The Gemara (Avodah Zarah 9.) teaches that the world will exist for six thousand years. The first two thousand years are called תהו (void) because there was no Torah in the world. The following two thousand years are called the years of Torah. The final two thousand years is the era of Moshiach because Moshiach will come then." The first two millennia of Torah began when Avraham Avinu was 52 years old. Why don’t the two thousand years start from the time Avraham recognized Hashem (which is at the age of 3, 40, or 48, as discussed above)? The Satmar Rebbe zt'l answered that when Avraham was 52, Nimrod threw him into the fiery furnace at Ur Kasdim because he refused to worship idols. The value of Torah is when it’s kept with mesirus nefesh. Avraham believed in Hashem earlier, but when he was 52 years old, he kept the Torah with mesirus nefesh. That’s the beginning of the two thousand years of Torah. During the Communist regime, it was difficult to find a mohel in Russia. One Russ...
Anyone who regularly reads the words that come just before the Shema during Shacharit and does not come to Eretz Yisrael is not adequately focusing on those words. Clear as day, we read: ותוליכינו מהרה קוממיות לארצנו (Speedily lead us upright to our land). Think about what קוממיות means. Translated as "upright," it means a lot more than that. It means standing up proudly and independently, something a Jew can only do in Eretz Yisrael. Those waiting for HaShem to take them to the Promised Land on a magic carpet are in error. He has already provided the means; all you need do is book a flight on El Al and you will speedily arrive in our land. And a few words after we pray that HaShem lead us upright to our land, we say the Shema. The implication is clear: Only by going to our land can we properly appreciate the meaning of the essential declaration of our faith.
A young child was observing a truck on the road. The child was too short to see the person sitting in the driver's seat, and it looked to him like the truck was riding on its own. Afraid that the “driverless” truck might crash into him, he urged his mother to get out of the truck’s way. He also asked his mother how the truck knows, on its own, when to stop and when to slow down or speed up. The mother explained that when he will be taller, he will be able to see the man sitting in the driver's seat. The nimshal is that it sometimes seems to us that the world is running on its own with no one in charge. But when we become greater and taller (in a spiritual sense) we recognize that nothing happens on its own. Everything is led by Hashem's hashgachah pratis. (Torah Wellsprings, Matot, 5782)
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