Musar do Izajasza 25:9

When G–d spoke of the Israelites being His witnesses in Isaiah 43,10, this was an allusion to the good G–d will perform for the Jewish people in the days of the Messiah when He will renew the covenant with us -one that will never be severed- and one which will symbolise that Israel has been totally refined, both the patriarchs and their descendants. At that time the השגחה will be based on the Israelites being צדיקים בני צדיקים, righteous people descended from righteous people. Our sages have stated in Avot 4,19: "Nothing is in our hands: we can neither explain the prosperity of the lawless nor the sufferings of the righteous."

This imprint of G–d is the mystical factor that causes the Presence of the שכינה in Israel since the spirituality of the Torah is represented by the souls of Israel. These souls enable G–d to fulfil His promise ושכנתי בתוכם, "I shall dwell among them" (Exodus 25,8). The Torah refers to messianic times and the revelation of G–d's Presence at that time. Concerning that era we have the prophecy of Isaiah 25,9: "On that day it (the people of Israel) will say: "This is our G–d; we trusted in Him, and He delivered us; this is the Lord in whom we trusted." This whole development depends on the progressive evolution of many souls to higher levels. The Ari zal has explained the verse הקטן יהיה לאלף, והצעיר לגוי גדול, נאום ה' בעתה אחישנו "the smallest shall become one thousand; the least, a mighty nation; I the Lord will speed it in due time" (Isaiah 60,22). The obvious difficulty here is that either the redemption comes at a time appointed by G–d, i.e. בעתה, or there is no timetable for redemption, and G–d is free to bring redemption at any time. Different commentators deal with this problem in different ways. The Arizal sees in the verse an allusion to a statement in the Talmud that אין בן דוד בא עד שיכלו כל הנשמות שבגוף, the Messiah will not come until all the souls of the body have been "exhausted" (Yevamot 62). The meaning is that nowadays, while we are in exile, the existing souls of Israel are mostly revolving around themselves and not progressing to higher dimensions. Once these souls have all exhausted their stay on earth, and "new" souls arrive, redemption will occur, and with it the revelation of the original light that G–d withdrew from this earth after the seven days of Creation. G–d called this "the smallest will become one thousand." It is a process of increasing the Jewish birth-rate so that the "store" of souls that has not yet been placed in bodies will be exhausted sooner. In this way the date for the redemption can be advanced dramatically. There is then no contradiction between the words בעתה, and אחישנה. As a result the Presence of the שכינה is directly related to fulfillment of the commandment to procreate. Even though we have quoted proof from a verse in Numbers 10,36 that the Presence of G–d is possible when there are 22,000 souls present (compare page 2 of this chapter), this was only meant to illustrate that G–ds Presence does manifest itself on earth. The extent to which this is possible when all the souls that have been assigned to bodies have fulfilled their task is beyond our experience, and cannot be compared with what occurred in the desert.

There are five בתי אבות, family-sources, which have to be viewed as "above" the concept of land distribution. They are the three patriarchs, to whom the land was promised, but who never took possession of it even though they pined for it and were buried in it. Then there is Joseph, who is described as the direct continuation of Jacob in Genesis 37,2: אלה תולדות יעקב, יוסף. [there was no other reason for the Torah to tell us this fact which we all knew. Ed.] Joseph expressed an ardent desire to be buried in the land of Israel, and made his brothers swear an oath that they would take his bones with them at the time of the redemption from Egypt (Genesis 50,24). There is also Levi, whose descendants did not share in the land, for the Torah describes G–d Himself as their inheritance (Deut. 18,1). We must realize that these five people (or groups of people) were on a spiritual level where they did not need their share of land on earth in order to have their share of the land of Israel in the Celestial Domain. That region is the root of the terrestrial ארץ ישראל. The letter ה in the words במקום ה-זה, alludes to these five categories of people who spiritually outranked the other twelve, i.e. 12 =זה. There is also a special significance in the number five when we consider the five manifestations of G–d's Presence that were missing during the time of the second Temple. This means that there was a residual presence of חרב, i.e. חורבן, destruction, during the entire period of the second Temple. Our sages expressed this in terms of the missing letter ה, in the word ואכבד in Chagai 1,8, where the word should have been the same as in Exodus 14,4, ואכבדה בפרעה (cf. Rashi on that verse in חגי). In the future (third Temple) these five manifestations of G–d's שכינה will be restored. Not only will they be restored, but such a future will herald new spiritual heights when the original light that permeated the universe immediately after the Creation will also be restored. It is the time described in Isaiah 25,9 as: זה ה' קוינו לו, "This is the Lord whom we have hoped for." At that time the promise in Leviticus 26,12: והתהלכתי בתוככם, "I will be walking among you," will also be fulfilled.