Among the social symptoms of the pandemic crisis today are rabbis who on the internet use their social platform to scare people, with frightening apocalyptic theories. They speak of “the end of the world”, as if the world belonged to them and had submitted to their pathetic rantings. It is immoral to use the Torah to make him say things contrary to his language of reasoning.
There is no such thing as an “end of the world” in Judaism.
Hope, or the messianic expectation to use Maimonides’ formula, does not include any notion of the end of the world.
This eschatological notion comes from evangelical and millennial Christianity, which is itself a recent development.
The introduction of this language into the circles of conversations about Judaism constitutes a perversion of the message conveyed by the Jewish Religion and repeated by its Masters.
Judaism professes the Faith in the liberation of all mankind from the yoke of oppression as a Divine promise.
This promise is expected in this world and in the earthly dimension.
It is here below that we must accomplish the mission of living in Peace, as it is written in the conclusion of many prayers:
עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואימרו אמן.
“He who makes Peace in His Heights will bring Peace to us and all Israel, answer Amen!”
The whole history of mankind is summed up in this prayer.
Shalom Peace is the divine gift which for Judaism must descend and be embodied in the relationships of the human family.
Even though in the process we had to go through difficult times of darkness, the light that guided us has always been the vision of Peace and not that of destruction.
Every time we see a rainbow we must remember the promise that Gd will not destroy the world.
This is the lesson we must learn from Noah’s account in the Torah.
Likewise in all the destruction and fall of civilizations of which the Torah and Tanakh speaks, from Sodom and Ghomorre to the Greek and Roman empires, there is nowhere a question of the end of the world, (chas veshalom.)
On the contrary, the Torah conveys a message of hope and belief in the power of the forces of good which can lie dormant in any human child and reveal the light to the whole of humanity.
Wasn’t Moses abandoned like thousands of other children, by order of a cruel Pharaoh?
However, a light was hiding in one of these children. And this child when he became the Prophet Moses overthrew and overturned the order of slavery.
We believe that the destiny of the world cannot escape the plan of the One who created it.
Rabbi Nahman of Breslev said:
כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאד, הכלל והעיקר שלא להתפחד כלל!
Everyone is just a very narrow bridge. The principle and the foundation is not to frighten yourself!
Courage, called in Hebrew Gevura, is for us linked to Joy.
It is in the joy of the Jewish people that his Gevura is revealed.
In this joy expresses love and trust in HaShem.
Preachers should read the Haftara carefully which says
נחמו נחמו עמי
Nachamou Nachamou Friend! Comfort console my people:
That is to say:
Talk to him like Rabbi Nahman
“End of the world” in Judaism
