War as At'halta deGe'ula Links
While the Russians and Georgians are fighting each other, the Ge'ula scenarios have been reshuffled, as Hashem does from time to time to keep us guessing.
Nava says that this may be what the Gemara means by בשביעית מלחמות. (It's ironic that I just learned that Gemara in מסכת מגילה this past Wednesday night.)
Akiva and Reb Nati say that Gog may be Russia after all.
שירת דבורה says that "soon this war will involve Israel (America & UK) and Iran", providing this map.
posted by yaak @ 8/11/2008 12:40:00 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
"scenarios have been reshuffled, as Hashem does"
or else it is not Hashem who is doing the reshuffling, but rather those doing the predicting, as they try to reinterpret every new event in apocalyptic terms.
Kol Tuv,
Josh
On the one hand, you can say that you're right - Hashem has his Master Plan all along, and we misinterpret every earthquake, tsunami, war, etc. to be the Big One.
On the other hand, you can say that under the right spiritual circumstances those natural disasters and wars were the real deal, but we were not Zoche for those Hevlei Mashiah to bring the ultimate Ge'ula just yet.
It may be Talui in the Mahloket between R' Eliezer and R' Yehoshua whether Teshuva must precede Ge'ula or not.
I fail to see what positive could come out of this. How many people left America due to the identification of Gog as G?
It is obviously a valid opinion that there needn't be any relation between the names/places listed in the Navi and the physical reality, as we have the midrash regarding Chizkiyahu and Sancheriv being possibly Moshiach and Gog uMagog, respectively.
In terms of that gemara in Megillah, this was the point I was making earlier about the importance of learning sources in context before applying them. I address this at the end of a post I put up this morning -- about how it ignores the context of the gemara in Sanhedrin.
See here.
http://parsha.blogspot.com/2008/08/voices-in-sixth-war-in-seventh-ben.html
Related to the idea of learning gemaras in context, also see this earlier post of mine, from about a week ago, when the prediction was still about America vs. Iran, here:
http://parsha.blogspot.com/2008/08/does-gemara-predict-that-america-will.html
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Even more context:
These Gemarot imply not to expect Moshiach before Kibbutz Galuyot. I've provided partial translations for these Gemarot on my blog.
http://keitzmeguleh.blogspot.com/2007/12/yerushalmi-on-order-of-prayer.html
http://keitzmeguleh.blogspot.com/2007/12/bavli-megilah-17b.html
It is meforash in the Rambam and the Zohar (to mention only a few) that Kibbutz Galuyot is performed by Moshiach himself.
it is indeed mefurash in Rambam.
or alternatively, this might be a dispute between sources. After all, Abaye does not respond to Rav Yosef that we have not yet had kibbutz galuyot.
or alternatively, perhaps one can claim that kibbutz galuyot has already happened to a sufficient degree, as performed by Ben Gurion, or the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or others.
One need be careful when making blanket statements about the Rambam. The Rambam quoted that Gemara in his peirush to perek Cheilek. The way we can explain is it is the difference between kibbutz galuyot and kibbutz nidchei yisrael, much more nuanced.
Regarding the Zohar, indeed this is difficult, but it seems to be talking there in the Midrash Ne'elam about something a bit different: 40 years in which Am Yisrael is ingathered before the end of the 6th millenium.
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