Parshat Beshalach.
This is the
parshah where we see the magnitude of the miracles. According to the
Rambam, the greatest miracle in world history was the splitting of the
sea. Now we have to explore before we go any further. What is the
definition of a miracle? It is all good and well for some people to
call it miracles, others to call it a great coincidence, and yet others
to call it nature; as if to say that it is natural to see the sea
splitting because of a certain wind, a certain this and a that, and the
moon and the sun and the everything… “Moshe was a great
calculator and he knew in that second he had to be in that
place.” Absolute Heresy! The truth of the matter is, the Torah
explains it, there was an easterly wind but Am Yisrael, including the
little babies, managed to walk through dry land where there was the
equivalent of a hurricane force blowing the sea apart. It describes in
the Torah something that even Cecil B. DeMille could not reproduce in a
movie: walls of water to the left and the right. With special graphics
and special effects: glass containers with water flowing down over the
sides like a fountain, then reversing that image, then putting some
people walking on the special effects through the opening in that
image, duplicated, then reproduced side by side or superimposed, he
managed to replicate in reverse what Hashem did perfect for Am Yisrael.
When we get into the definition of a miracle we will see how hopeless
Cecil B. DeMille’s best efforts were.
A miracle has
to be above nature. A flower blossoms, a leaf blows, a raindrop falls.
These things are a part of the nature of the world. That a flower
blossoms, a raindrop falls, and a leaf shuffles in the middle of the
splitting of the sea: that would be called a miracle. In the middle of
the splitting of the sea Am Yisrael walked through dry land. They
picked the fruit off the trees, as the Midrash says, which is also
mystical, but nothing is difficult for Hashem. When the Egyptians came
up to annihilate the Jews, the pillar of fire at the back absorbed all
of their arrows and they could not go forward. When the last toe of the
last Jew had departed from the Yam Suf, the splitting of the Yam Suf
immediately returned to Yam Suf. The entire Egyptian army was washed
out and washed up. It says, for the more decent: they drowned
immediately. For the half wicked: they bobbed up and down like apples
in water. For the very wicked: they thrashed around in a turmoil of
hell which never ceased.
We see an
incredible insight here. A miracle must be above nature. Can anybody
produce the splitting of the sea in real terms until today? Is there
any military-scientific technology that can create a wall of water on
the left and a wall of water on the right while somebody walks through
the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, doing a tiyul with his car or with his
horse or with his legs through the ocean? Has anybody developed such
technology until today? Until today not. Will it ever be? I would like
to think it possible. I am convinced that that which Hashem does in its
time is miraculous, except many of the miracles that we experienced
today, we as a nation and we as a generation have gotten somewhat
complacent, and that is the biggest danger.
For this
week’s parshah, I would like to explore the magnitude of
measuring a miracle. How do we measure a miracle? When we explore, the
word miracle has been liberally splashed around in the media. Neither
the secular nor the religious press have for a second stopped to think
of the vital message of what they are saying. When we talk about a
miracle it requires three things. The first thing is that it must be
above nature. The second thing is that Hashem and only Hashem can do
it. The third thing that is critical for a miracle is that good
prevails. Therefore, what is the definition of good? Ratzon Hashem,
those two words cover everything good. And what is the definition of
evil? Neged Hashem, against Hashem. So with free will, in every moment,
every soul in every breath is testifying which side of Hashem’s
equation he is on. Mi laHashem eilai, whoever is for Hashem, rise up!
Follow Hashem through the oceans, through the fires, and through world
history and you will arrive at the destination of the final redemption.
We see through
world history the tremendous ravages of the enemies of Hashem on both
sides of the Ocean—whether he was the ancient Pharaoh, the modern
Pharaoh of Germany, or anybody else who feels that it is important to
make sure that Jews work on Shabbat. Those people are partners with
Amalek. On the other side of the equation, anyone who helps a Jew to
keep Torah, he is a precious diamond in the crown of Hashem. One of the
greatest diamonds left the world this week. I’d like to dedicate
this shiur to him. I would also like for all of us, and for Am Yisrael,
and for that matter the entire world to have an infinite hakaras hatov
to Rabbi Noach Weinberg ztzl. Hashem gave us and continues an
incredible gift that we cannot comprehend, in the form of all the kiruv
yeshivot. These are like Noach’s ark in the floods of spiritual
devastation in the world that we are living in today.
It says that
when Pharaoh sent out the people that Hashem did not lead them by way
of the Philistines. “Lo Nacham Hashem bederech Eretz
Plishtim.” Am Yisrael were not to learn the derech eretz, ways of
conduct, of the Plishtim. Derech eretz is very important, but the
derech Eretz of those who hate Yisrael we should never learn. We should
never even go into their neighborhoods. We shouldn’t even know
what they’re up to. When giving a reason as to why Hashem did not
lead them by the way of the Plishtim, the Torah writes, “lest the
people relent when they see war.” It is not an expression of
doubt, Rabbeinu Bachaye explains. Hashem has no doubt. Everything is
revealed and all is known. Hashem led them in a circuitous, tortuous
route through the desert to prevent or to minimize the chance of the
weak ones displaying fear of war and therefore panicking and running
back to Egypt. Rabeinu Chananel gives a different insight into the
tortuous circumventing route upon which Hashem led Am Yisrael. Rabbeinu
Chananel explains that Hashem led them through the desert, not directly
through the land of the Plishtim—which was not difficult for
Hashem. Hashem could have certainly put the fear of Israel into them
just as He did with the people around Shechem when Shimon and Levi
massacred the tribe in Shechem. There was then a terrible danger that
the other nations would rise up and slay the sons of Yaakov. Hashem put
the fear of the Bnei Yisrael in their hearts and they went through the
land untouched. So it could have been in the desert if Hashem wanted
it. Either the Plishtim could have evacuated and run for their
lives—as has happened at different times in world history to
different enemies of Hashem and His nation—or they could have
been paralyzed by fear, or they could just have received Am Yisrael
hospitably on its way home. These are all options. But the fact of the
matter is that none of that was a possibility. It had to be that Am
Yisrael had to circumvent the Plishtim and go on a tortuous route back
to Israel. Hashem led them through the desert and not directly to the
land of the Plishtim in order to increase the magnitude of the
miracles. Had he taken Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael by the land of the
Plishtim, brought Am Yisrael in record time from Egypt to Israel with
the pitas that they had on their back, all the other bread, and the
water supplies, who would have called it a miracle? Had they passed
peacefully through the land of the Plishtim in order to reach their
destination it would have constituted at most a non miracle. This would
have left some people with the impression that Am Yisrael is just like
the rest of the nations. Therefore, Hashem in His infinite wisdom opted
to take them through the desert, thereby allowing Israel the
opportunity to witness the massive magnitude of the variety of
miracles: i.e. the manna that was delivered every day except Shabbos.
On erev Shabbat, Hashem gave a double portion of manna in the morning
so that Am Yisrael was ready for Shabbos. Every other day by sunset,
that which was not consumed became rotten, pigul, like an offering that
is given with a rotten intention. Yet that which was saved for Shabbos
was perfect until motzei Shabbat.
There was the
manna, the quails, the water, the rock—to name a few
miracles—the bitter waters, the snakes... There were incredible
miracles happening everywhere. There were clouds of glory, the pillars
of fire in front and behind protecting Am Yisrael constantly. Am
Yisrael was living in a desert parched wasteland where nothing and
nobody else could survive. They survived not only for three days, not
for a week, not for a few weeks, forty years! Nothing and nobody could
survive, let alone a nation of somewhere between 2 and 12 million
people. Whatever the number was, the relevance is that it was not a
small group of nomads. It was a nation being extricated from the inside
of the mightiest nation in world history. The equivalent today would be
Russia, America, China, and Am Yisrael coming out of all of that
unscathed and being invited home to Israel peacefully with all the
world’s wealth. In fact, the further they travelled from
inhabited areas the greater were the wonders and the miracles performed
in order that the people of Israel could survive day after day in the
hostile, parched desert surroundings. If we think that was a miracle
back then, we have to contemplate not forty years in the desert, rather
2000 years in the desert in exile where Am Yisrael has spiritually been
parched and inflicted by the sword, the gasses, and the murder
machinery of Hashem’s enemies. How did this nation, the smallest
of nations guaranteed by Hashem in the Torah, have the miraculous
audacity to desire to come back to Israel even in Auschwitz and
Bergen-Belsen? A Jew going to the showers of the zyklon-b
industrialized murder camps: if a person asked him where he was going,
according to Carlebach he would say that he is going back to
Yerushalayim shel maalah, Jerusalem above. Never giving up the dream,
for their descendants it was Yerushalayim shel mata. A return to
Jerusalem after two thousand years of the most bitter exile in world
history, surviving everything against all odds is nothing short of
miracles of the magnitude the world has never seen before. Rav
Shternbach says that what we are experiencing now, the world has never
seen such miracles since the times of the Beit Hamikdash, and the
potential is, with the teshuva, repentance, of Am Yisrael that Mashiach
tzidkeinu is very close. Then the Yam Suf will close forever with
Hashem’s enemies inside.
After these two
thousand years we come back to this little piece of real estate,
smaller than New Jersey, which seems to capture the world headlines and
the world’s attention every second of every day. If Am Yisrael or
anybody in Israel sneezes it makes world headlines across the world.
When we reflect on the magnitude of the miracle of coming back after
these thousands of years of the most impossible history, we see that to
the east is Ishmael, oceans of Ishmael, to the end of the Earth’s
surface. To the west is Esav, the oceans of Esav that would swallow us
up in a second from either side and from both sides if not for the
grace of Hashem in each and every second. So we see the incredible
miracles that Hashem continues to do with us not generation after
generation but in each and every second of every generation.
Had Am Yisrael
passed through the land in order to reach their destination peacefully
it would have been a relatively small miracle which would not have left
a great impression on Klal Yisrael. Therefore, Hashem in His infinite
wisdom took Am Yisrael through the desert. The magnitude of the
miracles was constant. The further they travelled the greater the
miracles against the most impossible and hostile surroundings, both
nature and nations. Indeed, Hashem’s way to perform wonders and
miracles is through the tzadikim as he did with Chananya, Mishael, and
Azariah who He saved from the fiery furnace. Of course He could have
saved them by just putting out the fire, taking out the oxygen and
extinguishing the fire, or having any number of people pour sand on the
fire or water. That would have done it, in which case it would have
been a small miracle that they survived the furnace. But in order to
magnify the magnitude of the miracle manifold, Hashem performed a
massive miracle. They were able to walk around inside the furnace that
raged around them without so much as burning a hair on their head or a
thread on their clothing. As described in Daniel, in the same way,
Hashem could certainly have saved Daniel from the lion’s den by
just giving the lions a heart attack, or they could have choked on a
piece of food. Ein Sof! No end to what Hashem could have done to kill
the lions. But Hashem opted to keep Daniel alive and to keep the lions
alive in the same confined space where anything else would have been
ravaged and savaged in a few seconds. There was an angel there
preventing the huge beasts from attacking Daniel. This was a massive
miracle within a miracle. We find a similar instance in Shoftim, when
Israel numbered 22,000 led by the shofet Gideon, facing the armies of
Midian. There was no doubt that a victory against such vastly superior
enemy numbers would be nothing short of impossible had the army
consisted of 10,000 men, as it was in the beginning. The first wave of
soldiers was sent home because they were not at the level of Kedusha.
Hashem enhanced the miracle by ordering Gideon to send a second wave
and a third wave of all the soliders who were not zocyhe until 300 men
were left. These 300 attacked Midian in its millions and destroyed
them. As it says in the Torah, “ten will pursue a hundred, and a
hundred will pursue ten thousand.” In other words, the miracles
are exponential with the emunah, faith. This little nation captures the
entire world’s attention and obsession to try to fathom us out.
As Mark Twain said, “all else is mortal except the Jew. What is
the secret of his immortality?” The secret of our eternity is the
G-d of creation and the G-d of all the nations. Whoever wishes to
pledge allegiance to Hashem will be guaranteed eternity. And whoever
does not believe will defer their eternity to Gehinnom, hell. On the
other hand, the Rambam teaches us that Hashem prefers to be hidden
instead of making the miracles obvious. Because making the miracles
obvious requires an upgrade of our emunah. How is emunah established?
Through one simple thing. One thing and one thing alone causes the
world to have emunah. What would that be? Betachon. What is Betachon?
Betachon is not the security forces. Sar Habetachon is the minister of
trust. Bitachon Hashem. How does one get to a point of trust in Hashem?
He arrives at this through a perfect track record on both sides. When a
person trusts in Hashem his life is a mirror image. Even when he is
going through tough times his trust must not waver. By not giving up
the faith, by continuing through the furnaces of Ur Kasdim and the
furnaces of the desert, Avram Avinu became Avraham Avinu, and Sarai
Imeinu became Sarah Imeinu—a woman who was able to have a child
at 90 years old. Impossible by nature, but nothing is impossible for
Hashem.
In the desert,
Rabbeinu Chananel concludes, precisely because everything that Israel
experienced was intended to test and enhance the faith, Hashem
displayed endless miracles to strengthen their trust in Hashem, which
is the root of faith. This in turn increased the trust which therefore
increased the faith at each step of the road on our voyage back to
Israel. Therefore, our voyage back to Israel was the ultimate
university of trust and faith. Every step of the way they were
graduating another step in trust and faith.
How does trust
affect us today? When we see the miracles around us, as Rav Shternbach
put it. Israel’s top military brass met a week ago to review the
outcome of the recent war in Gaza. When some people there suggested
that great miracles had transpired during the conflict, one of the
highest ranking officials responded, “You say miracles, I say
nature.” He claimed that everything was natural, koachi
v’otzam yadi; the power of my hands delivered me. We see in
Torah, that this is heresy. Denial of clearly miraculous events is not
a new phenomenon. The Pharaoh experienced ten devastating plagues in
Egypt. Although briefly, like a flash of lighting, Hashem’s hand
was seen by Pharaoh, the blindness set in like the darkness that sets
in on a lightning night. Our sages tell us that his free will had been
taken from him eventually. Rav Dessler explained that the removal of
his free will only happened after the five plagues, during which he had
free will. When a person witnesses an open miracle it is natural that
he would be awestruck to the extent that he begins to question his
whole world view, instantly ready for teshuvah. Hashem suspended this
normal reaction in order to reveal to Am Yisrael, after Pharaoh
hardened his own heart, the miracles that Hashem was doing, because of
the zechut of their forefathers. A Jew once complained to the Brisker
Rav, “If only Hashem would do miracles for us today, everyone
would acknowledge what Hashem was doing and sing Hashem’s
praises.” “Miracles do not change anything,” the
Brisker Rav Responded. If a person does not make the effort to
recognize yad Hashem, he will be exactly the same after the miracle as
he was before. There was a legendary commentary that said that there
were two people walking through kriat Yam Suf, and one guy taps his
friend on the shoulder and says to him, “I suppose you are going
to call this a miracle too?”
The Jews in
Egypt personally witnessed some of the greatest miracles in world
history. 8 million Jews died during the plague of darkness, because
they did not internalize the message of the miracles. The truth is,
back then they were at the 50th level of impurity. Those who were at
the 49th level made it out. Those who were at the 50th level had
married out. Because they had destroyed their brit milah, they had
destroyed their soul. It says in tractate Eruvin, that Avraham Avinu
himself does not recognize the soul of one who had destroyed his
covenant. Of course, through very deep teshuvah, a person can repair
anything. He can graduate from the fiftieth level, which is total
darkness, the plague of darkness, where by nature and the forces of
nature a person should never have survived through all the generations.
By a person destroying his covenant he has returned to nature and
should never have survived the splitting of the sea. He therefore he
drowns in the forces of nature, the materialism and exile. The message
of the miracle, the consequences that changed the lives of Am Yisrael:
only one fifth of Klal Yisrael truly saw the miracles, and used them to
catapult, to raise their level of faith. During the splitting of the
sea, we find the angels crying to Hashem, “drowning the Egyptians
instead of the Jews? These are idol worshipers and these are idol
worshipers.” Am Yisrael was steeped in a previous track record of
idol worship and the Egyptians were steeped. Why did the Jews deserve
to be saved? If they were saved from Egypt by internalizing the
miracles they witnessed, part of the mere 20% taken out. Why did the
angels claim they were idolaters? The reason is that although the Jews
who left Egypt believed in miracles, they did not believe in individual
providence. They believed in general management of the world by Hashem.
They believed that if there were a group of people around, maybe Hashem
would bother Himself, if it were a big enough group. Maybe Hashem will
save the group, but Hashem is not involved in the details. Hashem is
not involved in the molecules and the miracles and the subatomic
particles of an atom bomb, or two genes coming together to create a
baby, whether it be Moshe Rabbeinu or any other Jew in world History.
Hashem is not involved in the Hashgacha Pratit, personal divine
intervention. Denying hashgacha pratit, which is one of the thirteen
principals of faith, is the equivalent of idol worship. “Yes
Hashem is involved, but He is not involved in the micro-details;”
that is heresy. That is idol worship.
While it is
easy to look down on others who are further away from Torah ideals, at
this point in world history, each individual must focus on his own
situation. During the past weeks all of us experienced miracles of
about seven thousand rockets being launched into Sderot, Ashkelon,
Ashdod, and many other neighborhoods of Southern Israel, to hear almost
every time that there were no wounded, no damage, nobody lost their
life. It got to the point that on a rare occasion when there was any
injury, we stood up in absolute shock and amazement. “How could
that have happened? What happened here? How could it be that a
bride-groom who went from his canopy to the battlefront got critically
injured? How could it be another bride-groom went to the battlefront
from his canopy and he got injured? How could it be that a third
bride-groom went to the battlefront and he got critically
injured?” That seems to be the question on everybody’s
mind. Three bride-grooms after the festival were experiencing something
greater than the splitting of the sea. It says in the Talmud that for
Hashem to make a match is a greater miracle than the splitting of the
sea. How could it be that so soon after the splitting of the sea, for
these individuals, they experienced a near total death situation? It
also says in the Torah that a bride-groom, during the first year after
his marriage: don’t send him out to war. The army is now coming
to collate the statistics of these three bride-grooms who were
critically injured, who should have never survived, and what it is that
the army did wrong. There is massive review and repair going on in the
army at the highest levels. They see the hand of Hashem in that. What
people do not always appreciate is what the doctors have to say
afterwards. One of the soldiers was not expected to live. When they say
critically injured they mean prepare for death, that what they brought
into the hospital there is no way that the surgeons can bring it back,
shredded to pieces, three hundred pieces of shrapnel riddled throughout
the body from the massive mortars that tore the flesh from flesh and
limb from limb. There the surgeons were working from eight to twelve
hours just to patch up the pieces of a puzzle that could not be patched
up. That was seemingly an exercise in futility. The heart and lungs had
all collapsed. He was being kept alive by artificial machines. The
blood had completely drained out. There was nothing left. He was being
infused by other people’s blood. There was nothing to live for
and nothing to live with. Yet within twelve to twenty four hours later,
the bride-groom was sitting on his bed joking with his comrades who
thought that they would be saying kaddish on their friend. The doctors
were in stark amazement. They had never seen anything like that, not
once, not twice, but three times. Three bride-grooms who were
critically injured, who should never have survived, made a complete
recovery against all odds. Hakodesh Baruch Hu! Have we changed our
lives significantly through the miracles that Hashem performed not only
through the seven thousand missiles that plunged into occupied cities,
but the miracle of an army going into what was meant to be Azazel,
going into hell, booby-trapped up to the heavens? They were never meant
to survive a second in Azazel; homes, doors, floors, everything
booby-trapped! There was documentation of miraculous proportions,
unprecedented. Soldiers were warned of fishing-line booby traps that
would set off bombs that would blow up tanks. The one group that slept
in a bombed out house woke up in the morning to see that 150 soldiers
had stepped over, in the pitch-black, a booby-trapped wire at the
entrance of the house. Not one soldier touched that wire which should
have brought the whole building down on their heads and killed them
all. In the morning they realized the magnitude of the miracle through
their plague of darkness. Every one of them is overwhelmed. The biggest
miracle of the war was not the devastation to the infrastructure of
Hamas, two-billion dollars of devastation and eighty-percent of Hamas
infrastructure ravaged, and the whole of Aza still a booby-trap made in
hell and going to hell, Azazel. The real miracle was approximately
10,000 pairs of tziztzit rushed to the front lines because the soldiers
needed the secret weapon that has saved our forefathers from time and
memorial, the magen avot, shield of our fathers. Also, the OU center
rushed to the front emergency pairs of tefillin to any soldier who made
a pledge that he would continue to use them after the war. Many
soldiers made that pledge.
Previous
generations reacted differently when confronted with the miracles.
During WWII Rav Shternbach was a bochur learning in yeshiva in London.
The government of Britian made a very serious decree that everyone in
the yeshiva had to take a direct part in the war effort, either
enlisting in the army, or working in factories to fuel the war machine.
Despite these very serious regulations, Rav Schneider refused to even
temporarily budge or shut down the yeshiva. As a result, he and all the
students were in danger of imprisonment for treasonous behavior, or
worse. It could have stirred up tremendous wrath from those who may
have been outraged anti-Semites. This was discovered on Thursday night
and the information was passed on to the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Schneider.
He called the entire yeshiva together for prayer to annul the serious
decree. The next day, they all rose early when they were summoned by a
very high government official regarding their refusal to contribute
their part to the war effort. The official came to the yeshiva and
warned them. “Don’t you realize that you are having
relatives slaughtered and murdered in the murder machinery of Germany
right now?” The official asked this to the first student. The
student replied that although this was serious and critical, the best
way that they could help their relatives across Europe was to continue
learning Torah in the yeshiva. The official in the government replied,
“If your family is murdered you will need to provide sustenance
for yourselves even. Don’t you understand? Shouldn’t you
learn a trade at least?” He was not worried. The student replied
that Hashem will take care of everyone. “But so,” exclaimed
the official, “what would happen if everyone thought like
you?” The student smiled and replied, “Hashem has provided
sustenance for all the Jewish people, even when they wandered through
the desert for forty years.” Therefore, the student was not
worried in the least about where his help would come from. The official
concluded that Rabbi Schneider and all the disciples in that Yeshiva
were crazy beyond rescue and therefore exempted from military services
because of behavior that is considered insanity. Our secret of survival
is faith and trust. Realizing the great miracle that had taken place,
Rabbi Schneider called the whole yeshiva together. The short Halel,
pslams of praise, was recited without a blessing; because the whole
Halel is forbidden on a regular weekday. When the student’s saw
the tears of devotion floating down from the Rosh Yeshvia’s face
when he was reciting Halel, they all felt that they had experienced the
Halel that the world had never experienced before.
We must learn
from history and respond accordingly. Miracles have to lift us up to a
higher level of serving Hashem, not merely imparting a sense of awe
which fades back into the darkness—the plague of
darkness—when we return, heaven forbid, to our normal mundane
routine. While we are experiencing right now a temporary respite from
the battles of all our enemies on Earth, we should not be so stupid to
think that the war is anywhere near over. It has just begun. A great
world war is on the horizon. What we have experienced so far is mere
skirmishes compared to what the prophets predict for the future. The
Zohar refers to the final redemption that will be preceded by a great
gathering of the children of Ishmael banding together with the supreme
goal of the annihilation of all the nation of Israel. We are all
eye-witnesses to the fulfillment of the Zohar today. Millions of the
Arab world are rallying to the cause, ready to die in the millions, in
the billions, for the sanctification of their religion and their god,
that they claim is at war with Am Yisrael and our G-d. These past few
weeks have given us a taste of what is coming next. Those who wish to
witness the redemption must act now with urgency and alacrity to make
substantial changes in their lives. Most importantly, each one of us
must recognize and speak about the hashgacha pratit miracles, the
personal divine miracles in each of our individual lives. The Midrash
in Bamidbar Rabbah says, before the decree comes about Hashem yisa
panim. He takes into account the efforts that are made. After the
decree is in force Hashem lo yisa panim. He will not do so. It will be
too late to change and do teshuvah. Now is the time to shake ourselves
up. Hitoreru hitoreru, awaken awaken, we say every Shabbos as we go
into Shabbos—meyn olam habbah, a taste of the world to come. Our
sages foresaw what would be taking place in these days. These are the
days, Rav Shternbach says, that it is imminent what will come next. We
hear that Russia has pledged allegiance to the atomic program of Iran,
donating billions of dollars to accelerate the atomic program. Iran
this week became a member of the intercontinental club. They launched
an intercontinental missile that went into outer space with a thirty
kilogram payload. That is enough to launch an atom bomb across the
world. The world is in absolute silence. Before the holocaust there was
also an absolute silence. The Amalek of that generation warned the
world of what his intentions were. They just couldn’t believe.
The Amalek of our generation warns the world of what his intentions
are. The world once again is tragically afflicted with the plague of
darkness. The way to rise up from the fiftieth level of impurity, the
way to shatter the plague of darkness is to rise up. Hitoreru hitoreru!
Wake up in the pitch black darkness. Rise up against the gravity of the
world, against world opinion, against the seventy nations, the seventy
wolves, against everybody that is Hashem’s enemy, with faith and
trust. Just through the faith and the trust in Hashem will we survive
the birth pangs and Mashiach’s imminent arrival. May all of
Israel do teshuvah gamor, a complete repentance. May the righteous
gentiles who are keeping the seven Noachide laws do teshuvah gamor. May
we experience speedily in our days the other side of the splitting of
the sea of world history, where we come back to the Beit Hamikdash with
Mashiach Tzidkeinu, Aharon and Moshe, and all of Israel; resurrection
of the dead. May those who are alive today and in the plague of
darkness, with Hashem’s help, do teshuvah gamor, and the whole
world. Please G-d soon.