Coronavirus - Time for Teshuvah

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi


What are you waiting for?
The Torah says: ‘’ When you are in distress, and all these things have befallen you, at the end of days, you will return unto Hashem, your G-d and hearken to His voice’’ (Deuterenomy 4:30). The era knows has the End of Days and the coming of the Messiah is without a doubt the most special and decisive periods since the creation of the world. The Mishna in Sota (49b) and in Sanhedrin (97b) provides us with signs to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. Keep in mind that the Mishna was written over two thousand years ago! With the help of Hashem, we will try to explain the Mishna according to the teachings of our Sages, of Blessed Memory. This is the language of the Mishna:
“In the advent of the Messiah:
1. Insolence will be greater.
2. There will be great inflation.
3. Even though grapes will be in abundance, wine will be expensive,
4. Leadership and government officials will be far from Torah and commandments and will not lead the country according to the Torah.
5. The generation will not accept rebuke.
6. When people will get together, the conversation will frequently centre on women, immorality and infidelity.
7. The Galil will be destroyed and the Gavlan (a name of a place) will be desolate.
8. The people that will live on the borders will be expelled from their homes, and no one will have compassion for them, and they will be unable to settle in one place, but instead will be forced to wander from place to place.
9. The wisdom of our Rabbis, both those from the pas and in present, will be mocked and ridiculed.
10. Those who have awe of the word of G-d and His Torah will be despised in the eyes of the people.
11. The truth will be missing – no one will know who holds the truth everything will be in a state of confusion and doubt.
12. Young people will embarrass the old.
13. The old will stand up before the young.
14. Sons will curse their fathers
15. Daughters will rebel against their mothers.
16. Brides will rebel against their mothers-in-law.
17. One’s own family members will be his enemies.
18. The face of the generation will be like the face of a dog (referring to insolence and impudence). The reason that our sages chose to describe the generation of Mashiach as the “the face of a dog” is as follows: When a person hits a dog with a stick, the dog thinks that it was the stick that hit him, and attacks the stick. What the dog does not understand is that in reality, it was the individual that hit him and not the stick. The stick was just the means to carry out the punishment. Such are the people of the generation of the Messiah. Everyone will accuse those who harmed them and blame them for all that has happened to them ad if it’s bad luck and that there is no “guiding hand.” They don’t understand that everything is really from Heaven. In this wat, they resemble the dog who does not realise who is hitting him.
19. A son will not be ashamed of his father and all shame and courtesy will disappear from the world.
20. And who do we have to rely on? Only our Father in Heaven – in this period we will be able to rely solely on G-d and to hope that He will redeem us soon and will bring the messiah.

In another place where the Gemara discussed the “Days of Messiah”, the following is brought down: “Said Mar: In the sixth, sounds, in the seventh, wars, at the end of the seventh, the son of David will arrive” (Megillah, 17b). Rashi explains that in the sixth year {toward the coming of the Messiah} there will be ‘’sounds’’ in the world and those ‘’sounds’’ will bring tidings of the coming of the Messiah. In the seventh year which is the Sabbatical year, will be a year in which there will be war between the idol worshipers and the Nation of Israel, and at the end of that year the Messiah will come.

An individual learning this Gemara seventy years ago would have laughed and said that the fulfillment of these signs are light years away from the reality in which we live. However, today, we can see with our own eyes the actualisation of these signs. We must understand that at the time of our Sages wrote these signs {about two thousand years ago}, there was not even a theoretical chance that people will reach such degenerated level. No one ever dreamed that kids will speak back to their parents, and that there would be such a lack of indignity, and that courthouses will become a place of immorality and ridicule, etc. Therefore, it is clear to all that our Sages wrote with divine inspiration.


in English