                      A Time for Redemption
                        Passover 1991-5751
                         March 18, 1991
                      by Gary M. Cooperberg

       For nearly two thousand years we have been awaiting the arrival of Mashiach.  It
has been such a long wait that idiomatic expressions have arisen equating the arrival of
Mashiach with anything that is nearly certain not to take place.  How is it conceivable that one
man can reach the entire Jewish people and bring them home to Israel?  Yet, in our day, the
media does bring events to the masses all over the world almost immediately as they take
place.  It is definitely conceivable that, given the proper circumstances, one man can, indeed,
affect the return of the Jewish people as a whole.
       During the Gulf War the entire population of the Jewish State was on alert.  Even
on Shabbat our radios were on in the event of attacks which did, indeed, take place.  As we sat
in our sealed rooms with our gas masks in place it was definitely analogous to the Night of
Watching, a term describing the seder night of Passover.  It was almost as if we expected to
hear Eliyahu haNavi get on the radio and tell us all to prepare for the coming of Mashiach this
Pesach.
       In our day and age, rather than seeing the hope for redemption at the hand of the
righteous Mashiach as more impossible than ever before, davka we have every reason to
believe in his imminent arrival!
       The establishment of Jewish sovereignty in our land; the failure of our enemies to
destroy us; the centrality of Israel in world events, despite her insignificant size; the incredible
large scale return of Soviet Jews to Israel; the failure of forty missiles fired upon Israel to
inflict serious damage; and the success with which the IDF has prevented nearly all infiltrators
from inflicting heavy casualties on our population are all indications that we are living in
special times.
       It is not a Biblical injunction that requires us to endure the incessant internal Arab
terrorism to destroy us from within.  If we have come to a point where our security experts
tell us that it is virtually impossible to prevent Arab terrorism from taking place within our
country, then it is unthinkable that we still refuse to rid ourselves of those who openly declare
themselves to be our enemies!  When policemen need to wear knife and bullet proof vests in
Jerusalem, then we know that we are not facing the problem honestly.  Rather than remove or
destroy the enemy, we accept his continued existence as something we must learn to live with. 
That is why the government has subsidized the replacement of car windows with "rock proof"
plastic, and the IDF has lined the highways of Judea, Samaria and Gaza with Jewish soldiers.
       If the so called "Palestinians" are not waging war with us, then why the need for all
of these outlandish "precautions"?  The reason we are plagued by terrorism today is very
simple.  We fear George Bush more than we fear or trust the G-d of Israel who has already
more than proved his love for us.  Were we to react to acts of terror with an iron fist rather
than a velvet glove, it would go away.  The concept of "turn the other cheek" is not a Jewish
one.  Our sources demand of us that when one comes to kill us we should rise up first and kill
him-- not "transfer" him.  That is Judaism.                           Racism is the illogical hatred of one who
belongs to a particular race, just because he belongs to that race.  When the majority of a
particular race openly declares its intention to destroy you, however, it is most certainly not
racism to take whatever steps needed to prevent those people from accomplishing their
declared aim.  When we, as a nation, can muster the self-respect to protect our citizens from
those who seek our destruction and clearly recognize the difference between self-defense and
racism, no matter what the United States might think, we then will merit the redemption that
clearly awaits us.  
