Please, for the sake of the future of Israel, the survival of the Jewish People and the future of mankind, do not elect Armageddon!
March 17 – just a day away! The Jewish month of Adar closing out and on the cusp of Nissan. The polls are not good! Is Israel going to have to see a future with Herzog-Livni or is Netanyahu going to emerge on top again? And, even if he does, what will his coalition look like — will he need to move more to the left retain his leadership? Where is this all heading?
Thankfully, the election will still be in the month of miracles! By Shabbat, we will be in Nissan, the month of redemption, freedom from slavery. Our people were at the 49th level of tumah (impurity) and had not G-d intervened, taken over the course of history, we would have disappeared. Centuries later, faced with annihilation, once again our people were so assimilated and numbed that they could not perceive the evil plot against them at the hands of Haman. Then, too, but in a more veiled fashion, G-d intervened — through the vehicle of Mordechai & Esther – and saved us.
The first occurred in Nissan; the second in Adar. On both occasions, we heard, we listened, we cried out and G-d saved. But, things are different now.
Incredibly, perhaps the greatest speech of his political career, Netanyahu’s address to Congress, was not heard and has backfired, primarily by an American-led devised plan to defeat Netanyahu, which has been launched in a five-pronged attack – condemnation by the highest echelons of government, retaliation by the Left, relentless media propaganda, “One Voice” bankrolling of the V-2015 campaign, and a hand-picked campaign team sent to Israel.
Instead of taking his sobering words to heart and rising to the occasion, so many have transformed his message into a political ploy. After all, his intended visit at the White House was rebuffed, his detractors boycotted the speech, and while he was en route to Washington, Kerry was meeting in Geneva with Iranian representatives to continue and solidify negotiations that portend an unimpeded path to nuclear arm capability.
Many religious doomsayers applaud these events as further indications that the End Game for the End of Days has already begun. To them, messianic visions breed hope and optimism. To them, the world is hopeless and it is time to bring its miserable existence to an end. Maybe — well, maybe, that is so, but don’t we still have a choice? Can’t we still avert self-annihilation? Is this path irreversible?
There are, in our mesorah (tradition), more than one scenario.
There is the scenario of Gog and Magog, the last cataclysmic war of all wars! Where else does this battlefield take place, unleashing a worldwide destruction, than the Middle East, Israel in particular. No big surprise. This tiny strip of land has had center stage since the beginning. If this course of events unfolds, the Messiah comes in as a lion and G-d stands victorious, obliterating our enemies, but at great cost – most of the Jews, along with the rest of the world, is gone!
A new world ushers in, after a thousand years of rest – after all, it takes a while for a world to become inhabitable after a nuclear holocaust. The prophet Zechariah described this scenario in graphic terms (14:12): “Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.”
But, then there is an alternate scenario: the Messiah comes in as a lamb. The world hears. The world cries out. Our people do teshuvah (repentance). Spiritual transformation – a New World – not through nuclear obliteration and rebirth, but through awakening and turning to G-d. It is a path that requires faith and trust, seeking no military or political solutions, but facing the horrific downward spiral of things and saying, “No more!”
Which scenario do you want?
Unfortunately, if the tide of political pressure brings down Netanyahu, and if the Iran deal is struck, and if we ignore the cancer that is Islamic extremism, we are going down the Armageddon path and there will be no turning back!
It is not too late. We are still in the month of miracles. March 17 should be a mandate for resisting the madness of placating our enemies, hoping to find peace by giving up whole pieces of Israel (including a chunk of Jerusalem), and exposing our underbelly to the combined evil that seeks to devour us, blot us out of existence, once and for all.
Please, for the sake of the future of Israel, the survival of the Jewish People and the future of Mankind, do not elect Armageddon!