The Disintegrating Statue of Nebuchadnezzar at the 50th Gate

Events are moving rather quickly now.  There is no pretending that WW3 will be delayed for several years.  In Syria there is too much inertia for Russia to re-install the Assad regime to secure its Naval Base in Tartus and its air force base outside of Latakia and for Saudi Arabia and Turkey to forestall the death of a growing Sunni Arab hegemony in Syria.  At the same time the Turks are scared of the rise of a growing Kurdish national movement in Syria and Iraq as an existential threat.  Erdogan does not have years or even months to bring the Kurdish insurgency which is threatening to overrun Eastern Turkey under control as the Kurds continue to enjoy more and more independence in Iraq and Syria as the world goes further and further into chaos.

In this post, I wanted to bring together three end of days themes into harmony.

1. The Statue of the Four Kingdoms in Nebuchadnezzer's Dream in Daniel Chapter 2
2. The vision of the Four Beasts in Daniel Chapter 7
3.  Mashiach comes Riding on a Donkey (a chamur) from Zecharia 9

Only by bringing these three themes into harmony can we begin to understand the Prophesy based on his learning of the Vilna Gaon, that Mashiach will come b'itah as a direct result of the Russian Navy bursting through the Bophorus at Istanbul (to ostensibly connect to its growing Naval Base in Tartus, Syria in the Mediterranean Sea).  In the course of this happening surely the Russian Air Force will need to have Istanbul under its control (or attempted control) in order to protect its Naval forces.  So a Russian conquest of Turkey will be necessary to achieve this disastrous result for what will turn out to be Erdogan's Last Stand.

So first let us understand the entire concept of B'itah.  Under what circumstances does Mashiach have to come, for these are the B'itah circumstances?  Because only when the world reaches a point where Olam HaZeh can no longer exist, does Mashiach have to come.  So what is the condition for Olam HaZeh that it can no longer continue to exist?  In reality there are two such conditions that are met simultaneously with each other, and not so surprisingly both conditions may very well intersect with each other at the beginning of this coming Summer (in early June or Siwan to be exact).

1. The World reaches a point where it spiritually as a whole is at Mem Tet Sha'arei Tumah (the 49th level of impurity), and it is in danger of falling below this 49th shade of grey level into the spiritual abyss from which it can no longer be rescued.

2.  The physical matter of the world can no longer be elevated to holiness or even to any higher purpose.  All the physical stuff of creation was given to Man to be used to serve G-d either through His commandments or by doing Acts of Lovingkindness with it.  As will be discussed later, the world's empires except for Persia also believed in "elevating" matter for the ideas that they believe in that in one way or another elevate man as an individual (rugged individualism) or Mankind as a collective (a New Wordly or Secular Order).  Yet, apparently the physical stuff of creation does not have an infinite use contract with its Creator.  It was only meant to be elevated so much until all the Good that it might do was extracted from the Chomer (physical material) of Creation.  And this I heard from Rav Ezriel Tauber over 20 years ago.  Once all of the good that the physical world can do has been extracted from this Chomer, all that is left is the poop of a jackass (the Chamur of Olam HaZeh).  This is actually hinted at in the Gemorrah in Sanhedrin.  Just before Mashiach comes we will be peering through the poop of the jackass (the chamur that represents the Chomer of Olam HaZeh).  Since the Fall of Adam in the Fall of the year One on Rosh HaShanah, the chamur of Olam HaZeh has carried on its back Mankind as a burden.  The Chamur eats and digests its food and in many ways provides for the physical needs of Mankind by carrying Mankind on its back.  As long as it is used by Man to both meet his needs so that he can elevate it to a higher purpose, Mankind can be the master of this jackass.  At the end of history, the jackass leaves its dung which can no longer be used by Mankind for a higher purpose.  So Man goes from riding on this jackass to staring through its dung, finding it impossible to elevate the dung.  (Some might bring up the issue of fertilizer.  Dung can be used for that, but Rav Tauber didn't bring that one up.  So I will have to defer to thinking about that for another time.)

At this point in history when the physical stuff of Creation has been extracted of all of its good, the possibility of elevation for a higher purpose becomes impossible.  The sign that we have arrived at this point is that Mankind simply wants more and more stuff, an insatiable need for more and more physicality.  Life becomes a Persian banquet from the Book of Esther where royalty feasted for weeks and months on end, for the purpose of satisfying every physical pleasure that one might dream of.  Once one physical pleasure has been fulfilled, the next more grandiose pleasure becomes the next driving force of existence.  At this point in history, all the other higher drives of Mankind have faded away except for the Force that drove the ancient Persians, the desire to accrue more and more stuff.  It is precisely at this point that Mashiach comes riding on his donkey (his chamur) that contains all of the Good in the physical world that has been elevated by G-dly people throughout history for the purpose of serving G-d.  He may be coming in a lowly way, a b'itah way, but he comes because if he did not come, the physical universe would be completely devoid of its purpose.   We may not merit his coming, but he comes nevertheless.  This is the meaning of Mashiach ben David coming to the Holy City riding on a jackass in Zecharia 9.

The question can then be asked, at what point do the inability to elevate the physical world for a higher purpose and the end of the 49th level of impurity meet when the world is about to become irredeemably extracted from the Abyss??  The answer seems to be according to Zecharia in chapter 13, when 2/3rds of Mankind is either already irredeemable or in danger of imminently falling into the Abyss.  Or this might be true for Mankind's flagship nation from Edom.  That would be the United States.  As discussed in detail before on this blog here, 5776 is the Yovel year of the 48th Yovel cycle since Ezra the Scribe established the Yovel year as the 15th and 65th year of every Jewish Century.  During the 2nd Temple, those Yovelot were distinct years and not the first year of the next Shmittah and Yovel cycles.  Once the Temple was destroyed, the potential Yovel year DID become the first year of the next Shmittah and Yovel cycle.  So ostensibly the Yovel cycles went from being 50 year cycles during the time of the Beit HaMiqdash to 49 year cycles after the Churban.  So as we follow this chart by Gedalia , the last three Yovel years before 5776 were 5629 (the 45th Yovel year), 5678 (the 46th Yovel year), and 5727 (the 47th Yovel year).   In those last three Yovel years, the Yovel achieved at least part of its Mandate, to begin to at least return Eretz Yisrael to the possession of the Jewish people.  In 5629 (1869), Mark Twain published his book Innocents Abroad which is the best selling travelogue of all time.  Most of the travelogue is about Twain's travels to Eretz Yisrael in 1867 and what he saw along the way to Yerushalayim and in Yerushalayim once he arrived.  In it Mr. Twain speaks of Eretz Yisrael lying in ruins, cursed by the Deity where so little vegetation can even grow there, a forlorn land that cannot be reclaimed from this Curse.  In Parshat Nitzavim (Deut. 29:21 we read:  
כא  וְאָמַר הַדּוֹר הָאַחֲרוֹן, בְּנֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר יָקוּמוּ מֵאַחֲרֵיכֶם, וְהַנָּכְרִי, אֲשֶׁר יָבֹא מֵאֶרֶץ רְחוֹקָה; וְרָאוּ אֶת-מַכּוֹת הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא, וְאֶת-תַּחֲלֻאֶיהָ, אֲשֶׁר-חִלָּה יְהוָה, בָּהּ. 21 And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses wherewith the LORD hath made it sick;
כב  גָּפְרִית וָמֶלַח, שְׂרֵפָה כָל-אַרְצָהּ--לֹא תִזָּרַע וְלֹא תַצְמִחַ, וְלֹא-יַעֲלֶה בָהּ כָּל-עֵשֶׂב:  כְּמַהְפֵּכַת סְדֹם וַעֲמֹרָה, אַדְמָה וּצְבֹיִים, אֲשֶׁר הָפַךְ יְהוָה, בְּאַפּוֹ וּבַחֲמָתוֹ. 22 and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath;
כג  וְאָמְרוּ, כָּל-הַגּוֹיִם, עַל-מֶה עָשָׂה יְהוָה כָּכָה, לָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת; מֶה חֳרִי הָאַף הַגָּדוֹל, הַזֶּה. 23 even all the nations shall say 'Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?'

Notice that the text of the Torah is such that many descendants of Klal Yisrael would come in that final generation before the greening of the Land of Israel, but only one foreigner would come from a faraway land to write about the Land of Israel.  That foreigner was Mark Twain.  (And Yes, Hannibal, Missouri constitutes being from a faraway land!  Yours truly can attest to that.)  It is so much about Twain that the Roshei HaTeivot (the acronym of the first two letters) of Me, Eretz R'Chokah (from a faraway land) is M-a-R-K!  Now the publication of this book was in the Yovel year 5629.  Within 30 years, the greening of Eretz Yisrael began with the First agricultural Aliyah (Chovavei Tzion or Lovers of Zion) in 1882.  The physical redemption of the Land had begun just as prophesied in the Torah, and right on schedule.  The next Yovel 5678 saw the Balfour Declaration in the Fall of that year, right after the Yovel.  Since the Land was redeemed from the Turks through the Midat HaDin, David Lloyd Gog's conquest of Yerushalayim was completed on Erev Chanukah in December of 1917.  So the return of Eretz Yisrael to its Jewish inhabitants and future inhabitants continued.  Then 49 years later in 1967 in the Spring of the year, Judea and Samaria and half of Yerushalayim were returned to the Jewish people.  Since it was to the Jewish people, it happened b'Rachamim in the Spring.

Yet, the last two Yovelot are noteworthy for another reason.  It seems that the promise of Yovel came at the cost of the spiritual greatness of the empires that Israel would eventually replace when Mashiach comes.  Keep in mind, that the next Yovel in the year 5825 is the end of the 49th Yovel cycle, and the beginning of the 50th cycle.  So what has happened in the last two Yovel cycles is that in the 47th cycle, the least G-dly one third of what was the greatest gentile nation in human history, the United States, went off the derekh (left the Camp of the Almighty) and left the fold of this gentile nation under G-d.  As noted in the article above "When Shilo Comes", it affected the culture of the US, but it did not affect the middle third of that culture.  So while it did not pervert "Main Street" as it were in the United States, women went from wearing very long dresses to the beach for mixed swimming as late as 1918 to wearing less modest clothing over the course of the Yovel cycle.  By the mid 1940s, women were wearing "Betty Grable" bathing suits to the beach.  And by the mid 60s, the bathing suits had gotten even skimpier.  Yet, through it all, Americans in general kept their G-d centered outlooks.  It was only in 1967 that what had been at the fringes of American society entered onto Main Street to bring down the Middle third, once again over 49 years.  So at this point in time 49 years later, we have reached the spiritual condition of Mankind mentioned in Zecharia 13. 

 Now Rav Chaim Vital is noteworthy for pointing out when Mashiach would come.   Rav Chaim Vital succinctly tells us that as Olam HaZeh falls below the 49th level into the Abyss, Mashiach is found at the Gateway to the 50th level (Sha'ar HaNun). Now, Ichud Yerushalayim was on the 28th of Iyar 5727, the 43rd day of the counting of the Omer. From Parshat Masei we see that the first 42 levels of purification (the Camps in the Midbar) can be done outside of Eretz Yisrael. So is it just a coincidence that the beginning of our 49 year trek in the Ba'al Teshuvah movement really began on the 43rd day of the Counting of the Omer in 5727? Of course not! The events surrounding the Unification of Yerushalayim come to teach that even though the first 42 levels of teshuvah can be done outside of Eretz Yisrael, the last 7 levels can only be achieved in total in Eretz Yisrael, starting with the core event of the Unification of Yerushalayim.  This is NOT to say that one can't reach the 49th level in Chu"l, but the path through those last seven levels should if possilbe be done in the Holy Land during which the Midah of Malkhut (the last 7 levels) can potentially be purified.  It is far more difficult to purify Malkhut outside of the Land of Israel than it is inside the Land of Israel.  Each Shmittah cycle since and including 5727, allowed us to purify ourselves through all the levels of purity. The levels of purification of Chessed corresponded to the years 5727- 5733. Gevurah 5734- 5740 Tiffereth 5741- 5747 Netzach 5748- 5754 Hod 5755- 5761 Yesod 5762- 5768 Malkhut 5769- 5775. Notice that each level of purification ended with a Shmittah year. 

At the exact same moment that Ichud Yerushalayim took place, the Summer of Ramdom Acts of Promiscuous Immorality began in June of 1967.  Coincidence??  Of course not.  At the same time that about 20% of the Jewish people began their trek toward purity with the beginning of the Ba'al Teshuvah movement, Malkhut Edom's Main Street began its 49 year downward trek toward the Abyss.  In both cases we arrive at the "endpoint" of each 49 year trek is the last week of Sefirat HaOmer this Summer of 5776.  Since this process began at the beginning of the Malkhut levels of Sefirat HaOmer in 5727, it seems to end on Shavuot 5776, another Gateway to the 50th. Now do you get the picture?? Understand deeply what Rav Vital is saying. Edom collapses into the Abyss precisely at the moment that Klal Yisrael reaches the 50th Gate of Teshuvah (for the 20% or so of Jews who are taking this seriously). I can't speak for the other 80% of American Jews. I have ceased speaking for them and their pursuit of the gutter long ago. 

to be continued as soon as possible.....But please don't use this post as a Prediction.  Right now we are discussing the conditions under which Mashiach must come b'itah, and we are trying to ascertain if we have reached those conditions.  And so far we have only discussed in full Theme #3 above, and we have brushed upon Theme #2.  So be patient.  Thank you.