Hakitzu VeRanenu #21: The General Experience of the Two Stages of Redemption (Part One)2 min read
In light of all the above, we are currently standing upon the threshold of the second stage, the mystery of Zechirah, which marks the arrival of the spirit that will bring a completed consciousness to the nation dwelling in its Holy Land, enabling them to live a life of Shechinah – as a single body permeated by a holy and elevated soul.
Now, perhaps one will put forth a challenge by claiming that in the first stage of the redemption, there was a tremendously strong atmosphere of nationalism and collective identity, as opposed to one of fragmented individuality – an atmosphere in which everyone harnessed their own abilities to develop the Land and grab hold of it. Since this feeling of collectivism grabbed hold of the community in such a deep way, what does this calling, attempting to awaken us to a life in which we see ourselves as cells in one organism, come to add? Furthermore, there are those who claim that this spirit of nationalism has passed into oblivion, and that in its place has arisen a movement of individualism, focused upon the spiritual fulfillment of each person and the manifestation of their personal uniqueness. Therefore, they want to suggest that the entire concept of collective experience is dead and gone; only having existed for a brief moment in time, but no longer relevant for our generation.
In response, we answer that in truth, even the most powerful feelings of nationalism that existed in the first stage were the very beginning, the earliest drops of that awesome level which will shine like the midday sun when the process of redemption culminates. We can use those feelings as an example of the force of a national experience of collectivity, but it is as the Ramchal writes – the elevated root of (the earlier stage of) Pekidah is Zechirah.
Therefore, even though these powerful feelings of nationality have faded, replaced by a movement that seeks individual fulfillment, this does nothing to indicate that these feelings are irrelevant for our generation. On the contrary, all of those feelings were merely a slight mist which precedes the revelation of the sun in all of its might, the light of the Shechinah in full flight, and we are obligated to prepare ourselves for the revelation of this elevated spirit upon us.
In the time of Pekidah, the nationalistic feelings were centered around an external aspect, the mystery of the building of the “body” – the ascent to Eretz Yisrael and battling those who sought to harm us. However, the entire spiritual structure of am Yisrael, the mystery of the soul, of the Shechinah and the collectivity of am Yisrael around the inner systems of Torah, mitzvos, and, in general, the world of consciousness and the mystery underlying the expanse of am Yisrael’s spiritual life force – none of this has yet been born, and we do not yet collectively experience the level that is fitting for us to experience in the stage of our redemption.
However, now the time has arrived to feel the nation’s heartbeat in its inner spiritual strata. And when this collective life of life appears over the framework of avodas Hashem and in the depth of our spiritual lives, a powerful inner demand is born: to establish a living center for our spiritual existence – the mystery of the Beis HaMikdash, which will allow the point of our unity to manifest within the expanse of this kind of life. In this holy place, we will be uplifted toward a Pesach with the expansion of the Shechinah’s illumination upon our entire nation and revolving around the Kohen Gadol during the order of avodah on Yom Kippur. With the appearance of an awesome spirit of holiness, a nation completed will experience the spiritual life, full of an essential joy.
This demand has not yet been born, and these visions are still in the category of an obscure dream, like a person who interacts with a realm that is distant from his own existence. They aren’t yet experienced as a loss within our living flesh, like something that is missing from the essential levels of life and their foundations. The root of this is our fragmentation, one from the other, in the efforts we invest in spiritual growth.
[To be continued…]
