The World's Final Deadline: Approaching History's Ultimate Goal

From this point on, I ask you to remove your special glasses. Let's think, and with the help of some thinkers, try to place our era in the global plan and draw the necessary conclusions.

There are several attempts to link the facts of our time to the plan, based on the writings of the Talmud and the prophets. However, none of them are accepted as irrefutable truth, because today there are no prophets who can definitively say, for example, that a war or any international agreement corresponds to a certain stage in Hashem's plan toward the ideal world.

What is certain is that we are nearing the end of history and close to its ultimate goal. According to our holy writings, the cycle of history, as we know it, will not continue beyond the sixth millennium from creation.

Therefore, you, the reader, cannot see the following chapters as absolute truth. They are merely a way of looking at what is happening in our time and linking some facts to Hashem's plan. The facts of our time have countless explanations different from those presented here. Feel free to criticize, reduce, or add what seems necessary to you.

The period after the French Revolution is called in history "the modern era." After this period, the world recognized the concepts of democracy and equal rights. The difference between nations reduced, and stronger cultures began imposing themselves on weaker ones, causing many beliefs and traditions to disappear.

On one hand, this new global tendency, based on the Enlightenment movement, created very positive systems and reduced the injustice characteristic of the monarchical regimes before the French Revolution.

Many privileges that were the domain of unworthy people came to an end, and many began to enjoy rights previously denied to them. Then began the process of democracy on Earth—a process still developing today.

The Jewish people were also greatly affected by the Enlightenment. Equal rights created a space where Jews could enjoy rights previously denied to them. Consequently, Jews started attending universities and succeeded in acquiring rich knowledge that was previously out of their reach. At the same time, a great danger appeared—the danger of losing Jewish values, just as many cultures were lost.

The "Enlightenment" is a legacy from Greek culture, and its main feature is rational thinking. Generally, cultures and traditions without a basis contradict Enlightenment. However, Judaism embraces an entire way of life based on tradition and customs. This was detrimental to Jewish youth who took advantage of equal rights. Many of these young people who went to universities did not understand the significance of their ancestors' actions. They sought entirely rational lives, distancing and abandoning Jewish tradition as they integrated into non-Jewish culture. This movement was called "Jewish Emancipation" or "the Haskalah."

Seemingly, this explanation contradicts what has been said so far, that Judaism is not a collection of empty laws but the actual truth revealed to humanity. In fact, Judaism consists of customs and traditions, but these are not without basis. Therefore, it is possible to see Judaism as a rational way of understanding the world, but in our time, one cannot reach pure truth without tradition, because our way of thinking is too limited. We must therefore walk the long path paved by our ancestors to reach true life.

Thus, with the Jewish "Enlightenment" movement, the people began to experience polarization in the practical application of the Torah. Some completely abandoned religion and began to question the value of ancestral tradition, while others clung to it more tightly. This is because this part, instead of abandoning religion or continuing by inertia to live according to tradition, decided to examine what lies behind the religion. This examination revealed a collection of Hashem's laws that can be translated into pure logic surpassing what is taught in universities.

Although this process first appeared in Europe, towards the end of World War I, Jews in the Middle East began to experience it too, following European settlement in their countries. Consequently, it is natural to hear that among Jews of European descent, the polarization was much stronger than among Jews living in the Middle East, because the former encountered Enlightenment earlier and more powerfully.

The Decisive Century

This period in Jewish history "dove" more powerfully into the 20th century.

There is no doubt that this century was very different from its predecessors. The speed of occurrences was and still is frightening—to such an extent that many sociologists and historians have analyzed and summarized it as an extraordinary century. Such progress in science and technology had never been seen before. The gap between us and those who lived a hundred years ago is huge, whereas the gap between those who lived three hundred years ago and those who lived four hundred years ago is very small: Both lived in houses with their families. They had fireplaces for heating, coal stoves, books, and more. To change their clothing style or invent something to ease people's lives required hundreds of years. Today, everything happens in seconds. Back then, a car theft was front-page news. Today, due to more significant news, such events barely get published.

There is another aspect to the enormous gap that has formed between our generation and the generations that preceded us: never have so many people been killed so senselessly, and human brutality has never been so apparent. From a quarrel between two countries over a few kilometers, wars have become tensions encompassing the entire Earth because of ideological goals. In other words, the order of the day is: if I believe something is a good thing, I will impose it on the whole world at any cost. This also means that humans have started putting themselves in Hashem's place.

This whole storm has a simple explanation: as humans draw closer to the end of history, events accelerate. This happens because the world has a final deadline to achieve its ultimate goal, and that deadline is very close. Therefore, if humankind cannot achieve the goal, Hashem begins to accelerate events. Imagine a soccer game where the team must win or be eliminated from the championship, but meanwhile is losing. What happens to this team? Enormous pressure in the final moments! The same is true for the world, which must reach a certain level by a given deadline for the global plan to be completed. That's why everything happens so quickly.

From the book "Dan's Journey After the Meaning of Life," by Roni Dayan. To purchase the book at Hidabrut Shops,click here.