Musar על מיכה 7:15

There is an allusion to this in the Torah: When Aaron said (concerning the next day which was the 17th of Tammuz) חג לה' מחר "tomorrow there will be a holiday to G–d" (Exodus 32,5). The term מחר, need not always refer to the day immediately following it. It may, on occasion, refer to a time in the distant future. Aaron hinted that the time would come when even a day that is a fast-day today, such as the day that Moses had occasion to smash the tablets with the Ten Commandments G–d had given him, i.e. the day after Aaron's pronouncement, would be turned into a happy occasion. It is no accident then that our calendar is arranged in such a way that the ninth day of Av always occurs on the same day of the week as the first day of Passover, the day we commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. That redemption had been the real beginning of the eventual and enduring redemption of the Jewish people. This is why the prophet Michah (7,15) says כימי צאתך מארץ מצרים "just as during the days when you came out of Egypt." The prophet introduces a vision of the redemption of the future by speaking of great miracles yet to be performed.

If so, we, too, will set our hearts to that road, and we shall see to it to do lovingkindness with one another and keep the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to serve our G-d in heaven alone and not incline our hearts to the enticement of the yetzer hara and its claims, just as Israel did not incline their ears to the claims of the Egyptians even though they offered to lighten their burdens. And for this let there be fulfilled in us the verse (Michah 7:15): "As the day of your [i.e., your fathers'] going out of the land of Egypt, I will show it [Israel] wonders," speedily, in our days, Amen!

Every addition of holiness to our status has a mystical connection with the Additional Sacrifices and furthermore contains allusions to a future time. The Torah says in connection with ראש חודש: "This month shall be to you the first (head) of the months" (Exodus 12,2). It means that the Jewish people's calendar is patterned after the lunar cycle. Shemot Rabbah 15,26, comments on this that the great achievements of the Jewish people from the time of Abraham to that of King Solomon spanned 15 generations during which they rose to ever greater stature. At that point, when the light of the moon is at its most potent, "Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord" (Chronicles 1,29,23). Just as the light of the moon diminishes progressively from the fifteenth of the month onwards until it is totally extinct at the end of the month, so the generations of the Jewish people after Solomon progressively declined in greatness until, after another fifteen generations, the last Jewish King, Zedekiah was totally blinded, as stated in Kings II 25,7: "He blinded the eyes of Zedekiah." In the future, however, a new light will shine upon Zion, "and the brightness of the moon will match the brightness of the sun" (Isaiah 30, 26). The "light of the sun" referred to in that verse is the mystical dimension added by the offering of the מוסף-sacrifices on the days we celebrate the appearance of the New Moon. The mystical dimension provided by the Sabbath is the concept of a world which is constantly wrapped in the holiness represented by the concept of the Sabbath. The mystical dimension provided by the Passover sacrifice is that it is the anniversary of our original redemption from the bondage in Egypt, which is also the date of the month on which the redemption of the future will occur. (Rosh Hashanah 11) The scriptural source for this opinion is found in Michah 7,15: "I will show miracles as in the days when you departed from the land of Egypt." Israel will then become endowed with an additional level of רוח הקודש, Holy Spirit, and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of G–d. The festival of Tabernacles, devoted to our reposing in "shade" i.e. the shade offered by the covering of the huts being the spiritual equivalent of sitting under G–d's direct protection- will provide an even greater amount of the Holy Spirit. New Year's Day, of which it says in our מוסף prayer: "This day is the day that recalls the beginning of Your handiwork, a reminder of the first day of Creation," will become the date on which the work of Creation will be renewed once it will resume the direction envisioned by G–d originally. At that time G–d will truly enjoy His works (Psalms 104,31). יום כפור, of course, represents the day in the future when all sins will have been atoned for, and the time of which the prophet Jeremiah 50,20, says: "The sins of Israel shall be sought and there shall be none; the sins of Yehudah, and none shall be found; for I shall forgive those I allow to survive." In the future then these are "My holidays." As long as Israel was steeped in sin, however, we are told in Isaiah 1,16: "Your new moons and holidays fill Me with loathing; they have become a burden to Me." In contrast with this, they will be called: "Holy Convocations," proclaimed by a holy congregation, at a time when we shall have merited eternal life. At that time body and soul will have achieved the mystical union hinted at by the words אך אשר יאכל לכל נפש, in Exodus 12,16. "Eating" is a dimension of the body's needs. The word נפש in that verse describes a dimension of the soul. The "food" (nourishment) of that element of man then is "knowledge of the Lord," as we know from Isaiah 11,9. The verse in Exodus hints at a time when even the body, i.e. "secular" matter, will be filled with such knowledge of the Lord. At that time we will experience fulfilment of the promise or commandment "שאו את ראש," in Numbers 26,2, which is a moral imperative to the Jewish people to elevate themselves to the highest moral/ ethical level they are capable of. The people who were counted at that time were rightly described by our sages as דור דעה, a generation which possessed knowledge (of G–d). This count took place "after the plague," after all those involved in the sin of בעל פעור had died. The term "אחר המגפה" can be understood more broadly as also referring to that time in the future of which it is said in Isaiah 25,8: "He will destroy death forever." During the first count of the people in the desert, the attribute of Justice predominated over the Jewish people, seeing they were all going to die during their trek through the desert, and would not be found worthy to enter the Holy Land. [That count had taken place after the episode of the golden calf, Ed.] Of this latter count, however, it states: "To these (the people to be counted now) the land will be distributed as an inheritance" (26,53). The prophet Isaiah (60,21), has already said of this future ועמך כולם צדיקים, לעולם יירשו ארץ "And your people, all of them righteous, shall possess the land for all time." The story of Pinchas is an allusion to this point in the future.