These Events Ignite the Coming of the Messiah: War Over Jerusalem – Rabbi Tovia Singer

[Music] What are the precursor events to the messianic age? So, the Jewish people must return back. A significant number of Jews must return back to the land of Israel before the Messiah comes. And that will trigger wars when nations will go to war over Jerusalem. And the Bible tells us this will be the motherload of bad ideas. And all the nations that go to war against your Schlan will be destroyed. I strongly encourage you to read the whole book of Zechariah. The whole book of Zechariah is only 14 chapters. I want to warn you that let's say the first half of Zechariah because it contains a series of visions. There are eight visions. You might have a little difficulty with that. But this part is very easy. Really easy. Okay. So I don't want people people might open Zachchariah and they'll come to visions. You you need help with those visions. Not all of them are clear. They're not it's not um you know organic chemistry difficult. It's not rocket science, but you have to understand what's happening. In fact, Zachariah himself who's having these visions who asks the angel, "What am I looking at?" So, if you don't understand, remember someone greater than you, Zachchariah, didn't understand what he was looking at either. Anyways, my holy brothers and sisters, this is a very important thing. The the children of Israel must return back to the land of Israel before the Messiah comes. And there's going to be wars and nations of nations will gather and go to war against Jerusalem. And those nations that do that will be destroyed. Baraku is going to take the weakest of them. See verse 8 and verse 9. I encourage you to read from the beginning of the chapter. This is not a difficult chapter to read at all. It's very easy. There are some chapters in Zechariah that not so simple. It's not. But this one is not difficult. Nations will go to war. The Jews who are weak, should be weak, God will strengthen them. They'll be like David, even like the angels of the Lord of hosts, there'll be a tremendous trauma, tremendous trauma that will occur during this time for the Jews. Although the Jewish people will be very, very successful, it'll be in those days Shem says right before this that I will destroy all the nations that go to war against. Just please read it for yourself. But in the midst of this time, there will be a tremendous trauma for the Jews in Israel. Something unbelievable, horrible. And that's going to cause the Jewish people to become one, to cleave to each other and turn to Hashem in the midst of a very great mourning of this trauma. This is often called the Messiah, the son of Joseph. This that phrase is not in Tanakh, but the Talmud in that's what it means. It's in doesn't mean Amai the son of Joseph. It means in fact you can see from the words it's in the plural. It's people getting killed in the midst of this enormous what otherwise is very very successful. Do I believe that's what occurred on October 7th? Yeah. Have did I just start talking about this on October 8th? No. We talked about this a long time. Holy Kendall, there is no sign, no sign of the restoration of the permanent restoration of the Jewish people. It's here the land that's greater than the land itself. Remember something we've talked about often is that if you if you were making up a Bible, you would never write Tanakh because if you're not God, you can't control the weather and you cannot control the fertility of the land. You would tell people you're going to go to hell if you don't listen to me. That's what you would do. That would frighten people and if you're not God that you can't test it out. But as it turns out, the flourishing of the land at the end of days is the greatest sign that the final restoration is here. There's no greater sign than this. Nothing. Nothing. You look at the land when probably America's greatest writer, humorist in the late 19th century visited array and he wrote his work innocence abroad. You could see how he described it. nothing like it is. There was nothing. The place was a nightmare. But the the the land should give forth its fruit and should flourish for the children of Israel. This is very very clear. The land is barren prior to the restoration of Jews. In a sense, the Jews, the Jewish people, the nation of Israel and the land were one species. You know what? What is the definition of a species? We're so connected. It's like we're married to each other. So, what is how do you define a species? So, scientists really attempt to provide a definition of how do you say these two are from the same species, these two creatures, these two animals. So the the best explanation for a species is that two animals are of the same species is is that they can easily make babies. They could they can easily make babies and they're of the same species. If they're not the same species, then it's not not easy or impossible. Okay. As it turns out, only the nation of Israel could make the land pregnant. That's it. Other people were here and they try to make babies with the land and the land refused to give forth its fruit for other nations refused to be fertile for other nations and they had to import in from other parts. It was unsustainable. So these are precursors of the messianic age and I will now discuss three others. But a warning these three others are not in Tanakh explicitly as what I've mentioned up to now. This really comes from the from the Talmud in tractic tubot where the Talmud provides this as three oaths. Three God swears three things. But these three oaths of a prohibition have a corollary of a necessity and I need to explain. So we're told that there's a prohibition that when the exile of the Jews are coming to an end, the Jewish people, I'm going to rephrase this, cannot do what other nations did. Please, if you're Catholic, don't be angry at me. If you're Muslim, don't be angry at me. But other nations came and conquered the land of Israel like uh the Muslims did in the seventh century. They came in and conquered the land of Israel. They came from outside of Erdrol with armies and they came into the land of Israel and took it over. Okay. uh the first crusade which was the French crusade they came they these Christian armies uh came to in 1099 they completely took over so they came from with armies outside of Israel they came into Israel and that's how the Muslims and the Christians conquered the land of Israel at different times because throughout history. This land was conquered many, many times back and forth. They took it from each other. The Muslims have been here. There was the Ottoman Empire. I don't need to go through all of it with you. It's over back and forth. The Christians held on to this place for about a century or so. We're not allowed to do that. We cannot come battle from outside of the land of Israel with armies to come into the land of Israel. And we're this is in the Talmud. is absolutely forbidden. But the army has to be already inside the land of Israel. Cannot fight away. I don't know going south from Turkey and coming to Israel. You can't do the Jews of Turkey are not allowed to do that. Another um is that we're not allowed to be mid which means to rebel against the in this process which means against the nations of the world. must be a consensus of the world, a vote of the world nations of the world's nations and we go after the majority. There had to be a vote of the world's nations in which a majority would decide that there should be a Jewish state. There has to be with the acquiescence of the nations of the world. And in fact, this United Nations partition plan which occurred on the 29th of November 1947, that was critical as far as the Talmud is concerned because we're not allowed to create a state where the majority of the world's nations vote against it. So that was critical. We may look at this as just an oddball event in history. It was an odd bull event in history where the vote ultimately was uh 33-13. And then the final element of this, the nations of the world must oppress the Jews more than we deserved. Its corollary is that the nations of the world are forbidden to oppress the nation of Israel more than we deserve. And this of course is Jacob's trouble. Jeremiah chapter 30:7. Jeremiah 30:7 tells us that there will be at this it's messianic chapter before this. Now Jeremiah lived in a really bad time. So it's not like Jeremiah is looking into the future something much worse. Jeremiah lived during the destruction of the first temple, right? The Babylonian destruction of the first temple. But Jeremiah is looking far into the future. And he's saying that there will be an asarily. There will be a time of tribulation for Jacob and there'll be nothing like it. But from the great tribulation, you will be you'll be saved. Your redemption and your restoration will occur. So those are precursor events. There are many people who who interpret these who misunderstood these things. And there are people who get offended when I say that and they should not. They should not because you have to go according to the prophets in Tanakh. You can't and I think people who misunderstand these things are misunderstanding them because they feel like a certain rabbi can't be wrong or can't be mistaken. And that's a mistake. And I pun intended in a sense I'm going to share something I never shared with you in my life. There is something very odd in Tanakh. There are people in Tanakh who are prophets. The Niveim were the were the greatest men and women that ever lived. They are the greatest examples of humanity that ever existed. The greatest. According to our tradition, there were 1.2 million Nivem prophets that lived in history. Only a small number of the of their prophecies survived because for most part prophets lived where they were speaking to their generation, but what they were teaching were not was not relevant to future generations. This is very intriguing. This is going to surprise you. So, you want to just put down your cell phone. There are times when prophets actually made mistakes and miscalculations. Now, they were not speaking in prophecy. People just asked them what they thought and God wasn't speaking to them. These were the greatest people that ever lived or they were trying to interpret what they were observing but they were not receiving prophecy and they made mistakes and God told them right away you're making a big mistake change. Okay, I can give you quite a number of examples of this but I'll give you two. You should all be familiar with them. 2 Samuel chapter 7, Nathan thinks that David's request to build the basic, the temple, should be honored and he said, "Go ahead." And he's told immediately, "Go back and tell him you can't build it." Why is that important? Daniel very famously miscalculates prophecies of Jeremiah, two in particular, 25:12 and 29:10. He conflates them and does and does not understand the redemption. And this is recorded in Tanakh. Now listen very carefully. I know you're saying to yourself, okay, that's surprising. I thought prophets are perfect. They're perfect people. But a person cannot know the case to the end unless you have it from God. From God. And these people made the best possible decision based on what they were observing. And what they were observing to the best of their understanding was what they expressed. And Hashem right away jumped in and said, "Let me explain to you what's going on." In the case of in the case of Daniel, an angel Gabriel was sent to him to convey to him to correct him how to properly understand these passages. The question, my holy brothers and sisters, you should be on your tongue is why is this recorded? Fine, I understand the point that a prophet is these are the greatest people that ever lived, these men and women. But if they were giving their best opinion based on what they were observing and it happens to be it was not correct and God interceded, why is that in the Bible? You remember what I've taught you? If it's in scripture, that means it's relevant to every generation. You understand? It has to be relevant. So how is this relevant? How and why? Why does the Bible record this? Why do I need to know this? Now, you figured out the answer already. I know you figured it out already because unless it's prophecy, forget about it. You can't make judgments. Unless it's prophecy, that's it. This is not a issue of Jewish law. And that's why you will not find it in these the issue of when Mashiach comes and when they return to the land of Israel and the his redemption. It's not in the code of Jewish law. Why not? because it's nva and you have to go back to the novi you have to go back and could a person mis who is the the greatest people who ever lived can they misapprehend what was happening for a wide variety of reasons in good faith yes they can and that's why you have to default back to prophecy and that's why sometimes you have great people who were observing the same spectacle and had two opposite views regarding Israel, the state of Israel. They could have different doesn't matter. It has to be from prophecy. And and here's where I think people get choked up, caught up on as they say. If this person was really a great person, then he can't be wrong. This is a mistake. Person could be very great but misinterpret events that are incurring in front of them. So my dear friends, so my dear friends, these are the the events that will ha will are the precursor events that coming Messiah, the Jews must return before remember when the Messiah comes, there'll be no war, right? There'll be just use your head. When the Messiah comes, war will come to an end. There'll only be peace on earth. See Mika chapter 4. So there's wars and the Jews are returned back to land and they have an army, right? So therefore, this is a precursor. This what's called ah you're going to tell me this rabbi said that and this right they're great people has nothing to do with that. And the proof is and notice holy brothers and sisters that what when the Tanakh records what might seem to be at first glance an embarrassing event meaning that a prophet misconstrued what he was observing or she was observing because it wasn't God didn't tell them these were just great people and they were doing the best they could. These are the greatest people. The answer is so if somebody misunderstands so they misunderstand has no bearing on their greatness. This is very important. I think people feel ah this rabbi is greater than that rabbi and therefore he must be correct. Mistake big big mistake. And remember the three vows that we find in the Talmud have a corollary and there are people who misunderstand who don't investigate the corollary. All three vows are turned on this point. And it is for this reason, my friends, that we are told in books like Ezra, it's really one book, that the first Jews who came to rebuild the second commonwealth were largely non-religious Jews who didn't even keep the Sabbath. Why is that in Tanakh? And why would God take a person probably a Zorastian, Cyrus, and take a person who's not a Jew, not a religious Jew, and he's the one that tells the Jews, "Go back to the land of Israel." It's all prophecy. That's why it applies today. So these are the events that will occur when Mashiah comes, and these are the events that we have to be see. We must be a be at scare. We have to be a watchman for these events that are unfolding right now. Thank for you. Thank you for your thoughtful question. If you enjoyed this program, please like and subscribe. I don't know. I share my love. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Shimon [Music]