Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Remembrance, Ch. 4)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org

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"The Great Redemption"

The Remembrance: Ch. 4

If you were to be standing atop a precipice at this point in The Remembrance, overlooking the vista, you'd see a lot of movement and change, a great shifting about and resettling. For whole and massive columns of people would be moving and realigning, moving again and aligning again in yet other ways. Because the great redemption would have begun; the ingathering of the exiled Jewish Nation would have been set in motion. And as we indicated, it would have all been initiated by Moshiach Ben Yoseph.

We're told that that will be brought on as a result of a great surge of love issuing from Heaven, as G-d recalls the plight of His precious children, His joy and delight. For His "innermost parts (will) yearn" for us, and He'll "have (i.e., He'll manifest) mercy" upon His people then (Jeremiah 31:19). And it will begin.

Now, we're told that we'll immediately break into a "song that would begin (a great, univeral) ascent" then (see para. 39), as we arrive at Amanah (see para. 37), Israel's traditional northernmost point (see 2 Kings 5:12, Song of Songs 4:8, Mishna Shevi'it 6:1). And we'll encounter the ten lost tribes, who will be gathered together by Moshiach Ben David, as all twelve tribes are reunited (see para. 39).

Now, there's "a lovely and pleasant mystery involved" in the song that we'll be breaking into then (see para. 38). It's rooted in the fact that it will be inspired by a great and colossal event. But Ramchal eases us into this idea with the following fascinating notion.

He asserts that "whoever is elevated is (in fact) elevated by music" (ibid.) -- that music is capable of lifting us higher and drawing us farther and wider along the spiritual plane than anything else. Now, that's needless to say a curious statement for someone to make who's as scholarly and steeped in traditional texts as Ramchal is. But experience will bear out the truth of music's power, and his remark doesn't in fact belittle scholarship so much as plead the case for supplementing it with music, which the greatest prophets did in order to come to inspiration (see 2 Kings 3:15 and 1 Chronicles 25:3).

In any event, we're told that "at the time of the redemption all the (great cosmic) groupings and lights will experience a great elevation" (see para. 39) which will all come about in conjunction with the song we'll be singing then. And that a plethora of "great goodness and peace will result from this".

For "the (entire) universe will be elevated ... to a very great and robust degree, and things will ... be very much loftier." In fact, "all the gates will open up as well as all the entranceways of blessing. All of creation will experience a great expansion, and there’ll be no lack of anything or poverty; and the verse, 'There will be no poor among you; for G-d will bless you greatly in the land which G-d your L-rd is granting you as an inheritance to possess' (Deuteronomy 15:4) will have been fulfilled" by that point. And "all of creation will grow quantitatively and qualitatively" (see para. 38).

The point is that "all the singing that those who gather together out of exile will be doing when they arrive at Amanah" will be both be a result of and an inspiration for "that ascent" (ibid.).

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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