"The Great Redemption"
The Remembrance: Ch. 4
If you were to be standing atop a precipice at this point in The
Remembrance, overlooking the vista, you'd see a lot of movement and
change, a great shifting about and resettling. For whole and massive
columns of people would be moving and realigning, moving again and
aligning again in yet other ways. Because the great redemption would have
begun; the ingathering of the exiled Jewish Nation would have been set in
motion. And as we indicated, it would have all been initiated by Moshiach
Ben Yoseph.
We're told that that will be brought on as a result of a great surge of
love issuing from Heaven, as G-d recalls the plight of His precious
children, His joy and delight. For His "innermost parts (will) yearn" for
us, and He'll "have (i.e., He'll manifest) mercy" upon His people then
(Jeremiah 31:19). And it will begin.
Now, we're told that we'll immediately break into a "song that would begin
(a great, univeral) ascent" then, as we arrive at Amanah, Israel's
traditional northernmost point. And we'll encounter the ten lost tribes,
who will be gathered together by Moshiach Ben David, as all twelve tribes
are reunited.
Now, there's "a lovely and pleasant mystery involved" in the song that
we'll be breaking into then. It's rooted in the fact that it will be
inspired by a great and colossal event. But Ramchal eases us into this
idea with the following fascinating notion.
He asserts that "whoever is elevated is (in fact) elevated by music" --
that music is capable of lifting us higher and drawing us farther and
wider along the spiritual plane than anything else. Now, that's needless
to say a curious statement for someone to make who's as scholarly and
steeped in traditional texts as Ramchal is. But experience will bear out
the truth of music's power, and his remark doesn't in fact belittle
scholarship so much as plead the case for supplementing it with music,
which the greatest prophets did in order to come to inspiration.
In any event, we're told that "at the time of the redemption all the
(great cosmic) groupings and lights will experience a great elevation"
which will all come about in conjunction with the song we'll be singing
then. And that a plethora of "great goodness and peace will result from
this".
For "the (entire) universe will be elevated ... to a very great and robust
degree, and things will ... be very much loftier." In fact, "all the gates
will open up as well as all the entranceways of blessing. All of creation
will experience a great expansion, and there’ll be no lack of anything or
poverty; and the verse, 'There will be no poor among you; for G-d will
bless you greatly in the land which G-d your L-rd is granting you as an
inheritance to possess' (Deuteronomy 15:4) will have been fulfilled" by
that point. And "all of creation will grow quantitatively and
qualitatively".
The point is that "all the singing that those who gather together out of
exile will be doing when they arrive at Amanah" will be both be a result
of and an inspiration for "that ascent".
Text Copyright © 2006 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org.