Preventing the Redemption?

Could it be that Jews lax in their enthusiasm to return home and settle our land are actually preventing the redemption?



Could it be that they are also preventing us from rebuilding the Beit Hamikdash [the Temple] on Har Habayit?

Harav Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal ZT?L writes about this idea extensively in Eim Habanim Semeichah.

Perhaps these details will make for some good future blogging. But in short, there he concludes, after bringing proof after proof, that not only will the redemption occur naturally (and not miraculously) but we Jews must initiate the process by returning Home. He writes:

A person cannot expect his field to sprout grains before he works it. That is to say, if he does not plow, sow, and prepare the field, he will not achieve his goal. He will remain empty-handed, even if he prays all day and all night. Only after he does his part by plowing and sowing, can he pray to Hashem to bless his handiwork. The same is true of redemption. After we decide to return to our Land and after we actually begin the process, the Holy One Blessed be He will complete it for us. This is true and clear. Blessed is Hashem Who enlightened me to this principle. (Page 167)

But I came across some other points about this that are not usually discussed when dealing with this topic. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan ZT"L keenly points them out in his work The Real Messiah? About the redemption he writes:

There is even evidence that the majority of the Jews will have to return to their homeland before the Messiah comes in a non-miraculous manner. One of our important traditions regarding the advent of the Messiah is that it will mark the return of prophecy. Furthermore, according to many traditions, the Messiah will be preceded by the prophet Elijah, and furthermore, he himself will be a prophet. However there is a basic teaching that prophecy can only exist in the Land of Israel, and then, only when majority of Jews live there. Thus, unless we assume this rule is to be broken, the majority of Jews will have to live in the Land of Israel before the Messianic Age commences. (The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology. Page 321.)

About rebuilding the Temple on Har Habayit he writes:

Another important consideration is the tradition that the Bais HaMikdash or Holy Temple will be rebuilt before the onset of the Messianic Age. However, there is also a tradition that Jerusalem cannot be rebuilt before the ingathering of the diaspora. This would also seem to indicate that Israel will be settled before the Messianic Age. (Ibid.)

[Rabbi Kaplan also cites scores of sources in almost a dozen endnotes for the above passages.]

So let me ask those questions again.

Could it be that Diaspora Jews lax in their enthusiasm to return home and settle our land are actually preventing the redemption?

Could it be that they are also preventing us from rebuilding the Beit Hamikdash on Har Habayit?

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Does this remind anyone else of that 1984 Apple Computer Superbowl Commercial? (REUTERS/Menahem Kahane/POOL)