Message from the Rav [Sivan 5784]
We Are Amidst World War III & Beginning of the Geulah
Chazal (Talmud Bavli Megilah 17b) taught that the request in Shemoneh Esrei for the Geulah is the seventh blessing since the Geulah will be in Shiviis [the seventh year, a Shemittah year]. The Gemara asks: But the Sages taught elsewhere that that “in the sixth year there are noises, in the Shviis year there are wars, and in Motzei Shviis the Mashiach ben Dovid comes.” The Gemara answers: “When there are wars, that is also called the “beginning of the Geulah”.
It is known that the Chofetz Chaim said that there will be three world wars, and that the third world war will be both spiritual and physical. The spiritual part of this third world war is the war that we have with the fifty levels of tumah, spiritual contamination. The physical part of this third world war is a war in the simple sense, and it is the “war of Gog and Magog”. (See Lev Eliyahu in end of Parshas Yisro.)
There is also a tradition from our Gedolim in the name of the Chofetz Chaim that the third world war will be around 70 years after World War II.
The spiritual part of the third world war has already been raging for decades. The physical part of the third world war has mainly burst out a little over 2 years ago with the war between Russia and Ukraine, and with the war that has burst out at the beginning of this year in the Holy Land. The war is expanding from all sides of the Holy Land, and it is gradually expanding to more and more countries.
If we merit it, then the Geulah will come at this time, mamash. If G-d forbid the Geulah gets delayed, then this war will continue in all different forms until Mashiach arrives - and it is possible for the delay to either be for just a short amount of time, but it is also possible that the delay can continue for many more decades.
The clear perspective that we need to have is that until Mashiach comes we are in a period of war. Therefore, we have to view our life on This World now as a time of war, which will end with Mashiach’s arrival.
From this perspective, the knowledge has been given to the wise sages of the generation alone, of how to lead the way properly during this time of war and even the more so, of how to prepare themselves properly for its end, which will be with the coming of Mashiach, Amen, and may Hashem will for it to happen.
Since our Chazal taught that wars are the “beginning of the Geulah”, we must therefore view this war as the beginning of the Geulah, and also, to see how it is through this war that we are already being redeemed, little by little, from all the tumah (spiritual contamination).
