AI, Israel & Prophecy: Are We Watching the World Prepare for Mashiach? Rabbi Aron Sokol

[music] We are living through an entire constellation of developments described throughout the messianic tradition. What if I told you that one of the greatest signs of Messiah may not be something that suddenly appears in the sky? What if the greatest sign is that the entire world is slowly being prepared for him right in front of our eyes? And what if things that seem completely unrelated, technology, war, social upheaval, the return of the Jewish people to Israel, even the collapse of old values are actually pieces of one enormous process. Because there is a question we almost never ask. We ask when Messiah is coming. But maybe the deeper question is what must happen to the world before Messiah can come. And once you understand that question, you may never look at the news the same way. Look at the world around us. There are people who are absolutely terrified of the future. They look at nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, overpopulation, artificial intelligence, social instability and technologies capable of destroying civilization and they wonder whether mankind is moving towards its own end. And then there are the optimists. They imagine a completely different future. unlimited energy, diseases being conquered, technology solving problems that mankind struggled with for thousands of years. A world of abundance that previous generations could barely imagine. These two possibilities could not be more different. One future looks like destruction. The other almost looks like utopia. But there's something remarkable about the fact that both possibilities exist at the same moment. Never before has mankind possessed this kind of power. Never before have human beings been able to transform the world so quickly, either for good or for evil. We are living in an accelerated age. Think about this. Take a person who lived 2,000 years ago and drop him into the world of 200 years ago. Of course, there would be differences, but much of life would still be recognizable. People traveled with animals. They lit their homes with fire. And of course, news traveled slowly. Most work was done with human hands. Now, take someone who only 200 years ago and place him in our world. He would think that he had entered into another universe. Human beings walk on the moon. We split atoms. to investigate basic machinery of life itself. Diseases that once wiped out enormous populations have been controlled or eliminated. I can speak to someone on the other side of the planet instantly. Can get into an airplane across oceans and hours. Space travel. Machines perform work that once required armies of labors. And now we are entering into a world in which machines can reason with us. AI write with us, design with us, diagnose with us, and perhaps one day perform enormous portions of human labor. In barely a few generations, human knowledge exploded. That is no parallel in recorded history. Whether we use that knowledge wisely is an entirely different conversation. But the explosion itself is undeniable. So what does it mean? Why now? Well, human beings were intelligent thousands of years ago. There were brilliant philosophers, engineers, mathematicians, physicians, inventors in every generation. Why did this enormous explosion of knowledge wait until this particular stage in history? And where is it taking us? But now add something else. At the same time that technology is transforming civilization, something happened to the human conscious. Ideas that earlier generations simply accepted as unavoidable are increasingly considered intolerable. War, oppression, injustice, inequality, the destruction of the environment. Human beings are increasingly unwilling to simply shrug and say that is how the world works. We increasingly look at the evils of society as problems that are supposed to be solved. So we have an explosion of knowledge. We have an explosion of human power. We have a growing demand that society become more just. And then there is a third development, one that affects the entire world, but has a unique meaning for the Jewish people. After nearly 2,000 years of exile, suffering, persecution, and prayer, the Jewish people returned to our ancient homeland and regained political control in Aratus. Technology, a human changing conscious, the return of Israel. Maybe they are unrelated. Maybe it is all coincident except for one enormous problem with that explanation. These things were spoken about long before they happened. Jewish tradition describes a world moving toward a messianic age. And when you begin placing the pieces next to each other, the picture becomes difficult to ignore. We believe that God controls the ultimate direction of history. That does not mean human beings have no free will. Every individual can choose good or evil. Every human being is responsible for his actions. But Judaism teaches that the overall direction of history is not random. Governments rise and fall, discoveries appear, ideas spread, civilization changes, and somehow through the free choices of billions of people, history continues moving toward the purpose for which God created it. Mish says the heart of the king is in the hand of God and he directs it wherever he wills. There's a profound idea here. God does not only reveal himself by breaking nature. Sometime God reveals himself through history. Sometimes the miracle is not that the river suddenly splits. Sometimes the miracle is that 10,000 human decisions, political events, discoveries and revolutions somehow converge towards a destination that was described thousands of years earlier. The ultimate destination of that process is perfection of human society. This is what Jewish tradition calls the messianic age. Msiah is not an isolated event disconnected from history. Messiah is the culmination of history. And this is why Judaism is ultimately an extraordinary optimistic religion. We do not believe history ends in meaninglessness. We believe creation is going somewhere. We believe that evil does not have the final word. We believe that mankind can reach a state in which the entire world finally reflects the purpose for which it was created. But here is where things become complicated. Because if you actually study every kazal, Tanakh, midish, zor, and what they say about Msiah, you encounter descriptions that seem to contradict one another. In Daniel, we read about someone coming with clouds of heaven. That sounds supernatural, dramatic, miraculous, and just a change of nature. But Zachchariah describes the king coming humbly, riding on a donkey. That sounds almost painfully ordinary. So, which one is it? Does Msiah arrive through open miracles or does redemption emerge through the normal processes of history? The Talmud gives an astonishing answer. Both are possible if we are worthy. Redemption can come miraculously. If we are not worthy of that level, the messianic process can unfold through natural events. Either way, history is moving toward redemption. If we merit that the destination can arrive before the normal historical process has finished preparing the world. If not, God can guide history itself until the world becomes ready. And this may completely change the way we think about Messiah. We have been trained to imagine redemption as God interrupting history. But perhaps redemption can also be God revealing what history was moving toward all along. Think about why miracles are so complicated. Free will is one of the foundations of human existence. If God revealed himself so openly that disbelief became impossible, human freedom would be fundamentally changed. Person has to be capable of choosing. That is why Jewish tradition treats open miracles with tremendous seriousness. The greatest miracles often occur when faith is already so powerful that the miracle is not what creates the faith. A person worthy of such a miracle already knows who stands behind the world. That is also why although some of our sages yearned to bring Messiah through extraordinary spiritual means, many accepted that redemption may have to wait for God's appointed historical process. Schm makes one of the most famous statements in this entire discussion and he says there is no difference between this world and the days of Messiah except our subjugation to the nations. That is an extraordinary natural description of redemption. And there are so many teachings of Khazal describing redemption not as something that happens in one instant but as something that develops gradually step by step, stage by stage. Dawn does not arrive because someone turns on the sun. The darkness slowly becomes lighter until suddenly you realize that night is gone. Maybe, just maybe, redemption can work the same way. And yet we have to be careful. Not every messianic statement is necessarily a rigid chronological condition. Some descriptions may be allegorical. Some may depend on circumstances known only to God. Some may describe one possible path rather than the only path. And because of that, Judaism has always maintained the possibility that Messiah could come suddenly. Redemption is a process, but God is not trapped by the process. Now, here is where this gets even more fascinating. The prophets describe extraordinary conditions in the messianic age. Ishayo describes the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame moving freely, and the mute singing. Traditionally, these words sound miraculous. But think about the world we are entering. Medicine restores sight. Technology restores hearing. Machines allow people who cannot walk to walk. Devices give voices to people who cannot speak. We are beginning to understand biological systems at a level earlier generations could never imagine. Does that prove that every prophecy is technological? Of course not. But it forces us to reconsider what words like miraculous might look like to the people actually living through their fulfillment. The source we are studying makes another remarkable observation. Kazal describe a future in which enormous amount of human labor disappears. They describe incredible agricultural abundance. They use images like enormous grapes and wheat and even language that can sound as if clothing and bread grow directly from the earth. Rabbi Guml explains that these descriptions need not require nature itself to be abolished. They can be described as a world in which production becomes so effortless that finished products appear almost without human labor. Think about that. To someone living 20,000 years ago, a modern supermarket would look supernatural. You walk into a building and food from every continent is sitting on shelves waiting for you. You press a button and clothing arrives at your house. machines plant, harvest, package, and distribute food. What earlier generations would have described with the language of miracles can sometimes emerge through development of nature itself. And that leads to a profound idea. The miracle of the future may not always be that nature stops behaving naturally. The miracle may be that human beings finally discover what God placed inside nature from the very beginning. Jewish sources even contain descriptions that can be read as humanity reaching into the heavens and expanding far beyond its early limitations. What once sounded like fantasy, at least imaginable in an age of space travel. Again, none of this by itself proves that a particular technology is a fulfillment of a particular prophecy. But there is a larger pattern here. The world is acquiring powers that make descriptions of the messianic future far easier to imagine than they were even a few generations ago. And then comes one of the most famous passages in the Zo. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Zoro describes the 600th year of the sixth millennium, the Jewish year corresponding to 5600, which approximately 1840 as a time when the gates of higher wisdom and the fountains of lower wisdom would open. Preparing the world for the 7th millennium, the way a person prepares on Friday afternoon for Shabbat. Think about the image Friday afternoon. The day is not over yet. Shabas has not arrived yet. But everything begins changing because Shabas is approaching. The house changes. The food changes. The clothing changes. The atmosphere changes. You begin preparing something that has not technically started. The Zor associates the year 5600 with an opening of wisdom. The year 1840 itself was not marked by one single scientific discovery that transformed everything overnight. But it sits remarkably close to the beginning of the modern scientific and industrial explosion that created the world we now inhabit. The point is not that someone circled one date on a calendar and suddenly electricity appeared. The point is that Jewish tradition described a dramatic opening of knowledge as part of the world's preparation for the future. And that opening is exactly what modern civilization experienced. But increased knowledge comes with increased danger. The same science that can cure disease can create weapons capable of killing millions. The same technology that can feed the world can destroy ecosystems. The same human intelligence that can build civilization can destroy civilization. And there is a teaching attributed to Rabelar that the messianic age emerges in a generation capable of destroying itself. Now previous generations could destroy cities. Our generations can imagine the destruction of civilization. Human beings have reached a level of power where our moral maturity has to catch up with our technological ability. That may be one of the central dramas of the age in which we live. But technology is only one half of the transformation. The social revolution described by the prophets is even more radical. Isaiah describes a world in which nation will not lift up sword against nation and people will no longer train for war. Think about what that means. Not merely the end of a particular war, not merely a peace agreement between two countries. The end of war as accepted human institution. Isaiah also gives the famous image of the wolf dwelling with the lamb. Now many commentators understand that not necessarily as zoology but as a picture of nations that once prayed upon each other finally living together in peace. Rabi Nakman of breast said that one day mankind will look back at war with the same disbelief with which we look back at pagan idolatry. Imagine telling someone on a future peaceful world that civilizations once spent enormous portions of their wealth designing machines whose entire purpose was to kill other human beings. They may look at us the way we look at most primitive practices of the ancient world. And when war disappears, think about what happens to human resources. The unimaginable sums of money currently devoted to weapons, armies, and defense could instead be directed towards healing, education, housing, scientific discoveries, and of course, the improvement of human life. That is why the prophetic vision of peace is inseparable from the prophetic vision of justice. Isaiah speaks about a world in which people are no longer robbed of the fruits of their labor, in which the brokenhearted are healed, captives are freed, and oppression disappears. The messianic world is not merely a world with a Jewish king in Jerusalem. It is a world being reappeared. And some of the most radical changes are described as the reversal of the curses introduced after Adam and Eve. Adam is told he will eat bread through the sweat of his brow. For almost all of history, survival required exhausting physical labor. Technology is steadily reducing that burden. Machines perform tasks that once consumed human lives. And the source goes even further. It connects changes in the status and experience of women with the removal of the curse given to Eve, including the pain of childbirth and the domination of one human being over another. Jeremiah speaks cryptically of God creating something new in the earth, a woman surrounding or courting a man. The precise meaning can be debated, but the source sees the transformation of human relationships as part of the larger repair of the world. And now we reach something many people do not want to hear. Massive changes is really comfortable. If the world is going to move from one civilization to another, if technology changes, how we work, if old institutions collapse, if values shift, if political systems are shaken, that transition can produce enormous pain. Kazal called this Mashiach, the birth panges of Messiah. That phrase matters. Birth panges are painful, but they are not meaningless pain. They are pain caused by something struggling to be born. If redemption comes miraculously, perhaps some of this suffering can be avoided. But if redemption unfolds naturally, the transition itself can become turbulent. And because and perhaps this explains another set of predictions that sound disturbingly similar. In a period of accelerated change, parents and children can grow up in completely different worlds. Think about how enormous that is. For most of human history, a father understood the world his son would inhabit because it looked very similar to his own world. Today, a child can grow up in a technological and cultural universe his parents barely recognize. Traditions that once moved almost automatically from one generation to another suddenly become fragile. The new looks exciting. The old looks irrelevant. Our sages describe a pre- messianic society in which respect for parents and elders collapses. The older generation becomes dependent on the younger. Insulin increases. People reject correction. Religious study is mocked. Governments lose their moral center. Institutions of learning become corrupted. And people who remain religious are treated with contempt. There's even more painful predictions about Judaism itself. The Jewish people split into different groups, each one claiming to possess the truth until truth itself becomes difficult to recognize. Isaiah says truth will fail. That may be one of the most frightening prophecies of all because a society can survive people lying if everyone still knows what truth is. But when truth itself becomes negotiable, when every group creates its own reality, civilization loses the common ground upon which moral judgment depends. Daniel describes people continuing to act wickedly and failing to understand. Jewish tradition understood this as a period in which many Jews themselves could abandon Torah entirely. And then comes a painful line from Isaiah. The person who turns away from evil will be considered foolish. Think about that. Not merely tempted by evil, mocked for refusing it. A world can become so confused that the person who refused to surrender his values looks insane to everyone else. And that creates one of the greatest tests of the generation before redemption. Can you remain anchored when the future and the culture around you is moving at breathtaking speed? Can you distinguish between progress and moral surrender? Can you embrace new knowledge without throwing away ancient truth? Because the goal of Judaism is not to hide from the future. It is to enter the future carrying the Torah with us. Now we come to one of the most important parts of the entire messianic process. The return of the Jewish people to Israel. Jewish tradition contains numerous teachings describing the ining gathering of the exile and the resettlement of the land as part of the prelude to Messiah. The source describes this beginning with a measure of Jewish political independence and according to some traditions occurring with the permission of the nations. Then Ezekiel [clears throat] gives us one of the most extraordinary images in Tanakh. He turns to the mountains of Israel and says, "You will once again grow your branches and produce your fruit for my people Israel because they are coming home." the land itself wakes up because the children are returning. That is not simply a prediction about agriculture. It is a picture of a relationship between a people and a land reawakening after centuries of separation. And Jewish tradition says that Messiah reveals himself in Israel. But now we reach an argument that is even more provocative. There may be reason to think that in a natural messianic process, a large portion, perhaps even the majority of the Jewish people must return to Israel before the final stage unfolds. Why? Because one of the greatest elements of the messianic age is the return of prophecy. Elijah the prophet is traditionally associated with the arrival of Messiah and Messiah himself is described in prophetic terms but there is a foundational Jewish principle connecting prophecy to er and according to the source to a condition in which the Jewish people are established there in sufficient numbers. If that rule remains intact, then the demographic return of the Jewish people to the land is not merely a nice side effect of redemption. It may be part of the infrastructure required for what comes next. And then there is the third temple. There are traditions indicating that the holy temple will be rebuilt before the full onset of the messianic age. At the same time, there is a tradition that Jerusalem is not rebuilt before the exiles are returned. Once again, the sequence seems to point towards stages. Return, rebuilding, restoration, recognition. But there is an important qualification. It is entirely possible that Mashiach himself accomplishes some of these things before the world actually knows that he is Messiach. And that is crucial because many people imagine that first Messiah appears, everybody recognizes him and then he begins doing messianic things. Rambam describes him almost the reverse. The person is recognized through what he accomplish into a world prepared to receive him. Messiah is born, not descending from another planet, not appearing as an angel, a human being born naturally to human parents, a descendant of David Hamelik. Jewish traditions even records family who claim Davidic lineage and now consider something uncomfortable. History has shown us human beings with terrifying powers of leadership. One evil leader can transform the psychology of an entire nation. Hitler Yamakshimo demonstrated how charismic political figure could manipulate millions of people and move a sophisticated society towards horrifying evil. If that kind of leadership can exist for evil, imagine the possibility of extraordinary leadership directed towards good. Imagine a human being with staggering wisdom, political ability, courage, and moral clarity. Now add modern communications. A leader today can speak to billions of people in a way no king in ancient history could have imagined. An idea can cross the earth immediately. So imagine that this leader is also a righteous person, a Torah Jew, someone whose political brilliance is matched by spiritual depth. Once that might have sounded almost impossible, but humanity has gradually become accustomed to leaders emerging from every ethnicity, religion, and cultural background. The source then offers a hypothetical scenario. It is not a prophecy that the events must happen exactly this way. It is an illustration of how a completely natural messianic process could unfold. Imagine this extraordinary Jewish leader solving a seemingly impossible international conflict, perhaps even a crisis centered in the Middle East. Such an achievement could instantly give him enormous credibility among the world's powers. Governments that agree on almost nothing might begin listening to him. With peace established in Israel, more Jews would return. The original source written in a different political era imagined negotiations that would allow Jews trapped behind the iron curtain to leave the Soviet Union. It even imagined conditions in America becoming difficult enough that American Jews would increasingly choose aliyah. The specific historical examples may change, but the underlying idea is powerful. The in gathering of the exile does not necessarily have to occur through a beam of light from heaven. It can happen through politics, economics, fear, opportunity, inspiration, and millions of individual decisions. That may be one of the most profound ideas in this entire discussion. A prophecy can be supernatural in origin and natural in execution. Jewish communities around the world could gradually return until one day we look around and realize that one of the most impossible promises in human history has happened. Now imagine that this extraordinary sadic becomes respected across the Jewish world. Perhaps he even makes Torah itself respected by people who had previously dismissed it. The sources imagines another possibility. Jewish leadership could unite around him and restore the ancient Mosaic ordination whose continuous chain disappeared many centuries ago. That restoration could allow the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Torah court, and national institutions of Jewish people. Isaiah says, "I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as at the beginning, and afterwards Jerusalem will be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city." Notice the order. Judges, leadership, Jerusalem restoration. The source then suggests that a restored Sanhedrin could help resolve the enormous halic questions surrounding the rebuilding of the Bamedash, the third temple. And if this leader possesses the diplomatic ability, international influence and Jewish support to restore Jewish control of the Temple Mount, the rebuilding of the Basdash can emerge through events that are extraordinary but still recognizably historical. And if that happens, something astonishing would already be true. We would have accomplished much of what Judaism actually means when it speaks about Msiah. This is where the Rambam mymonities becomes absolutely essential. Rambam does not tell us to identify Msiah because he performs magic tricks. He gives us criteria. If a ruler arises from the house of David, immersed in Torah and mitzvah like David his ancestor, committed to the written and oral law, who leads the Jewish people back towards Torah, strengthens its observance, and fights the battles of God, we may consider him a potential Messiah. If he then succeeds in rebuilding the Basa Mikdash in its place and gathers the dispersed Jewish people, his identity as Messiah is established. Do you realize what that means? The Rambam's test is accomplishment. Torah leadership, the Jewish people, the land, the temple in gathering. That is why Judaism has never accepted somebody as Messiah merely because he was charismatic, spiritual or popular. History is filled with messianic claims. If the minimum objectives were not achieved, the claim failed. This is also why I keep saying that Messiah is not merely a person dropped into history. Messiah is the person who completes the process history has been moving towards. But none of this means miraculous path is impossible. Judaism absolutely leaves room for redemption to erupt in ways we cannot anticipate. The entire process could accelerate beyond anything we imagine. When Rabbi Yeshua Ben Levy asked Elijah when Messiah would come, the answer was based on the verse and he said, "Today." If you listen to his voice, the door to sudden redemption is never closed. But if God chooses to bring redemption through history, then history itself becomes the stage upon which prophecy unfolds. As Messiah develops, his wisdom and greatness becomes increasingly visible. Isaiah describes him as someone who does not judge merely by what his eyes see or ears hear. He penetrates through the falsehood and hypocrisy that dominate human society and gradually the world begins seeking his wisdom. People do not follow him because they are hypnotized. They follow him because he was the answer and the answers that he give work. A saddak who understands God's Torah begins teaching mankind how human beings are supposed to live together. And then Isaiah describes one of the most beautiful scenes in all of Tanakh. In the end of days, the mountains of the house of God become the spiritual center of mankind. Nations stream towards Jerusalem. People say to one another, "Come, let us go to the mountain of God, to the house of God of Jacob. Teach us his ways. Let us walk in his path." Torah goes from Zion. And the word of God goes from Jerusalem. And then comes the result. Nations stop fighting. Swords become tools of creation. Spears become instruments of cultivation. Humanity no longer studies the art of killing. Jerusalem becomes not merely the capital of the Jewish people, but a source of moral clarity for the human race. Yet, as universal as Messiah's influence becomes, his central mission remains the Jewish people. The prophets describe Israel returning not only geographically, but spiritually. Hosa describes the Jewish people living for a long period without king or prince and then returning to Hashem and seeking David their king in the end of days. Ezekiel says that David will be king over them that they will have one shepherd and that they will once again walk in God's laws. The return to the land and the return to God are two halves of one redemption. And as society becomes more godly, human beings begin searching beyond the material world. Isaiah says the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as water covers the sea. Joel described a time when God's spirit is poured out broadly and sons and daughters experience prophecy. Think about the progression. First, mankind develops extraordinary knowledge of the physical world. Then mankind uses that knowledge to reduce suffering and scarcity. Society moves towards justice. Israel returns home. Torah is restored. Messiah emerges. War recedes and humanity begins reaching beyond physical knowledge towards knowledge of God. Science does not have to be the enemy of spirituality. Perhaps the deeper mankind penetrates into creation. The closer we ultimately come to recognizing the creator, human beings will still possess free will. The messianic age does not turn us into robots, but the world will be structured in a way that encourages good instead of constantly rewarding evil. It will almost appear as if the power of evil has disappeared. And as mankind rises spiritually, the relationship between nature and miracle itself can change. Today we experience nature as rigid and miracle as interruption. But as human beings become worthy of a higher level of divine providence, what we now call miraculous may become part of ordinary experiences of life. And when that spiritual elevation joins mankind's growing ability to unlock the potential God placed inside creation, humanity moves towards its ultimate destiny, the world to come. Now stop for a moment and think about where that leaves us. We are living through things that would have sounded impossible to almost every generation before us. The Jewish people are back in Israel. The land is producing its fruit for the Jewish people before they have come. Hebrew is spoken in the streets of Jerusalem. Millions of Jews have returned from the four corners of Earth. Human knowledge has exploded. Technology has given us abilities earlier generations would have called miraculous. Humanity possesses enough destructive power to frighten the entire planet while simultaneously possessing the ability to eliminate forms of suffering that existed since the beginning of civilization. Old institutions are shaking. Generations struggle to understand each other. Truth itself has become a battlefield. Torah is mocked by some and rediscovered by others. The world is connected as never before. Jerusalem is once again at the center of global attention. Does that mean I give you a date for Msiah? No. Does it mean that every headline is prophecy? No. And we should be extremely cautious about turning every event into a prediction. But there is something equally dangerous about looking at everything happening around us and refusing to see anything at all. Previous generations sometimes built expectations around one verse or one calculation. We are living through an entire constellation of developments described throughout the messianic tradition. And if you keep your eyes open, there are moments when history itself seems to be whispering that is going somewhere. And this is also what makes our generation so difficult. We live surrounded by distractions and temptations powerful enough to pull a person away from truth without ever realizing it. An old saying puts it beautifully. It can be easy to be a Jew but difficult to truly want to be a Jew. Because the test of our generation may not be whether we know what Torah is or that it exists. The test may be whether we value Torah enough to remain faithful to it while the entire world changes around us. And I want to end with something that I think is both frightening and incredibly beautiful. Imagine the day after the truth becomes clear. Imagine Msiah has come. Imagine the world finally understands what Torah was trying to teach humanity. Imagine Jerusalem filled with people coming not to fight over it but to learn from it. Imagine a world in which war is looked upon as insanity in which human intelligence is directed towards healing rather than destruction. Imagine the Jewish people are finally home and in which presence of God is no longer something people mock but something humanity longs to understand. In that world, there will effectively be two groups of people. There will be those who spent their lives chasing whatever the generation told them was important who suddenly realize how much time they lost. And then there will be those who held on. Not people who were perfect, not people who never struggled, not people who had every answer, just people who refused to let go of truth. people who continued learning, continued believing, continued doing mitzvah, continued loving the Jewish people, continued longing for Jerusalem, continue trying to be a better human being even when nobody applauded them for it. And suddenly the world and the things that the world once laughed at become the things the world is desperate to learn. That is why the question is not only when Messiah will come. The more personal question is who will I be when he does? Redemption is not only something we are waiting to witness. It is something we are supposed to become ready for. Maybe God is preparing the world technologically. Maybe he's preparing it politically. Maybe he is preparing Erit Israel physically. Maybe he is preparing humanity morally, but our job is to prepare ourselves spiritually because one day, perhaps sooner than any of us imagine. We may look back at this strange, confusing, frightening, extraordinary period of history and realize that we were not living at the end of the story. We were living at the beginning of the redemption. And if that is true, then what an unbelievable privilege it is to be alive right now. To see Erit Israel alive again, to see Jerusalem rebuilt. To watch Jews returning home. To open a Na'vi written thousands of years ago and then open the news and sometimes feel the distance between the two becoming smaller and smaller. We do not need to panic. We do not need to predict dates. We do not need to turn off our minds. We need to open our eyes. We need to strengthen our Torah. We need to strengthen our faith. We need to strengthen one another. And we need to remember that no matter how frightening the road sometimes looks. Judaism does not believe history is falling into darkness. We believe history is moving toward light. The question is whether we will recognize that light while it is beginning to rise. So when you look at the world and ask what is the future bringing remember this the future is not only something happening to us. It is something God has been guiding humanity towards from the beginning. And perhaps the most profound thing we can do in this generation is simply to be ready to meet it. Thank you for watching. Please like, share, and subscribe. Leave a message in the comment. Tell me what you liked. I'd love to hear from you. Shalom from the holy city of Beamesh. >> [music]