There are some negative events from which we can recover in time, go back to “normal” after a while. Others just change reality so dramatically that they shut the door on the previous one altogether. Try as we might to go back, we just can’t.
The two world wars were so big and so long that no one probably even remembered what the previous world looked like anymore. The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 however was very dramatic but short, so many people tried desperately to return to the world before 9/11, as if to try and mentally negate what had happened.
It also wasn’t possible. The event had irreversibly changed the world, and promised to continue to do so. Cleaning up after the attack included a lot more than clearing away the site of the destructed towers. It included a follow up war in Afghanistan, many new laws to take more control of the population back home, and extended trauma.
What happened just three weeks ago in Israel was smaller in scale than 9/11, but more impactful. The terrorists who flew the planes into the towers killed almost 3,000 people and injured many more, but they did not personally torture them, not like Hamas and their fellow Gazans did to Jews in the south.
How can anyone Israel go back to the way things were before that? That would be like negating their suffering, their deaths. A small terrorist attack is something we’re used to, even expect because we live next door to murderous enemies. But what happened on Shemini Atzeres this year was unprecedented in modern Jewish history, and clearly, from a Hashgochah Pratis point of view, we’re not meant to continue on like we were before it happened.
But all of this might be a moot point in the coming days. We don’t dictate to Divine Providence how the world should go, but follow its lead whether we like it or not. If the world is meant to be different, it will be, like it or not. If we’re meant to be different, we will be, like it or not.
After all, it’s not like we don’t have a hint to what’s going down. All those ancient prophecies about the End of Days are for us, not the generations in which they were written. The War of Gog and Magog may be an ancient idea, but it has a modern, End of Days application. The players may consider themselves to be independent and in charge of their own destinies, but they’re just be fooled and cajoled into playing their destined roles.
They may never know that it is what drove them and that is what happened. But we will. Anyone who survives the end of history as we have known it will, at one point, realize that United States, Russian, China, Iran, the Palestinians, etc. were modern countries with Biblical purposes. And the Jewish people will realize that they have been the single thread connecting all the periods of history until the Messianic Era.
Part of that changing world is the generation that is living in it. There’s never really been a period of time that mankind has been really smart about life and history. If anything, we’re more familiar with mankind being unintelligent and making horrible decisions for the present and the future. It’s really quite amazing that we haven’t destroyed ourselves by now, given all the moronity and negative character traits of so many people, including leaders.
It is a generation of people who think they are smarter than they are. They think they know enough to comment on situations, like the Middle-East conflict, when they don’t. It is filled with people who have biases that stop them from seeing truth, and they don’t care. Nothing is more dangerous than misguided zealots.
Maybe it’s never been any other way. Maybe this is just the way the world is in every generation. However, there are times when this comes out dangerously clear, and others when people are so distracted that their negative tendencies remain dormant. The world is has changed, and dormancy is becoming dangerously clear, once again. The events in Israel may be a catalyst, but it is affecting Jews all around the world, or will.
What does knowing any of this matter? The Jewish people are a tiny people unable to change the opinions of so many, especially when they don’t want to change their opinions. If we learned anything from the 1930s, it’s how when the world moves in this direction that it takes a major war to turn things around again.
We couldn’t hide in Egypt when they came for us. We couldn’t hide in Europe when they came for us. How can we hide in the world when the world comes for us, especially in Israel?
There is a difference though, a major one. When they came for us in Egypt, we were just starting out as a nation. What happened there was to help us become one. When they came for us in Europe, we still lacked a homeland. What happened there helped us to get ours back.
So now we’re a nation and we have a homeland. What do we still lack, so late in our history? Redemption. It’s the only thing let to check off on our Jewish history list. Everything has already happened and been checked off, including being returned from the four corners of the earth. Even all of the curses for straying mentioned in the Torah have occurred at one time or another.
Just redemption remains to happen, and that is where the world is going now, believe or not, ready or not. Now everyone has to decide what that means to them, where they want to be when it happens, and what they want to be doing. There’s not much time to answer those questions anymore.