The acceptance of and adherence to the instructions of "your judge" and "your counselor" of our generation creates the sampling and beginning of the fulfillment of the prayer "Return our judges as of old and our counselors as in the beginning." This is in accordance with the principle "The end of creation arose in thought first."
How much more [must there be acceptance and adherence] when these matters have already been expressed in speech (i.e., prophecy, which in Hebrew derives from a word that means "movement of the lips"), as it has become customary recently to express the words in speech, particularly the words that the Redemption is imminent.
We can now answer the question that has been raised recently that the Redemption is coming imminently. The question is, how can this statement be accepted? How will the family and the world at large react to this?
In truth, if the subject of Redemption were an innovation, the question would possibly have a place. But the Redemption is not new; rather all of it has already begun ("as in the beginning") and has been brought into and received in this physical world, the lowest of all possible worlds (in the context of "your counselors as in the beginning"). Therefore it won't be a wonder when the Redemption comes imminently!
(From the talk of the Shabbos Parshas Shoftim, 7 Elul, 5751)
