There are Curses that are mentioned in this weeks torah portion Parshat Bechukotai, that are not easy to digest. The Torah tells us in detailed description what will happen in times of concealment. It will be really difficult, with severe hunger, poverty, torturing and pressing enemies, which is all very difficult to digest. But when you carefully study the verses, You see that hidden among the curses, are promises of love and care, a sweet candy among all the bitterness and sourness.
After G-d says that the land will be desolate because our enemies will drive us out of it, suddenly it adds a few more words, "and it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it."
That is the candy I'm referring to!!! Hashem promises that He will expel us from the land by saying, "I will make the Land desolate" but at the same time G-d adds and continues, He will guard it for us until we return. Any nation which will try to settle in it, will not succeed. As the verse says "and it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it".
Behold, that promise has been kept!!
It's almost two thousands years in which G-d has kept that sweet promise which was mentioned among the curses "and it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it".
In the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, the sages speak of the signs of the end of days. Rabbi Abba brings the words of Ezekiel, in which he speaks to the "mountains of Israel" and says to them, "You will produce your branches, and you will bear your fruit for My people Israel." Says Rabbi Abba, "when you see the days when the Land of Israel ceases to be desolate, when the mountains of Israel give fruitful branches, then you will know that we are very close to redemption".
Not only the fact that now the Holy Land bears fruit, as it did not for the past two thousand years is a sign that the redemption is imminent. Also Isaiah's prophecy of the disarmament of weapons, attests to this as well.
Like he says, "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks".
This verse, which is engraved on the wall of the United Nations building in New York, is materializing right now, before our very eyes, as the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' declares its willingness to disassociate itself from the most lethal weapons.
So what do WE do? We should ready ourselves for the coming of the Messiah speedily in our days.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski
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