How Do We Know the Geulah Is Near? The Signs According to Chassidus

00:00 This was during World War II. The Frierdiker Rebbe had arrived in America and immediately began working to strengthen Yiddishkeit in America and in all the surrounding countries. At that time, he was also publishing a monthly booklet, a kind of magazine, called Hakriah Vehakedushah. In it, the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote articles about Yiddishkeit, strengthening Torah and Jewish life, awakening people to teshuvah, and especially awakening anticipation for the Geulah. Among the articles were maamarim of Chassidus that he wrote in a special way, in simple language. They dealt with deep ideas, but in simple Yiddish, and inspired people in their service of Hashem. One of the maamarim written at that time was on the verse, “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded, and those lost in the land of Assyria and those banished in the land of Egypt will come and bow before Hashem on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.” In that maamar, the Frierdiker Rebbe spoke about the times, about the wars—the great world war taking place in those days—and about the period in general. He discussed the great shofar. What exactly is the great shofar mentioned in the verse, “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded, and those lost in the land of Assyria and those banished in the land of Egypt will come”? Who are those lost in the land of Assyria? Who are those banished in the land of Egypt? What is the difference between Assyria and Egypt, that the prophet Yeshayahu chooses to mention these two in particular, the exile of Egypt and the exile of Assyria? And why does he say “those lost in the land of Assyria,” but “those banished in the land of Egypt”? What is the difference between Assyria and Egypt, that the people in Assyria are called “lost,” while the people in Egypt are called “banished”? And the great shofar will awaken them to come and bow before Hashem on His mountain, on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. That is the maamar—a wonderful maamar, in the spirit of the times, that explains this verse in a spiritual sense.

02:36 The content of the maamar is also connected to our own times—very much so, in a remarkable way. There the Rebbe explains the wars we have seen in recent periods, particularly in the last generation, all the wars between the nations of the world. There was World War I, and he was speaking about World War II. Later, when there were wars again, around the time of the Six-Day War, the Rebbe also spoke about that same maamar and instructed that it be printed. In 5727–5728, around the time of the Six-Day War, the Rebbe instructed that the maamar be printed again. That Tishrei, the Rebbe also said several maamarim on the same verse, “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded”—on Rosh Hashanah and at several other farbrengens during Tishrei. He spoke about the same subject, expanded on it, and explained it in depth. What exactly are the land of Assyria and the land of Egypt? The Rebbe explains that there are challenges during exile. Exile is the main period of challenges, the time when Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests the Jewish people with difficult trials. But among the trials that Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings upon the Jewish people during exile, there are primarily two kinds, corresponding to two kinds of exile. One is called the land of Egypt, and the other is called the land of Assyria. Generally speaking, these are the test of poverty and the test of wealth. Poverty and wealth present two different kinds of challenges. We see that when a person is poor, he worries about poverty, about earning a living, about where his next meal will come from. He is caught up in all kinds of troubles and worries: how to get food for his children, how to provide for his household, how to bring health to his family, and so on. So these worries, the worries

04:56 of poverty and want, leave a person’s mind completely constricted. He has no strength, no resolve, no desire. It is hard for him to learn and hard for him to daven. The moment he tries to sit down and learn, all kinds of thoughts and worries come into his mind. All of this leaves him confused and distressed. It does not let him concentrate, connect, or immerse himself in Torah study and the observance of mitzvos—let alone in davening, when all kinds of thoughts come rushing in. On the other hand, there is also the test of wealth. A person has abundance, prosperity—too much abundance. “Yeshurun grew fat and kicked.” “You grew fat, thick, and gross” from so much material comfort, so much physicality, so much materialism. Then a person forgets Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “You forgot the G-d who brought you forth.” Or, as it says, “My strength and the might of my hand have made me this wealth.” Precisely because a person has everything he needs, it can cause him to “surely forget Hashem your G-d.” He forgets Hakadosh Boruch Hu and thinks, “My strength and the might of my hand”—that he attained all his wealth through his own abilities, by himself. He forgets Hakadosh Boruch Hu. These are two kinds of exile, two kinds of tests: the test of poverty and the test of wealth. One is called Egypt, and the other is called Assyria. The difference between the exile of Egypt and the exile of Assyria is essentially the difference between the test of poverty and the test of wealth. In the exile of Egypt, the Jewish people were in a state of poverty and want—“the bread of affliction,” as we say on Pesach. The Jewish people were at the very depths of poverty and degradation, subjected to backbreaking labor and all the hardships of the exile in Egypt: “They enslaved them and afflicted them.” When the Jewish people endured all the suffering Pharaoh inflicted on them and the backbreaking labor, that was the condition of Egypt. It is also hinted at in the name, in the word Mitzrayim. Why is it called Mitzrayim? The Midrash says that the Egyptians

07:14 made things narrow for the Jewish people, because Mitzrayim is related to the word tzar, “narrow.” They hemmed them in and pressed them into narrow straits through the backbreaking labor, the poverty, the deprivation, and the hardship. That left the Jewish people confused and troubled. This, essentially, is what is meant by “those banished in the land of Egypt.” The constraints and the worries about earning a living and material needs leave a person feeling banished. He feels remote and far away; things are difficult for him. It is hard for him to connect, hard for him to sit and learn with peace of mind. He is distanced from good things; he has grown far from them. But there is also Assyria. Assyria represents exile from the opposite direction. If we look at history, what exactly happened in the exile of Assyria? Sennacherib, king of Assyria, wanted to give the Jewish people every kind of abundance. He did not want them to have a hard life. He told them: I want to take you out of the Land of Israel, bring you out of Jerusalem, and bring you to “a land like your own land.” In other words, to give them beautiful, wonderful lands, places with every kind of abundance. The only thing was that they would not be in Jerusalem. They would be outside Jerusalem, outside the Holy Land. That was the very essence of the king of Assyria, and it is also hinted at in the word Ashur. Ashur is related to “I am happy, for the daughters will call me happy”—a word associated with pleasure, expansiveness, and joy. “Happy are those who dwell in Your house.” Happiness—that is the idea of Assyria: a person feels pleasure, joy, delight; everything is good and enjoyable. But it is a kind of pleasure that takes a person out of Jerusalem. Jerusalem symbolizes holiness. Jerusalem symbolizes yirah shleimah, complete awe of Hashem, and Sennacherib wants to take the Jews out of Jerusalem, away from the awe of Heaven, from the awe of Hashem, from the love of Hashem, from holiness—away from anything with even a trace of holiness—and give them

09:42 All the good in the world, but without Hakadosh Boruch Hu, G-d forbid. That is the test of wealth. As Chassidus explains, of the two tests—the test of poverty and the test of wealth—in a certain sense, the test of wealth is even harder than the test of poverty. Precisely when a person has so much materially, it becomes much easier to drift so far away that he completely forgets Hakadosh Boruch Hu, G-dliness, and spirituality. This is alluded to in the verse: it says “the banished in the land of Egypt,” but “the lost in the land of Assyria.” When speaking of Egypt, it uses the word “banished”: the difficult tests of poverty and hardship cause a person to become confused inside. He feels banished, far away, but he has not yet become lost. But of Assyria’s wealth, the test of wealth, it says “the lost in the land of Assyria.” A person in the land of Assyria can reach a state where he is completely lost. He loses every trace of holiness, every hint of it, every sensitivity to it. All the materialism and spaciousness of—of—of “whatever I like, I want to give myself room for it in material life” can distance a person so far from Hakadosh Boruch Hu that he becomes completely disconnected and feels utterly lost—oved, spelled with an alef—“lost in the land of Assyria.” And this happens specifically in the final period of exile. The Frierdiker Rebbe explains, and the Rebbe elaborates, that in the recent generations we have seen both kinds of exile: the exile of Egypt and the exile represented by Assyria. There were various periods, even in recent generations, when the Jewish people suffered the test of poverty, of Egypt: difficulties in studying Torah, difficulties and decrees imposed by the authorities, decrees that prevented Jews from being Jews and observing Torah and mitzvos with peace of body and mind. On the contrary, every

12:04 Jew who wanted to perform a mitzvah was persecuted. Jews had no livelihood, could not work, could not live in peace and tranquility, and this made them “the banished in the land of Egypt.” At the same time, especially more recently, most of the Jewish people have been in the exact opposite situation. It began when they came to America. Today this has become the situation in nearly the entire world: generally speaking, a Jew can live in peace and tranquility. He can study Torah and observe mitzvos with abundance. He has an ample livelihood, even wealth; he has every material and spiritual good. And yet there is still this matter of Sancheriv, king of Assyria. Because of so much material abundance and materialism, because people are so occupied with and immersed in material things, a person can completely lose all sensitivity to anything spiritual. He becomes “lost in the land of Assyria.” He is lost, utterly lost. Every feeling for spirituality, holiness, and G-dliness is lost to him. And this is the difficult exile, the exile of wealth, which is even harder than the exile of poverty. But here comes the good news: the great shofar is all the things happening lately that are shaking the world—the wars between nations. “I will set Egypt against Egypt,” as the prophet says. Wars among the nations of the world themselves, between one another. All these are things that Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings about to awaken the Jewish people to teshuvah. It is all part of the great shofar. The great shofar does not mean only a literal shofar whose sound we will hear; it means a call of love, an affectionate call. The sound of the shofar, the great shofar. “Great” means that it comes from an exceedingly lofty place, as it says in the Zohar, from the loftiest place. That is why no name is even mentioned here. It does not say who blows it. “It will be sounded”—as though it is sounded from a place that has no

14:17 name, because it comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, Who is beyond every name. He Himself will sound the great shofar and awaken the Jewish people with a call, an affectionate call, a call of love. All this is expressed when, suddenly, things in the world begin to shake and people begin to feel that there are wars, great powers facing off against great powers, and all these difficulties. It all has one purpose: to awaken the Jew to teshuvah, to awaken him to come closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This sound of the shofar that we hear especially lately comes entirely from Above; it is all part of—“And on that day a great shofar will be sounded”—to awaken us. This shofar, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s affectionate call, comes through all kinds of events in the world. The things we have been seeing recently, the extraordinary things happening around us, are all meant to awaken in us, in every Jew, the power of teshuvah, and to awaken in us the desire to seek Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what the verse says here: “And on that day a great shofar will be sounded.” It is all part of the great shofar, meant to awaken “the banished in the land of Egypt,” those in an exile like Egypt, and “the lost in the land of Assyria.” These are two kinds of exile, two kinds of tests: those facing the test of poverty and those facing the test of wealth—all kinds of tests. Then the sound of the great shofar awakens in a Jew the power of teshuvah, to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Our return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, in fact, the spiritual ingathering of the exiles, which prepares us for the physical ingathering of the exiles that we are all awaiting. That is also what we are learning now, during these days of Bein Hametzarim, when we are in the darkness of exile. But at the same time, we have great confidence that we

16:34 are now in a period when the sound of the shofar can be heard throughout the world. The sound of the shofar comes, on the one hand, to make a great commotion: “Jews, awaken to teshuvah!” On one hand, it will bring the downfall and punishment of the nations, of those who, G-d forbid, harm the Jewish people. At the same time, it will awaken every Jew to teshuvah. This is what the verses say: “Hashem Elokim will sound the shofar and advance in the storms of Teiman,” and so on. Hakadosh Boruch Hu goes from place to place, from country to country, to wipe out all the enemies of the Jewish people and to awaken the Jewish people to true teshuvah, so that the great shofar will bring back “the lost in the land of Assyria and the banished in the land of Egypt.” Each and every one of us should be awakened to teshuvah, to overcome both the test of poverty and the test of wealth. And rather than merely not being shaken by these things, they should give us more strength, more energy, more resolve to be strong in our avodah during these days, to overcome all the tests and difficulties, and to come to the Holy Land, to the holy city of Jerusalem, to awaken true fear of Heaven and bow before Hashem on the holy mountain. Bowing expresses self-nullification and complete devotion. When you bow down fully, your whole body is involved, head and feet. That means absolute self-nullification, absolute devotion: that Jews will bow on the holy mountain in Jerusalem, with complete awe, true and pure fear of Hashem. That is what will bring about the ingathering of the exiles. We are all waiting to merit seeing the ingathering of the exiles speedily in our days, amen. “And on that day a great shofar will be sounded, and those lost in the land of Assyria and those banished in the land of Egypt will come.” May we already merit it. “Tziyon will be redeemed through justice, and those who return to her through tzedakah.” As we also read in this week’s haftarah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will redeem Tziyon through “justice”—through Torah study, which is called “justice.” It will be the true redemption of the Jewish people, of Tziyon,

19:08 and “those who return to her”—those who are in captivity—will return through tzedakah. By adding to our Torah study during these days—“justice”—and to our giving of tzedakah—“those who return to her through tzedakah”—we will merit seeing the ingathering of the exiles. All the Jewish people will leave exile, and we will all return to our place, to the Land of Israel, “a land that the eyes of Hashem your G-d are upon from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu with joy, love, and gladness of heart. Then, “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the land.” May everyone have a healthy month, a good month, a month of joy, a month of Geulah, and a month of the building of the Third Beis Hamikdash. May the Beis Hamikdash be built speedily in our days, and grant us our portion in Your Torah.