The recent headline from Discovery News is not shocking anymore, is it? We have seen so much destruction lately all over the world. Lo' aleinu, v'lo aleichem. While the Discovery report focuses only on maintaining the world's population based on resources, instead of the One who provides these resources, Hashem, we Jews, should know better, shouldn't we?
Earth Could be 'Unrecognizable' by 2050
With a predicted population of 9 billion, food production and competition for resources could change the face of our planet.
Disaster visits the world only because of Yisrael. (Yevamos 63a)Rashi comments that "In order to strike fear in them, so that they will repent." I would like to believe, and I truly hope and pray that we have learned from all the tragedies that have happened throughout history, that we need to do something about this. That we know where we are coming from and where we are headed.
I have destroyed nations, I have laid waste to their towers, and I have turned their streets into desolate ruins, and left their cities devastated and uninhabited. I said simply: Fear Me and learn a lesson. (Tzefaniah 3:6-7)
Sometimes events occur in faraway places and on faraway islands in order to stir Israel to do teshuva, with dread and fear, lest the same punishment come upon them. When you do not suffer in response to the terrible tragedies of others, the punishment does not end; rather it travels closer and closer to you. There is no doubt that anyone who observes these landmark events, which are truly warnings from Hashem, and continues in the path he has been treading, is like someone who is warned against committing a transgression (averah) and yet commits it anyway, and so is liable to the death penalty. (The Ran, Droshos HaRan, Hadrush Hashishi)So, what are we waiting for? Distress, teshuva, redemption. Only in the merit of teshuva, will we be redeemed.
Says Hashem: Behold, it too is ready to arrive, but because of you it tarries. If you want it, why do you prevent it from coming? Return -- come back in repentance! Come to Me and We will share the same residence, and We will all return to our right places. (Zohar, Vayikra 22a)
Everyone says this is the era of Moshiach's arrival... If so, a lot [of effort] is required, since a person must prepare himself in order to be worthy to merit those days. He has to acquire awe [knowledge] of Hashem, a taste for spirituality, a connection to good middos; then he may receive what is to be handed out in the days of Moshiach ... To merit spirituality in the days of Moshiach, a person must be considered a proper receptacle. He can't come to everyone -- one has to be fitting and prepared to merit greeting him .... (Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, Mofes HaDor, 15).
Moshiach must come very soon, because soon, there won't be anybody for whom to come. (Chofetz Chaim)Source: Redemption Unfolding, by Rabbi Alexander Aryeh Mandelbaum
Additional readings: Fifteen Afflictions and Fifteen Levels of Holiness...
