Busy With Personal Troubles As Disaster Looms on the Horizon

Source: Revach.net

"Eretz Yisroel is in Sakana [danger]." We've been hearing this from our gedolim for the past few years and never have things seemed so ominous. We are not talking about a doomsday scenario of nuclear war which is a bit beyond our capability to grasp. We are talking about easy to imagine threats from those next to us. We have already suffered from these in small doses in the past, including terror and outright attacks from those living inside our borders, as well as missile barrages from our neighbors. Even those were very painful and now we are facing all that and much more, in a way that make those outbreaks look pale in comparison.

Yet as we approach this very real fear, no one seems to seems to really be concerned about it. Why? Will history judge us as naive as we have judged our predecessors who sat idle in the face of annihilation? The truth is that history only sees big things and does not possess the tools to see the fine lines. Nowadays how could anyone be concerned about potential threats when we live with real problems, daily? Who doesn't have them. Some families are struggling with parnassa, while others R"L are dealing with illness. Most of us are struggling with the Chinuch of our children in a world gone mad, and all of us are working on improving ourselves as we watch our generation sink into a moral abyss and we ourselves don't seem to match up to generations gone by. We simply don't have any room on our overflowing plate of tzorus for doomsday predictions on the political front.

This makes you wonder. Why then in this critical juncture of history, when Hashem is preparing a huge storm on the horizon, potentially the biggest storm ever, would He distract us with so many of our own personal problems. Why wouldn't Hashem awaken our hearts to focus on how we can head off a catastrophic future?

The answer seems simple and the fact that we are so quiet seems to indicate that deep down we understand this. It is clear as our Gedolim have told us over and over again the past few decades, we are living in Ikvisa Meshicha, the generation that bridges the galus and the days of Moshiach. We are living in the absolute physical and spiritual blackness before the dawn. To successfully cross the bridge and skip over this deep and dangerous ravine we need two things. First we need to show we have rid ourselves of the cause of the destruction many years ago, Sinas Chinam. Second in order to be zocheh to greet Moshiach we must fill ourselves with complete Emunah in Hashem.

If we are actually standing at the threshhold of the last and most painful step that will herald the Geula, Hashem has indeed done us a tremendous service by sending us these waves and waves of distractions. Focusing on potential war would be not only fruitless as we are not in the position to to do anything about it, but it would even be counter productive. What would we do, go on a PR offensive? Take self defense courses? Arm ourselves and prepare to defend our lives? Nonsense. It would just serve to exacerbate our lack of emunah.

The generation before Moshiach is called Chevlei Moshiach because Chevel means rope. We are all hanging by a rope that is shaking violently trying to throw us off. Only those who manage to hang on will survive this brutal period. Only the strongest among us will hang on, the rest will fall into the abyss. And what is this rope attached to, that will save us? Emunah! The rope has never shaken so violently in history. Mankind has determined we are the masters of the world. For money, dial education and acumen. For health, see modern medicine. For model children, choose from an assortment of self help books. We are the self help generation. We truly believe that we can have whatever it is we set our heart on. It is up to us! And it is, each man to his own, stoking the flames of Sinas Chinam.

So instead of letting us lead tranquil lives and let us focus on winning the next big war, Hashem has let us sink so low in Sinas Chinam that we no longer follow the news, and unfortunately we are the news. Instead of shedding light on the nations, we are enveloping the world in darkness that no one has ever expected from Hashem's chosen nation, murdering our own children and murdering our own Holy men. Maybe Hashem is taking us to lowest point so we can finally after 2,000 years understand the implications of Sinas Chinam.

Maybe our health, livelihood and families are crumbling around us so that despite our mighty efforts, we understand before tragedy strikes, that we must live a life of self responsibility but not self help, as help comes only from one place high above us.

Our personal lives are not a distraction from the events ahead, they are the perfect lead up to them. We should appreciate these lessons, as only a true recognition of what we are being taught us will save us from the ultimate day of rage. And then with our Ahavas Yisroel and Emunah in hand, we will survive that day and live to dance before Moshiach Tzidkeinu in a world of Giluy Shechina, bimheira biyameinu, Amen!