Parshas Shoftim

A Page Out of Tanach

FRIDAY NIGHT:

Judges and law enforcers you must establish in all your communities which G-d, your G-d gives to you throughout the tribes. (Devarim 16:18)

Speaking of judges and judgment, as of this Shabbat, b"H, there are four weeks until Rosh Hashanah, 5767. At the beginning of 5766, we spoke about how the upcoming year was supposed to be one that had a lot of Geulah potential. However, at that time I had made some vague references to some sources of which I was aware of since they dealt with the future, but it is rarely prudent to go public with such sources.

Now, however, 5766 is almost history, so I feel it is okay to bring up some of those sources now.

The date, 5766, first came up for me about four years ago while sitting in a meeting of Torah Code researchers who were presenting some remarkable findings. One such code came up after some research in 5761, the year after what was supposed to have been the Y2K scare. Because it was a big year in the eyes of the world and the media, one of the researchers decided to see what showed up in terms of the Torah codes.

Remarkably, the year 5760 (Heh-Tav-Shin-Samech) did show up many times, often encoded with several words of redemption. Even more remarkable was that if you continued the skip, the next letter in the code was a Vav, making up the string of letters Heh-Tav-Shin-Samech-Vav, of 5766. Since it was a date that had yet to occur, the researcher decided to use that date for further research.

Amazingly, the date showed up in all five books of the Torah, and usually encoded with other words to do with redemption. Some of the codes were very tight, and the odds of the words interconnecting like that randomly were quite low. However, Torah codes are at best interesting, until after the fact when they can be confirmed by actual events that occurred to match what has been found.

However, a Mekubel that I have been in touch with over the years published a little booklet about Kabbalah, and he just happened to mention in passing that 5766 was a good year for Moshiach to come based upon the Prophets. So, I wrote to this Mekubel and asked what his words were based upon, and he sent me back excerpts from a sefer that contained in it a gematria based upon certain pesukim.

I found it to be quite uncanny that the same date should show up from two different and unrelated sources. Furthermore, with the direction that history was going, it seemed as if events were supporting the idea that major things could occur at a moment's notice that could change everything, even though at the start of 5766, all seemed relatively quiet. However, one of the codes that had come up had specifically alluded to the tenth month of the year, Tevet, as the time for the process to get started in earnest. And amazingly, Tevet did show signs of history turning a precarious corner.

SHABBAT DAY:

Come close, O nations, to hear, and regimes be attentive; let the earth and its fullness hear, the world and its offspring. For G-d has a fury against all the nations and a wrath against all the legions... (Yeshayahu 34:1-2)

Suddenly, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon slipped out of a picture in which he had been so prominent. A war hero turned peace dove, he was pushing the Israeli people down a path towards an agreement that was destined to strip the Jewish people of the very lands he fought to add to the country. Then, all of a sudden he had a stroke, and was immediately removed from the scene he had helped to create.

He didn't die, so he missed out on a hero's funeral. Because of his capitulation to the Western powers that be, he would have had a very honorable funeral by those whom he served. However, since he did not die, he simply slipped out of the minds of men and left this world as we know it with barely a whimper. It was quite an ignoble finish to what was regarded by many as a brilliant military career.

This, of course, paved the way for Ehud Olmert to take command of the newly formed Kadima party, which had to break away from the Likud to make it possible. Had Sharon remained with Likud, Olmert would have gone no where. With Sharon in a coma, Olmert became the prime minister, paving the way for the major war we have started to fight.

In the month of Tevet this year, the great and elderly Mekubel, HaRav Yitzchak Kaduri, zt"l, passed away. Unlike Sharon, Rav Kaduri had a massive funeral fitting a great Torah leader such as himself. However, the passing of any Gadol HaDor, even if elderly, does not bode well for Klal Yisroel, especially if he just happened to have been the leading Mekubel of his time.

By the time the Israeli elections were finished, Olmert had officially become the Prime Minister, though quite young and lacking in experience. However, Shimon Peres likes him very much, and that says tons about the man. "I was impressed with how far Prime Minister Sharon had gone with the peace initiative," Peres gushed while praising Olmert prior to the election, "but Ehud is someone who is willing to go even further."

That was supposed to have been good news?

Prime Minister Olmert worked quickly before the true effects of Gush Katif prevented him from giving away more land in what is clearly a hopeless situation. His idea of making Israel more defensible by pulling back from the territories makes absolutely no sense, nor does anything else he says, including starting a major offensive over the kidnapping of two soldiers which basically has had the effect of wiping out all the good will the Israeli government had built up by expelling 10,000 of its own residents and destroying their property with little or no compensation.

All of a sudden, and quite out of nowhere, just as 5766 was winding down, it became quite a tumultuous year, with an undercurrent that has the potential to spread the conflict and involve Syria and Iran. The thing is, no matter what cease-fire is achieved, it will wipe away the Israeli effort and merely postpone for tomorrow what was almost today: world-wide jihad, first against Israel and then against the world.

Political and military assessments aside for the time being, the question is, why did this happen and what was it meant to achieve from a Divine point of view? The government may have had its own pretext to go into Gaza and Lebanon, but at the end of the day, it is only Heaven's pretext that counts, and it may be very different than that of the IDF or the of the U.S. government.

SEUDAT SHLISHIT:

For I will make a cure for you, and I will heal you from your wounds - the word of G-d; for they called you 'Discarded!' [saying] 'She is Zion - no one cares about her!' (Yirmiyahu 30:17)

Just the other day while talking with a friend about the current situation today, and the world in general, I commented that we could certainly use a prophet today. He agreed.

"But we seem far away from that reality happening soon," I said dejectedly.

He agreed again.

Then I got a flash so simple that I could not fathom how I had overlooked it until now. It was ingenious. Not the flash, but the idea itself. I looked into my friends eyes and told him, "But we do have prophets today!"

He gave me that kind of squint that says, "What are you talking about? Are you making a joke?"

So I told him further, "Think about it for a moment. We have Tanach...we have Sefer Nevi'im with all of the words of the prophets..."

"But they made their prophecies thousands of years ago..." my friend interjected.

"But about today!" I reminded him.

He gave me that squint again, this time trying to size up what I meant, and then there was this look of, "Ah hah! You're right! It's true!"

"It's really quite clever," I started to explain. "What do you do when you have prophets today, meaning back in the times of the actual prophets of Tanach, but you need them in the future when the people won't be worthy of having any?"

"You tell them what to say now for then," my friend said completing my thought, "and you have them record the prophecies so that they are waiting for the people just when they need it."

"Exactly!" I agreed. "If you think about it, we always look at Sefer Nevi'im as being a book from the past about the past, even though it speaks about the future, which is probably the present. So, no one really pays that much attention to it, finding the 11 O'clock news a better harbinger of events to come since it is current."

"In other words," my friend added, "Nevi'im can be considered as if it is actually being written today since that is what they were told to write about! Here we are trying to fit Tanach into modern-day history when in fact we ought to be fitting current events into Tanach. So, in effect, you are saying, it's as if we DO have prophets today."

"Exactly. "

What does this really mean? It means that if everyone who believes in Tanach were to pick up Sefer Nevi'im and read all the relevant prophecies that are written for the End-of-Days over-and-over-again until the words were to penetrate, OUR history would begin to look different. We would relate to it differently. Tanach would pull us out of our modern-day, VERY Western mentality and force us to look at events from a much broader historical perspective, one that is fully rooted in Torah and the ultimate destiny of the Jewish nation.

That is why the Sitra Achra has worked so hard to keep Tanach out of our hands until now.

But you'll tell me, "Out of my hands? Why, I have at least three Tanachs on my shelf right now!"

And I will retort, "But how many are in your head? How many actually fill your heart? How well do you understand the words of the prophets who tried to prepare the final generation for the way it is destined to go? And why don't you? Because some little voice tells you things like, 'There are more pressing issues in my life...other areas of Torah learning that demand my attention...learning Tanach is a luxury..."

Not anymore.

MELAVE MALKAH:

He said to me, "Understand, Son of Man that the vision concerns the time of the End." (Daniel 8:17)

It has been pointed out that almost every Prime Minister that has ever led this country, Eretz Yisroel, has ended up in a role that seemed to go against his or her nature. The warrior types have often turned into doves, while the non-warrior types have often been in office for some of the most spectacular military victories. If the secular Jews really paid any attention to modern Israeli history, they would see the hand of G-d really running the affairs of the country, while putting up with man's insanity until He's finally had enough, which we may see very soon.

Tradition tells us that if and when the War of Gog and Magog will take place, some will die from the shock of it alone. From the size of the armies approaching? No, but from the realization that Tanach, in fact, is true and is the real history, which is a very bitter pill to swallow when you have invested your entire life in the belief that Tanach is NOT true. Remember Yosef's brothers and how speechless they became when he revealed himself, and how wrong they had been about everything? EVERYTHING! Indeed, Yosef had to wake them up from their shock and gently return them to the present before their circuits blew out altogether.

Now, imagine Jews and Gentiles alike who have spent so much time and energy in preventing the Jewish people from accomplishing their ultimate goals of history? "We have an army and tanks," an Israeli general is quoted as saying defiantly. "We don't need G-d!"

"I think the expertise of the pilots and the accuracy of the equipment is why the mission was so successful," one of the pilots from the Iraqi reactor bombing crew later gushed. Come on; give me a break. Watch the video. At least three or four major miracles happened along the way without which the pilots were sitting ducks, even while in flight. They should have been shot down long before they ever reached the reactor.

But they weren't shot down. And, not because G-d was simply performing a miracle for the modern state of Israel either. It was because G-d was performing a miracle for the Jewish people of Tanach...us. And, if a negative miracle happens for the Jewish people today, that is also G-d acting on behalf of the ultimate goals of the entire nation from the beginning of our history until the end of it.

For, even though the actual books of Tanach came to a close a millennia ago, they were written to incorporate history far beyond their physical pages. Tanach is the real undercurrent of history. And, ultimately, if and when the War of Gog and Magog does take over and becomes a reality and the focus of the entire world, it will be only to make this point perfectly clear. For those who at least believed it in theory, it will be a real heart-warmer. For those whom Tanach is but a book with which to adorn one's shelf, it will be the shock of a lifetime.

It's been quite a year, and it is not over yet. No one could have predicted back at its beginning what its end would look like. Things move fast and they change fast. We are about to find out which page of Tanach we live on.

Have a great Shabbos (and learn Tanach)
PW

Text Copyright © 2006 by Rabbi Pinchas Winston and Torah.org.