The Persian Gulf War that began in 1990 was auspicious, but not for what we thought it would be. Just like Y2K seemed to be about one thing and ended up being about something quite different (see my book, “The Equation of Life”), the Persian Gulf War seemed to be about one thing, but was about something else in the end.
What did we think the war was about?
First of all, we need to appreciate the importance of the year itself. To the rest of the world, 1990 was just another year. To the Jewish people, it was also 5750, a year that some, including the Vilna Gaon, predicted would, or at least could, be a year of redemption.
An unexpected and really quite illogical war at that time, especially in the Middle East, raised some End of Day’s eyebrows. Major wars have been triggered by seemingly secondary events because of their political and geographical implications. The question, was for some in the moment, was Hussein’s insane war one of those?
Also, although unbeknownst to me at the time, was that 5750 was historically significant for another reason. It was the beginning of an 83.33 year period of history that corresponds to the 10th hour of day six of Creation when Adam HaRishon ate from the Aitz HaDa’as Tov v’Ra, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
I have explained this several times, and you can read about it on my site, www.shaarnunproductions.org. The main point for now is that as of 1990, we entered, for the first time in world history, the period with the greatest potential for tikun, i.e., redemption. Was Hussein’s invasion of the strategically located oil rich country of Kuwait a trigger for that somehow?
It also helped that the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. The governments said it would take years for that to happen because of the “cleanup” Russia had to do on their side of the border. The people, however, refused to wait that long, and initiated the process without a single shot being fired, and the excitement was palpable.
Especially for the Jewish people. After many decades of iron curtain security keeping Jews from emigrating the door had swung open for Russian Jews and, just like that, millions of Jews were finally free to leave—and did. Overnight, it changed the demographics of Israel at a time that the growing Arab population was giving the government reason for concern.
Eventually Iraq was defeated, and Hussein was caught and executed. The world moved on. The War of Gog and Magog did not result, and life seemed to normalize once again for Israelis who had been terrorized by Suddam’s Scud Missiles. Other than Iraq, no one seemed worse for the wear because of the war, and Israel seemingly had one less enemy to worry about.
It was only later that the true damage became apparent, and perhaps the Divine reason for the unusual and lopsided war. The war forced a new relationship between the Americans and the more moderate Arab world and, consequently, a weakening of the older Jewish one. The previous seemingly unbridled influence of the American Jewish lobby (AIPAC) all of a sudden showed hairline cracks, while Arab influence over American politics, especially to do with the future of the Middle East, strengthened.
In retrospect, the timing was uncanny. Because, as I have mentioned before as part of the Tenth Hour presentation, the Zohar says that Techiyas HaMeisim, the resurrection of the dead, is supposed to last 210 (or 214 years). And that begins after 40 years of kibbutz golios, the ingathering of the exiles.
As of 1986, we began those 40 years of kibbutz golios, which include the Messianic Era, according to the opinion that Techiyas HaMeisim will last 214 years. That happened right around the same time that Russia turned to the world for financial help, forcing the implementation of Perestroika and looser emigration policies for Russian Jews.
According to the opinion that Techiyas HaMeisim will only last 210 years, those 40 years would have begun in 1990, coinciding with the beginning of the “tenth hour” of the sixth millennium. It also coincided with the beginning of a new trend of waning Jewish influence in American political decisions to do with the Middle East.
Would that have happened had the Persian Gulf War not occurred? Of course. The war was just the means to carry out the larger goal of signaling the end of the Jewish exile in America, and making it happen. Increased criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and Arab representatives in Congress have furthered this trend and led to growing anti-Semitism.
Suddam Hussein may be long gone, but the impact of his war on the Jewish world is not. The war also forced America to pressure Israel to cease building in Yehudah and Shomron, which eventually turned then building minister and hawk Ariel Sharon into a dove for capitulation to world pressure. The Hamas power base today once called beautiful, productive, and Jewish Gush Katif was his handiwork.
There is more to say about this, but the essential point is made. The Persian Gulf War seemed like one thing to us but, in the end, was something else to God in terms of His master plan for the final redemption. What we have gone through here in Israel over the last five weeks and counting may fall into a similar category of events once it is “done.”
In other words, though it looked like what Hamas evilly perpetrated could lead to a massive war that could qualify as the final War of Gog and Magog has not turned out that way—yet. No one really knows what each side is thinking or planning, or how this hostage crisis will end.
We certainly don’t know what God is up to at this point, or where He is leading the world, or how. We know He plans to eventually “redeem” every last Jew who merits to still be standing and bring them back to Eretz Yisroel. We know He plans to completely rid the world of all evil once and for all. We even know that a major war might be the threshold to all of that…if we haven’t already experienced it.
The Ramchal and the GR”A talk about a king who was forced to execute his own son through stoning for rebelling. But the son did teshuvah and aroused the father’s mercy, compelling him to keep his son alive. But what could he do? Once the king made a decree it had to be carried out.
So the king decided to have the large stone broken into smaller rocks, and those were thrown at the son instead of the dangerously large one. The smaller rocks still hurt the son but they did not kill him, and he was able to recover from his wounds over time and live a full life.
Likewise, the Ramchal and GR”A explain, it is possible that God, for our own survival, divided the War of Gog and Magog up into smaller, more manageable conflicts. Perhaps they have been all the existential wars the Jewish state has had to fight until now, and the current one is the final stage.
Perhaps. Even the Gemora says:
Rav said: “All the predestined dates [for redemption] have passed, and the matter [now] depends only on repentance and good deeds.” But Shmuel said: “It is sufficient for a mourner to keep his [period of] mourning.” (Sanhedrin 97b)
In short, Shmuel is saying that millennia of persecution and exile is our price of admission to the final redemption. The Jewish people collectively have paid their dues, and now it is only a matter of when, not so much how, which is great news considering how far so many Jews today are from anything remotely Torah-based.
It’s an idea with plenty of merit, but not enough sources to bank on it. Hope for it, yes. Bank on it, no. There may yet be another major war of Gog and Magog to end history, and given the people who could start and fight it, and the current tensions and trends in history, it cannot yet be ruled out.
But while we’re talking about signs of an imminent redemption, one of the most important is how the Jewish people have not only returned to the land, but made it prosper. As the Gemora says, and the Ramchal and GR”A emphasize, making the desert bloom once again is one of the greatest signs of the final redemption we have. We have more than done that already.
The Gemora says:
There are three things that come only by means of diversion of attention: Moshiach, a lost item, and a scorpion. (Sanhedrin 97a)
The Gemora is not telling us to avert our attention from Moshiach, especially since elsewhere we are told to constantly anticipate his arrival. The Gemora is telling us that, more than likely, we will have averted our attention away from his arrival because history will distract us away from it. Isn’t that reason enough to make a point of avoiding everything that can make that true?
Jewish history has been full of deceptions. Try not to be one of the deceived.