So Close You Can Smell It

5 Marcheshvan 5778

A person can see something before he can hear it and he can hear it (usually) before he can smell it. By the time he can taste it, he is already in actual physical contact. I feel like we are so close to Mashiach now that we can smell it! So close that we can almost touch it!

Why are Eisav and the Erev Rav working so hard to unite us together? Because it is not unity, but SEPARATION that is the key to our redemption. That is what the great birur is all about.

"The argument of the nations here is that we must achieve unity and break down the walls of separation. Is this not fair and logical according the the false thinking of the worshipers of foreign culture? Is not the unity of all nations and the disappearance of the differences between Israel and the nations the goal of the Hellenists...."

"G-d decreed upon holy Israel that they must be separated from impurity and from the impure nations. The idolatry and foreign culture of the nations cannot coexist with G-d's Torah or with G-d himself."

Rabbi Kahane z"l, Or HaRa'ayon

In the beginning, Adam and Chavah mixed good and evil. At the end, WE are separating good and evil. Davka here in the final days before the Messianic era begins, all of the tests that HKB"H has set up for us seem to involve this concept in one form or another and now, they appear to be coming to their conclusion.

All of the anti-Torah and pseudo-Torah activities which we have protested and spoken against have served their purpose of bringing about a birur. They were the weapons in the war for the hearts and minds of Klal Yisrael. They have forced both the onlookers and the participants to make a choice - to unite with them in their kefirah or to separate from them and cling steadfastly to the Torah that we received at Har Sinai.

Mashiach will be arriving to receive the leadership of a nation which has learned how to separate itself from the evils of idolatry, false religions, fake Torah and unholy unity with the impure nations. He will be arriving to a people who have let go of everything - power, popularity, ego, materialism, foreign values - and remain connected only to HKB"H and His Truth.

Once we have proven ourselves worthy of his leadership by beginning the work of separation in our own lives and circumstances, Mashiach will arrive and finish the job.

If this is not the vision of redemption that you imagine, you have some serious work left to do and very little time left in which to accomplish it. 

Our job until Mashiach arrives is to do the exact opposite of what the anti-Torah and pseudo-Torah forces are telling us. We do not become "one new man." We rebuild the broken-down fences and reinforce the breached walls and burn all those newly built bridges by adhering to  - and teaching other Jews to adhere strictly to - Torah, mitzvot and halachah. We already have all the tools we need. We just have to make use of them in the prescribed way.