"The Great Redemption" (11)

"The Great Redemption" by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

-- A Discourse on The End of the Exile and the Beginning of the Great Redemption

Translated by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
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11.

In fact, a lot will be accomplished in the P’kidah stage. And it’s all included in the verses of the sage’s (i.e., Solomon’s) Song of Songs, as I’ll explain later on, G-d willing.

The first accomplishment -- which is the ascent of the Shechina from the dust -- has already been explained by the verse I’d first cited, “Do not rejoice for my sake, my enemy! For though I fell, I arose” (Micha 7:8) as well as “Shake off the dust, Jerusalem. Arise, then sit!” (Isaiah 52:2). But let me explain what “Arise” here refers to.

The Jewish Nation had been in darkness and dimness, and there was no one to comfort them for all their sorrows and troubles that grow greater and greater each day. So their spirits plummeted to the ground, which is to say, to the husks.

Once the Tzaddik to joins them, as we’d indicated, they’ll have someone to comfort them; and the Shechina will arise from the dust and regain its strength, despite her being among the husks whose midst she hadn’t yet left.

But she would no longer be denigrated and subsumed in her “sorrows”. For she’ll take the (Celestial) light of rule upon herself, though she won’t yet display it openly. And she’ll use it to show all the other nations as well as all the (Celestial) ministers the rule that she’ll assume in the Z'chirah period -- may it come quickly and in our lifetime!

Once that first conjoining is completed, though, it won’t exhibit itself again until the Z’chirah period. That’s why it’s written, “Do not rejoice ... when I sit in darkness!” (Micha 7:8), for “G-d Himself will be a light unto me” (Ibid.) after the wrath will have abated.

But let me teach you more about this.

(c) 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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