’s time of arrival. The world may only be focussed on its own priorities, but so is God.
Society may only move in the direction in which history just “happens” to flow, but God is the One DELIBERATELY making it flow that way.
Current events, by definition, are part of the preparation process of the Final Redemption.
It pays to work out how. Life or death will probably depend upon it.
