Birth Pangs of Redemption
A Lack of Faith
A lack of faith in my unique spiritual powers is the cause of the loss of a great spiritual wealth, which could have appeared in the world to illumine many horizons and to lift the value of life for many people, and in particular to refine the overall power of the national revival, which is coming into being in our days in the land of Israel in actuality, and outside the land in thought and in hope.
I must oppose and overcome, with a constant spiritual awakening, this great obstruction, which causes my hands to be lowered.
The Great Uproar of the World
What is going on now in the world?
If no one, and in particular no learned person, wishes to look at what is occurring in the world now, will I also not look?
No! I am not enslaved to the majority. I walk upon my own path, upon the straight road. I look straight ahead; I look upon what I must see, without the slightest wavering out of weakness because of that great majority, which considers as guileless sincerity the fact that it seals its eyes to everything that is occurring.
I am taken aback by these impermeable ears, which do not hear the great uproar of the world, an uproar that brings about new life, an uproar of revival, an uproar of redemption, an uproar of the renaissance of the world.
The Pittance of Honor Given Heaven
What is the secret of my great suffering, for whose sake I endure so many pains of the spirit and body, because of which I have become estranged from my brothers and alien to the offspring of my mother?
That is my great suffering due to the pittance of the honor given heaven, due to the apathy toward the name of God.
Most of all, I am dismayed that the name of Hashem, the God of Israel, our Father forever and ever, has been forgotten in the midst of the great awakening of the national rebirth.
I am unable to demand and argue in limited rhetoric that people adhere to our religion and the like. My soul cries out within me, my spirit roars like a lion: “Woe to the children who forget their Father.” And a voice proclaims from the heights: “Woe to the Father whose children have forgotten Him.”
From the depths of the secret hiding place, a pure wind blows, and a quiet, whispering voice is heard: “Is Efraim not a precious son to Me, a delightful child, for when I speak of him I again bear him in mind, therefore, my bowels yearn for him, I will surely have compassion upon him, states Hashem.”
And a mighty trust grows stronger within me that all of these preparations that are occurring in the world and in our inner world are illuminations that become manifest in order to honor Hashem by elevating His name, so that it will shine with its light and be revealed and visible to us in all of its glorious holiness. “Then those lost in the land of Assyria will come and those cast away in the land of Egypt, and bow to Hashem on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.” Quickly, in our days, amen.
Jealousy of the Secular World
I go about consumed with jealousy; jealousy of the secular world consumes me. Is it possible that the power of creativity no longer exists in that which is holy and in all of those who have taken hold of the hem of its garment. Is such a thing possible?
We must decipher its various aspects by examining our deeds and perspectives, with an honest appraisal [that is] alive and whole, [examining] all the spheres of life and our spiritual activity.
Jealousy on Behalf of the Holy
My constant sorrow is a jealousy on behalf of the holy. A penetrating pain pierces my soul when I see secular thoughts and secular hopes spread through the world, capture hearts, acquire adherents and grow actualized in deeds, whereas ideals of holiness and thoughts of holiness are left to lie like a stone that no one takes note of, with which no one bothers, which no one explains, expands upon, makes them attractive to the broad public, and gives them movement in actuality and in deed.
This makes me ill and I suffer terrible spiritual pangs, which are my sufferings of love, and these lead me to call out proclamations on behalf of the revival of the holy and on behalf of the Flag of Jerusalem.
The Purpose of the Revival of the Holy
I must explain well—with extreme clarity—the purpose of the revival of the holy, which we must now join to our secular revival, which strides forward with pride as it gives song to the heart of everyone thirsty for salvation, who desires to see the splendor of Israel.
What Do I Look Forward To?
What do I want? What do I look forward to? This is something that must grow clear to me in a lucent and manifest manner.
I wish to illumine the light of faith, the light of holiness, in the land of Israel, in the Jewish land of Israel, in the land of Israel that is being redeemed, in that land of Israel that is shaking off the dust of the abject and dismal exile.
Therefore, faith and holiness in all of their branches, in all the depths of their roots, must be the first to be redeemed as well from all of the plague of the exile. We must redeem God’s Presence that rests within our midst from His exile and illumine the land of Israel with a light of redeemed faith, a holiness of a nation living in its land.
This nation is a nation whose source of holiness—in all of its elevation, splendor and might, which will appear in the world with the salvation of every being—is its own. It was created and is coming for the sake of the entire world, to prepare its future.
Cast away all of the negligence that defiles the holy grandeur! Cast away all of the wickedness that swallows the inheritance of holiness, [a wickedness that] creeps into the cracks of the exilic holiness!
A pure faith and holiness, one that is Jewish, one that is also fit to make its way in the marketplace of ideas, to revive many nations, to remove the obstacles before the lives of individuals and of populations, to crown all souls with eternal diadems of grandeur and to give refuge to all spirits and to all bodies with the refuge of the salvation of wisdom and knowledge—that is the content of the wellspring of salvation, which will come forth from the revelation of the land-of-Israel redemption, which strides forward before us.
Fortunate is the person who recognizes within it the might of Hashem, the spirit of His holiness, and the thunder of the might of the living God within it.
Yes, this is my goal. But how heavy is this burden within my soul! How much supernal salvation must I lift up and raise? “Please, Hashem, save, please, Hashem, help us succeed!”
We Yearn To Be Filled With Greatness
Our goal is always directed not only to be redeemed from the narrow straits, not only to be healed of wounds and to be saved from sicknesses, not only to emerge from the conditions of poverty and from the dark of blindness—no!
A thirst to [do away with the] negative in itself depresses the spirit and does not give satisfaction to life.
It is not for this that we were brought into being by the Creator, He who is good and does good, the compassionate Father, the Source of all lovingkindness, all love and all compassion.
Rather, we yearn to be filled with greatness, great contentment in the soul, a fresh life filled with illumination in every corners to which we turn, Eden and infinite pleasure in every breath that we breathe, a never-sufficient youthfulness from the Source of the life of all worlds.
You, only You, Hashem—I seek Your greatness, I hope for it and I aspire to it.
And we come to the land of Israel, and we hope for deliverance, and we long for the redemption of the soul—but not to be saved from the chains of exile, not to escape the deformities of its sufferings that cause us to wear away.
No! Infinitely more than that—[we come] for the sake of revealing all of the light, for the sake of causing the streams of eternal life to flow from the Source of the holy of holies, from the Source of Israel, from the Source of [Israel’s] supernal soul, from the Source of that delightful love, [which comes from] the Rock of Ages, Who illumines for us with rays of glory a lovely land, the holy land, the land of life and the land of light.
“My soul longs and indeed expires for the courtyards of Hashem, my heart and my flesh will sing to the living God.”
How fortunate we are, we are blessed and fortunate with an eternal happiness and an exalted eternity.
“Fortunate are you Israel, who is like you, a nation saved by Hashem.”
Fortunate are you, [nation of] Israel, fortunate are you, fortunate are you.
The Holiness Within Nature
Behold, I see with my own eyes the light of the life of Elijah rising. His power on behalf of his God grows ever more revealed.
The holiness within nature breaks through its boundaries. It proceeds powerfully to unite with the holiness that transcends nature, with the holiness that wars against nature.
We fought against nature and we emerged victorious. Nature had damaged us, dislodged our thighbone, but the sun has shone to heal us of our lameness.
Judaism of the past, from Egypt until now, is one long war against nature, against the nature of the world, against the nature of humanity as a whole—even against the nature of the [Jewish] nation, and against the nature of every individual.
We fought against nature in order to conquer it, in order to crush it within its house.
It is subjugated before us. The worlds grow ever more perfected. In the essence of the depth of nature, a great demand arises for holiness and purity, for a refinement of the soul and purification of life.
Elijah comes to proclaim peace, and within the inner soul of the nation a current of life of nature breaks forth, and comes ever closer to holiness.
The remembrance of the exodus from Egypt grows transformed into a memory of the exodus from the subjugation of nations, which grows ever closer to completion. And all of us are in the process of coming closer to nature. And it approaches us, increasingly subdued before us, as its demands grow ever more attuned to our exalted demands, [which come] from the source of holiness.
The young generation, which demands its land, its language, its freedom and its honor, its literature and its might, its possession and its feelings—[all these things] flow via the stream of nature, whose inner being is filled with holy fire.
A lack of faith in my unique spiritual powers is the cause of the loss of a great spiritual wealth, which could have appeared in the world to illumine many horizons and to lift the value of life for many people, and in particular to refine the overall power of the national revival, which is coming into being in our days in the land of Israel in actuality, and outside the land in thought and in hope.
I must oppose and overcome, with a constant spiritual awakening, this great obstruction, which causes my hands to be lowered.
The Great Uproar of the World
What is going on now in the world?
If no one, and in particular no learned person, wishes to look at what is occurring in the world now, will I also not look?
No! I am not enslaved to the majority. I walk upon my own path, upon the straight road. I look straight ahead; I look upon what I must see, without the slightest wavering out of weakness because of that great majority, which considers as guileless sincerity the fact that it seals its eyes to everything that is occurring.
I am taken aback by these impermeable ears, which do not hear the great uproar of the world, an uproar that brings about new life, an uproar of revival, an uproar of redemption, an uproar of the renaissance of the world.
The Pittance of Honor Given Heaven
What is the secret of my great suffering, for whose sake I endure so many pains of the spirit and body, because of which I have become estranged from my brothers and alien to the offspring of my mother?
That is my great suffering due to the pittance of the honor given heaven, due to the apathy toward the name of God.
Most of all, I am dismayed that the name of Hashem, the God of Israel, our Father forever and ever, has been forgotten in the midst of the great awakening of the national rebirth.
I am unable to demand and argue in limited rhetoric that people adhere to our religion and the like. My soul cries out within me, my spirit roars like a lion: “Woe to the children who forget their Father.” And a voice proclaims from the heights: “Woe to the Father whose children have forgotten Him.”
From the depths of the secret hiding place, a pure wind blows, and a quiet, whispering voice is heard: “Is Efraim not a precious son to Me, a delightful child, for when I speak of him I again bear him in mind, therefore, my bowels yearn for him, I will surely have compassion upon him, states Hashem.”
And a mighty trust grows stronger within me that all of these preparations that are occurring in the world and in our inner world are illuminations that become manifest in order to honor Hashem by elevating His name, so that it will shine with its light and be revealed and visible to us in all of its glorious holiness. “Then those lost in the land of Assyria will come and those cast away in the land of Egypt, and bow to Hashem on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.” Quickly, in our days, amen.
Jealousy of the Secular World
I go about consumed with jealousy; jealousy of the secular world consumes me. Is it possible that the power of creativity no longer exists in that which is holy and in all of those who have taken hold of the hem of its garment. Is such a thing possible?
We must decipher its various aspects by examining our deeds and perspectives, with an honest appraisal [that is] alive and whole, [examining] all the spheres of life and our spiritual activity.
Jealousy on Behalf of the Holy
My constant sorrow is a jealousy on behalf of the holy. A penetrating pain pierces my soul when I see secular thoughts and secular hopes spread through the world, capture hearts, acquire adherents and grow actualized in deeds, whereas ideals of holiness and thoughts of holiness are left to lie like a stone that no one takes note of, with which no one bothers, which no one explains, expands upon, makes them attractive to the broad public, and gives them movement in actuality and in deed.
This makes me ill and I suffer terrible spiritual pangs, which are my sufferings of love, and these lead me to call out proclamations on behalf of the revival of the holy and on behalf of the Flag of Jerusalem.
The Purpose of the Revival of the Holy
I must explain well—with extreme clarity—the purpose of the revival of the holy, which we must now join to our secular revival, which strides forward with pride as it gives song to the heart of everyone thirsty for salvation, who desires to see the splendor of Israel.
What Do I Look Forward To?
What do I want? What do I look forward to? This is something that must grow clear to me in a lucent and manifest manner.
I wish to illumine the light of faith, the light of holiness, in the land of Israel, in the Jewish land of Israel, in the land of Israel that is being redeemed, in that land of Israel that is shaking off the dust of the abject and dismal exile.
Therefore, faith and holiness in all of their branches, in all the depths of their roots, must be the first to be redeemed as well from all of the plague of the exile. We must redeem God’s Presence that rests within our midst from His exile and illumine the land of Israel with a light of redeemed faith, a holiness of a nation living in its land.
This nation is a nation whose source of holiness—in all of its elevation, splendor and might, which will appear in the world with the salvation of every being—is its own. It was created and is coming for the sake of the entire world, to prepare its future.
Cast away all of the negligence that defiles the holy grandeur! Cast away all of the wickedness that swallows the inheritance of holiness, [a wickedness that] creeps into the cracks of the exilic holiness!
A pure faith and holiness, one that is Jewish, one that is also fit to make its way in the marketplace of ideas, to revive many nations, to remove the obstacles before the lives of individuals and of populations, to crown all souls with eternal diadems of grandeur and to give refuge to all spirits and to all bodies with the refuge of the salvation of wisdom and knowledge—that is the content of the wellspring of salvation, which will come forth from the revelation of the land-of-Israel redemption, which strides forward before us.
Fortunate is the person who recognizes within it the might of Hashem, the spirit of His holiness, and the thunder of the might of the living God within it.
Yes, this is my goal. But how heavy is this burden within my soul! How much supernal salvation must I lift up and raise? “Please, Hashem, save, please, Hashem, help us succeed!”
We Yearn To Be Filled With Greatness
Our goal is always directed not only to be redeemed from the narrow straits, not only to be healed of wounds and to be saved from sicknesses, not only to emerge from the conditions of poverty and from the dark of blindness—no!
A thirst to [do away with the] negative in itself depresses the spirit and does not give satisfaction to life.
It is not for this that we were brought into being by the Creator, He who is good and does good, the compassionate Father, the Source of all lovingkindness, all love and all compassion.
Rather, we yearn to be filled with greatness, great contentment in the soul, a fresh life filled with illumination in every corners to which we turn, Eden and infinite pleasure in every breath that we breathe, a never-sufficient youthfulness from the Source of the life of all worlds.
You, only You, Hashem—I seek Your greatness, I hope for it and I aspire to it.
And we come to the land of Israel, and we hope for deliverance, and we long for the redemption of the soul—but not to be saved from the chains of exile, not to escape the deformities of its sufferings that cause us to wear away.
No! Infinitely more than that—[we come] for the sake of revealing all of the light, for the sake of causing the streams of eternal life to flow from the Source of the holy of holies, from the Source of Israel, from the Source of [Israel’s] supernal soul, from the Source of that delightful love, [which comes from] the Rock of Ages, Who illumines for us with rays of glory a lovely land, the holy land, the land of life and the land of light.
“My soul longs and indeed expires for the courtyards of Hashem, my heart and my flesh will sing to the living God.”
How fortunate we are, we are blessed and fortunate with an eternal happiness and an exalted eternity.
“Fortunate are you Israel, who is like you, a nation saved by Hashem.”
Fortunate are you, [nation of] Israel, fortunate are you, fortunate are you.
The Holiness Within Nature
Behold, I see with my own eyes the light of the life of Elijah rising. His power on behalf of his God grows ever more revealed.
The holiness within nature breaks through its boundaries. It proceeds powerfully to unite with the holiness that transcends nature, with the holiness that wars against nature.
We fought against nature and we emerged victorious. Nature had damaged us, dislodged our thighbone, but the sun has shone to heal us of our lameness.
Judaism of the past, from Egypt until now, is one long war against nature, against the nature of the world, against the nature of humanity as a whole—even against the nature of the [Jewish] nation, and against the nature of every individual.
We fought against nature in order to conquer it, in order to crush it within its house.
It is subjugated before us. The worlds grow ever more perfected. In the essence of the depth of nature, a great demand arises for holiness and purity, for a refinement of the soul and purification of life.
Elijah comes to proclaim peace, and within the inner soul of the nation a current of life of nature breaks forth, and comes ever closer to holiness.
The remembrance of the exodus from Egypt grows transformed into a memory of the exodus from the subjugation of nations, which grows ever closer to completion. And all of us are in the process of coming closer to nature. And it approaches us, increasingly subdued before us, as its demands grow ever more attuned to our exalted demands, [which come] from the source of holiness.
The young generation, which demands its land, its language, its freedom and its honor, its literature and its might, its possession and its feelings—[all these things] flow via the stream of nature, whose inner being is filled with holy fire.