Ezekiel's Vision of Today's Ingathering

Who do you think the two kingdoms are discussed in the 37th chapter of Yechezkel? (It was this past week's Haftora) Do you think it's talking about Lost tribes?

When I was in college I realized that this passage is actually talking about today. The vision of Ezekiel is that the time will come (in the end of days) when there will be, once again, two Jewish kingdoms - two great centers of Judaism. There will be a great rift between them, but in the end they will have to consolidate into one. I realized in NY that the time had come to make this vision come to pass. American Jewry and Israeli Jewry must reunite in Israel...

Read it carefully and you will see that it must be talking about today. The passage before, the famous Dry Bones vision, is the description of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the nation in the Holy Land. Then, in the next passage (below) is the vision of the ingathering that follows the rebirth. This is not about the Second Temple - it's too big.

I know what a hard time we are living in. When a father of 7 is murdered by killers who were already in prison once - it stings and makes us wonder whether we are really 'home'. But, the bottom line is that we are home, and that with all the challenges and pain, the vision is coming into focus.

Where are you in this picture? Are you part of the vision? Are you reuniting the Jewish nation on the Land of Israel? American Jewry, that other great center of Judaism must make its way home. Read the Haftora below with this understanding of who the two kingdoms are and decide whether you want to be part of the new grand coronation of the nation!

16. "And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, `For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions'; then take another stick and write on it, `For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions.'
17. "Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.
18. "When the sons of your people speak to you saying, `Will you not declare to us what you mean by these?'
19. say to them, `Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand."'
20. "The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.
21. "Say to them, `Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land;
22. and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.
23. "They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their God.
24. "My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them.
25. "They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons' sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever.
26. "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever.
27. "My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.
28. "And the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever.""'