A couple weeks ago I got the latest copy of the OU's Jewish Action magazine which I found enjoyable and interesting. (Best piece by far: the fiery exchange between Rav Aharon Feldman of Ner Yisroel and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Quick piece of advice: Don't get into a debate with R. Aharon L. You will lose.)One particular article caught my attention - at least enough to blog about. In a witty humor piece about Tefillat Haderech at the end of the magazine, describing our fears of traveling, and the modern relevance of the prayer the author writes,
It occurs to me that it’s time for Moshiach. Maybe even before this flight takes off. I calm myself reflecting that when he finally comes, a lot of people will be thrown out of work: first to go will be that beady-eyed girl with the clipboard at the El Al terminal (“You understend why I esk you ziss questions?”); doctors will head for the nearest kollel; the entire military will retrain in driving tractors. When that big shofar blows, x-ray scanners will be cast aside and we will dance onto the planes taking us to Eretz Yisrael, as baggage handlers cheerfully, gently load our belongings aboard.I agree that it is time for Moshiach. It's always time - today, right now. But is this really the way that she thinks it's going to be: a big shofar, baggage handlers, and people dancing onto planes? I read those words with a sense of incredulity. Now I know why people don't come. Why come now when you have to get a job, and learn the language, and acclimate. Better to wait for the shofar. It'll be that much easier, and that much better when the shofar finally blows?
Sorry, but I don't think that's how it's going to be. If you want to move to Israel with singing and dancing, the time is right now. I fear that people waiting for the right moment will wait just a little bit too long, and when they're finally ready, the moment will have passed.
And then they'll come - if they can. But there are no guarantees.
If we merit it, it might just be that easy.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this conception of the time of Moshiach is actually relevant. Sure, maybe the world will be so overwhelmed by the revealed truth of Torah that airline security and the Israeli army won't be necessary. The Navi certainly refers to an age without wars (or at least not Jewish wars). But no doctors? That presumes a lot of miracles (or a lot of advances in technology, which one could argue is practically the same thing). There's a fairly lively debate among the Rishonim whether the messianic age will be include daily miracles -- everyone floating to Israel and the third Beit HaMikdash dropping down from heaven -- or just a modern age where God's presence and the Torah's truth is revealed and universally accepted.
ReplyDelete(Back in the YU dorms I remember long discussions arguing whether the Rambam's view was actually a religious version of Gene Roddenberry's imagined future just without Klingons or Borg. Ah, to be young and that sort of conversation "mattered." Now we just talk about tuition and sinat chinam.)