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I dont know, maybe its just me but I increasingly find myself uneasy about world events. The deaths of gedolim this past year. Reshoim in other countries rattling their sabers. Political unrest here and abroad. Gezeros against milah and shechitah around the world. Blatent ani-jewishness is just rampant. Disasters local and foreign. Its really unsettling me. Maybe in years past when things would happen and times were tough I was able to brush it off and forget some of my concerns so I could go about my business during the day. But this year I seem to always have this undercurrent of worry all the time. Im not usually a worrier, it worries me that I am worried. So many things are not going right for klal yisrael. So much infighting too. No one seems to be able to step back and analyze whats happening to us. I think we are in a lot of trouble. Sigh. Does anyone else feel this way? Am I imagining that this past year seems to have had an inordinate amount of problems?
You are correct. It’s time for us to do teshuva.
All good signs that Moshiach is on his way. Let’s all try and be the best Jew we can be and Daven for the Geula quickly!
There have always beed disasters, the only difference now is that you know about them, Hurricans, Tornadoes, Tsunami if it happens we all know about it which wasnt the case.
Did you know there was in Hurricane in NYC in 1788, Why didnt the Geolim write about it, Probably because they never heard about it.
There are no more this year than any other year, they are normal occurances, but in todays world especially we know about them, and we know about them quickly .
If it really bothers you, step away from the News, you dont have to listen about them
Zehavasdad: I think it’s time for you to wake up! Nothing in life is mere coincidences! Why do you brush off all these occurances as such?
Friends: IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP!!! MAY THESE 3 WEEKS TURN INTO HAPPIER AND MORE PRODUCTIVE TIMES!
I can imagine zahavasdad would be making these same comments in 1943.
Zahavasdad-It’s not just the disasters and tragedies that are unsettling, it’s the combination of that with the political changes in the Arab world: overthrow of governments, a soon to be (chas v’shalom)nuclear Iran, increasing antisemitism in Europe and a growing Muslim majority in most of the European and Scandinavian world. The ban against bris milah is just too reminiscient of our oppressed past. I see it all as if Hashem were ‘playing’ a big chess game, and Hashem is moving all the pieces exactly where He wants them, bringing some in and getting rid of others, ie Ghaddafi, Mubarak, Saddam Hussein etc. Soon, Hashem will put the world into “check”…and Mashiach will come…
Zahavasdad’s point was that all of history has been a wake up call for us. This year is too, but no more so than any other year.
One day I am going to die. Maybe today if the Chabad succeed or maybe next year if Achmanijad nukes us or maybe at 120 in a hospital bed. What does matter is if I Did mitzvot and if I did aveirot. Annd that is why I give out torah books on why Jews should live in Israel and why I did guard duty and why I do not travel to America. Are we facing tough times in the near future? Maybe. But worrying will not change anything. Just advance the bad things or make things that will never happen come too fruitation.
We can learn from what Zahavasdad is saying too and realize were not doing in enough to get even better than before.
Nope..not buying it.
The world has seen similar/worse political unrest and more blatant manifestations of real antisemitisim (what we have nowadays that keeps the ADL and $PLC in business is not even close to what our grandparents endured in Europe or various Arab countries)
The only difference is that now we have things like the 24 hour news cycle that magnify every single “news story” in the world.
Tommorrow will be another day in the 56 billion year history of this planet
What I am quite worried about is that the western countries are all rampaging their armed forces. The UK’s Royal Army went from 160,000 in 1982 to 102,000 today and is now being reduced to 82,000.
In The Netherlands, I remember the armed forces (combined) used to count circa 80,000 a few years ago; now it’s about 65,000. They recently decided to stop using tanks at all. The Air Force’s F16s are almost falling apart and the government just decided to quit the JSF project, so probably soon there won’t be an Air Force either. The Navy is almost gone, with half of its ships gone over the last 10 years and the Naval Aviation branch being totally destroyed.
Now when a real war is going to break loose, the outcome is easy to predict: the enemy will win, because there won’t be anybody to even make a futile attempt to stop them……
Sam2-you don’t see anything different happening in the Middle East? There has been a domino effect of Arab countries rising up against their leaders. When has that happened before? The whole political climate is changing over here. So many regimes are falling from either civil war, the financial crisis, or internal scandals: Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, and soon Syria.. That doesn’t sound ‘normal’ to me..
the fact of the matter is How do you even know these events are BAD?
For example We are always talking about Hurricanes and they do damage, But they also bring Rain, many areas have suffered from Droughts and the Hurricane ended the drought.
I agree with Z, we just feel like it because we are looking out more for this type of news. Combine that we all those crazies who think they know exactly when moshaich is coming and how they predict that he will come in that current year…every year without fail…and well you definitely get the hype building up in you to think that this year is different.
Fact is the same as always, when bad things happen to us it’s because we are being increasingly worse as a whole. Add in the fact that we are losing so many gedolim (which is actually a sign for moshiach) and soon our level plummets even further. We have only a couple of thousand jews in the entire world that truly can call themselves tzaddikim…out of the 15 or so million jews. It’s no wonder that things seem like they are getting worse and worse…
Ummm…we’re losing gedolim because all of the people we call gedolim are extremely up there in age. If we were losing gedolim in their 50’s and 60’s you might have a point.
But calling that a sign for moshiach is just a self fulfilling prophecy.
WOW
There has been many times in the past where people rose up and revolted against their leaders. The Arab Spring is not the first or the last time this has happend
It most recently happend in the late 1980’s when the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall fell. Communist country after communist country (starting with Poland) rose up against the Soviets and the communists and they communists fell.
But there was political instability in the Post World War I era (Czarist Russia fell)
There was instability during the Napoleonic Wars when the ancien regimes began to fall (Most of the Monarchies in Europe fell between the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution)
And some revolutions have failed, The 1905 Revolution in Russia and the 1989 Tianamen Square revolt in China.
Zahavasdad-but there was a different agenda and consequence: their rise was against communism, with the hope for a more democratic way of life, which would be an improvement! Changes in the Arab world are only bringing more radical leadership, with the agenda of eliminating Israel. Not to mention, in an age where chemical and nuclear weapons are a reality. Anyway, the main question to ask regarding any changes in the political world is, “how does it affect Israel?” Bc that’s the bottom line. If the world is to reach it’s purpose for creation, we know there will be a world war that will involve various countries, with the focus on Jerusalem. For this reason, we should be paying careful attention to THOSE particular countries, noticing anything ‘different than usual”. That’s why the political changes these days are so disturbing, bc it feels like we’re getting closer…
repharim-we don’t know when Mashiach is coming, but all the signs precipitating his arrival have occurred. That’s the REAL reason we’re so close…there’s nothing left to wait for anymore except the shofar! Political changes, natural disasters, tragedies and the deaths of our Gedolim are just to bring more of us to teshuva before the ‘big day’…especially, sorry to say, you die hard New Yorkers:)
Sam2,
One could make the argument that all of history has been a wake up call for us, and now, as always, we must react to the frightening world events and do teshuva.
But so far, I think you’re the only one in this discussion to make that argument (albeit indirectly).
I have heard loads of ‘midrashim’ from all different people about the events preceding Mashiach. Such as having huge birds that will fly and drop eggs that can destroy entire cities [equivalent of modern military aircraft with nuclear capabilities…], such as economy being like it is [a ???? somewhere?] and other major signs.
Can anybody bring actual quotes of any such things that herald the coming of ?????
There is a very, very fine line that needs to be drawn. We need to hope and expect every day for Moshiach to come tomorrow. At the same time, we can’t say for sure that it will happen. The Gemara has very harsh words for those who try and calculate when Mashiach will come. The reason is because if you say that Mashiach will come at a precise time, then if you’re wrong it causes people to lose hope or mock (look at what happened with the nutcase and the rapture last year). So saying that this is for sure the lead-up to Mashiach is bad, because if C”V Mashiach isn’t here in 5 years or 10 years, people will say, “Look, everyone said all the signs were here but he didn’t come. Either he’s never coming or he doesn’t exist.”
WOW The Fall of the Romanav (Russia) , Hapsburg (Austria-Hungry) and Hohenzollern (Prussia/Germany) regimes after world war I ,very much affected the jews, probably more than the Arab Spring ever could.
And the regimes that replaced them were MORE radical than these.
There was much instability after the fall of these regimes and likely led to the Holocaust
DY: I think I made exactly that argument. It’s what I was trying to say. (Or were you saying that I did it indirectly because I made it as an explanation of Zahavasdad’s statement? If so, you’re right. But I also happen to completely agree with my explanation of his statement.)
Even though all the signs for moshiach have passed – the fact that he is not here leaves just 1-2 things left before he comes. Which I’m going to go out and guess is that Hashem is doing 2 things – waiting for all the pieces to be set and/or giving us the maximum amount of time possible for us to do tshuva before our time runs out – which is actually the year 6000. So all those people who think moshiach is coming “soon” don’t realize that even their children may not see moshiach in their lifetimes. Our grandchildren…might live to see that time. “Soon” is just relative to 5772 years of waiting and only have <250 years left. AND even then, if after 6000 years moshiach does not come we are still required to come. We only make an assumption that each day of creation was equal to 1000 years, we are not 100% positive, it could be 10,000 or 100,000 or who knows.
Just like Z pointed out – even after all the signs have passed, there have been many wars, tons of instability and so on. Do you really think that it’s impossible that ww3 happens, moshiach does not come, 100 years later ww4 happens, moshiach STILL doesn’t come, ww5 happens – moshiach comes. That is a totally realistic scenario… The gemara says that jews will have nowhere to go for safety just before moshiach and even though things are bad now, most countries tolerate jews. Even america is supposedly supposed to turn on jews like in germany, things don’t seem to be as bad as they probably should be before moshiach. Don’t get me wrong – things are bad but in ww2 – they were a lot worse then now.
Sam2,
Yes, I thought that’s what you meant, and I agree (it’s much easier that way, we don’t have to make statistical and historical comparisons between tzaros, lo aleinu).
You were overly kind, though, in explaining ZD’s comments that way.
i think we should leave this thread to zdad and the troll, who clearly understand everything on a much deeper level than the current gedolim.
We news junkies risk falling victim to a fallacy (not a lie, but a fallacy). The sites we read, including this one, funnel bad news from all over the world into our minds. They report every antisemitic statement made anywhere on earth. Even if every item is true, the sheer concentration of such items creates the impression of the sky falling in, which it hasn’t. We ought to respond by doing as the rabbanim say (tshuva and ma’asim tovim), and better still as the rabbanim do.
DY: I try and explain everyone’s comments (except for Joseph’s) in nice ways.
The 1492 Explosion from Spain left a terrible mark on Judiasm and people were really ready for Moshiach, and really needed it as they were very downtroding, Out of that Rubble came Shabbtai Tzvi (One of the biggest False Messiahs in History)
zahavasdad-I’m not saying that the fall of Russia didn’t affect the Jews, it did. But the political changes today in the Arab world are more in sync with what’s supposed to happen at the end of days, where everyone will turn against Israel, and fight over the status of Jerusalem. Isn’t that exactly what’s happening now?
repharim-you really should read Rabbi Pinchas Winston’s book, entitled ‘End of Days’. According to his timeline, the world will last 6000 years, but Techiyas HaMeisim will last 210 years, which brings us to the latest possible time Mashiach can come as 5790, which is only 18 years away! There was also an interesting lecture once by Rabbi Mendel Kessin about 9/11 that talked about the end of days, which was in sync with a lot of Rabbi Winston’s info.
WoW: No one should read books that attempt to determine the Keitz.
Sam2- Rabbi Winston’s book doesn’t predict when Mashiach will come, but he gives a lot of convincing arguments as to why it looks like it will be pretty soon.
And, as far as predicting when Mashiach will arrive, according to the Ramban, the prohibition against trying to predict the date of the redemption applied to earlier generations, but now that we’re on the eve of the redemption, there’s no prohibition (Sefer HaGeulah). Also, according to the Malbim, the situation is like that of a father and son who are traveling on a long journey. When they start out, and the son asks when they will arrive, the father doesn’t answer. However, as they get closer, when the son asks when they will arrive, the father answers readily that they are very close. So too it is with us…
WoW: The Ramban was Melamed Z’chus on a lot of Mechashvei Kitzim. But we see that his Limud Z’chus was not correct. He felt they were on the eve of the Geulah in the 13th century. And here we are, over 700 years later, still using his argument that it’s still the “eve of the Geulah”. I get that some people find Chizuk in such things. But Chazal knew how people think too and they saw enough of a possible pitfall to say very harsh things about it (see, however, Avodah Zarah 9a give or take V’tzarich Iyun). It’s a field that we should definitely avoid. We live our lives, wait and hope every day for Mashiach to come, and don’t try to guess when that will be.
Rav Shach z”l said for all he knows mashiach will come in 2000 years time
What was his source for that?
@write or wrong Most likely the rabbi in the book merely stated one opinion from the gemara on a possible outcome. I actually just learned from sanhedrin not more than a few weeks ago and let me tell you there are pages upon pages of many rabbeim giving their predictions on when moshiach will come. There is so much variation…and we’re talking about a wide variation that we cannot listen to any one rabbi over another.
Those of us who have family members that survived the Holocaust have heard stories of people walking to their deaths, sure that they were about to greet Mashiach.
I agree with Sam2, we have to hope & wait, but it’s not up to us to predict when the Geulah will come. Certainly we have to avoid such discussions around children, who take things vey literally and can be disappointed (or Ch”v worse) when what they expected does not occur.
What exactly does Moshiach or anything jewish have to do with the Colorado shooting.
I saw the victims name and I didnt even see a jewish sounding name among the victms
What exactly does Moshiach or anything jewish have to do with the Colorado shooting.
When we hear of tragic events, we are supposed to be frightened into doing teshuvah, will will hopefully bring the geulah closer.
zahavasdad-everything that happens is bc of klal Yisrael, it’s like the korban, that should have been us…(chas v’Shalom)
This is a perfect example of News today, ,
WOW lives in Israel and I doubt she would have heard of it without the fast spread of news today. And while this has been huge news in the USA, I cant see how it was news in Israel or anywhere else in the world.
Obviosuly it was news here in the USA
zahavasdad-everything that happens is bc of klal Yisrael, it’s like the korban, that should have been us…(chas v’Shalom)
So you are saying EVERYTIME there is a murder, It should have been a jew. So if 2 African Americans are fighting over a Drug deal gone bad and one shoots the other, It is a Korban instead of a jew
Zahavasdad: No, but it does teach us something. The Gemara (Medrash) says that all Tzaros come to the world because of Yisrael. Although maybe you can be Mechalek between a Tzara that is Talui on another person’s Bechirah Chofshis and a Tzara which is completely Bidei Shamayim.
Zdad,
sorry to bring up older posts now however I was just looking at this thread now.
you stated how is the Arab Spring different then Russia etc.
there is a Baal Haturim that says by Yishmael’s descendats “al pnei kol echav nafal” that when the descendants of Yishmael fall then Moshiach will be “Yatzmich” people are saying the Arab Spring is actually the Arab “Fall”
“crisisoftheweek”, who is the 13th poster from the top of this discussion – wrong wrong wrong! by writing ” Tommorrow will be another day in the 56 billion year history of this planet” – Don’t you know the world is 5772 years old? Now you know.
Yom yom.
Ready now: I saw that, but ignored it. I thought it was just a turn of phrase (or attempted trolling), not a statement of fact.
sam2,
I saw that too and figured that he was trolling too
Nope not trolling
Accordng to multiple Rishonim, belief in an ancient universe does not automatically brand me a non believer.
I find that decades of peer reviews science and carbon dating support the conclusion that the planet is a wee bit older that 5772 years.
But that’s just me.
Sam2,
Again, you were too kind.
It’s a shame you were wrong, because it really is a good middah.
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