The Pesach of Today

By Shmuel Sackett

Imagine, that 20 years ago, you received a phone call from a friend who told you about a financial advisor who was like a prophet. Everything this guy predicted comes true! Your friend strongly advised that you invest your money with him but you decided to do some research and take it day-by-day. After all, there are no such things as prophets.

You started watching him closely and things happened exactly as he predicted! Not bad. You listened to more and he was right again... and again. He was right every day for a month. You kept watching and this guy was on the ball with every prediction for a year! You couldn’t believe it – especially since he went against all other “experts” – but this financial advisor was simply unbelievable. You proceeded to keep watching and following every word and – for the last 20 years – he was right day after day, week after week and year after year. He hadn’t been wrong even once!!

I would imagine that, at some point, you would have been convinced of the brilliance of this man and would have started following his advice. Only a fool would follow every day for 20 years, convinced that the man is a financial prophet, yet not follow him in some way.

Let’s switch gears for a minute. Stop imagining about the millions we could make on Wall Street and start realizing that we have something that goes back much more than 20 years. While the Jewish nation produced many financial wizards, our real prophets had nothing to do with the stock market. Our prophets, both men and women, prophesized about things and have never been wrong – not only in the last 20 years – but in the last 3,000 years! That’s right – a perfect record for over 3,000 years… yet sadly, many Jews are still watching on the sidelines.

How can we be so foolish? We have the actual words spoken by prophets – who heard them from Hashem Himself – yet we either don’t pay attention, think they don’t apply to us or have no idea what they even said since which Yeshivas study Navi??? A perfect track record of over 3,000 years – right on target every time – and we turn a blind eye. And I thought Jews were smart…

What prophesies am I referring to? Sorry to hit you in the head but if you ask that question you need to quickly go to the sources and read. Turn off the tv, stop surfing the net and get yourself off of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snap Chat, WhatsAPP and everything else that is stealing your life away and start learning what Yechezkel, Yirmiyahu, Ovadyah, Tzefanya, Zechariah and Daniel said would happen.

“Thus says Hashem; Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for your work shall have its reward, says Hashem. They shall return from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in your future, says Hashem, that your children shall return to their own land!” (Yirmiyahu 31)

“Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel, behold they say; Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost… Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord G-d… I will bring you into the Land of Israel” (Yechezkel 37)

“Behold, I will bring them… and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth… He that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand that is stronger than he. Therefore, they shall come and sing in the height of Zion…” (Yirmiyahu 31)

I can fill 50 pages with more “amazing predictions” like the ones above, but – in reality - they are not predictions at all. They are the words of Hashem and, for reasons that I cannot explain, they have come true in our day. We have indeed been brought back to the Land of Israel! Take, for example, the holy city of Bet El. For thousands of years this Biblical paradise was empty. I’m not sure if even a goat walked there. And then, 50 years ago, Hashem and His agents in IDF uniforms led us to victory in the 6 Day War. 10 years later – in 1977 – a handful of Jewish families settled the town and today there are over 7,000 people living in Bet El with 4,000 of them under the age of 17. If that’s not fulfillment of the prophecy that “your children shall return to their own land” then I don’t know what is!!!

Our holy Bible is replete with these messages that are meant to change our lives… if we let them. On Pesach we celebrate the fact that Hashem’s promise to Avraham was kept; “Know for sure that your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs… They will be enslaved and oppressed. But I will finally bring judgment against the nation who enslaves them and they will then leave with great wealth…” (B’reisheit 15). Those words are the reason we have Pesach today, but it doesn’t end there.

“Hashem will bring back your remnants and have mercy on you. Hashem your Lord will once again gather you from among the nations where He scattered you…” (D’vorim 30).  This verse, when counting verses from the beginning of the Torah is verse number 5708 – which is the very year when the State of Israel was created… in 5708.

Open your eyes. Read and absorb what is being said and realize that when, at the end of the seder, we say “Next Year in Jerusalem” it’s because the time has come to commemorate not just the Pesach of the past, but the Pesach of the present. Am Yisrael Chai!!!