The Dawn Will Come

The salvation of Hashem comes in an instant…(Rashi, from the Midrash)
 
If you ever get up to pray at sunrise (a custom Rebbe Nachman strongly recommends), you’ll notice an amazing phenomenon that is really hard to properly describe.  When you wake up, it’s completely dark outside.  There is only one split second between complete pitch-black darkness, and the first beginning of the sun’s rays when you can first begin to see clearly and are allowed to begin morning prayers (called Alot HaShachar).
 
This process sounds very obvious on paper.  But on one particular morning, as I was waiting in total darkness at my favorite outlook to pray at sunrise, this instantaneous transition really hit me.  I was sitting on a small hilltop, from where I could see the streetlights of most of downtown Jerusalem – almost to the Old City.  I could even hear the Muslims call to prayer coming from Har HaBayit – the Temple Mount.
 
 I actually did not know exactly when sunrise was at all – I just knew it was coming.  I sat and waited in the dark, wondering aloud that it was so dark, who even knew it was almost daybreak?  Suddenly, dawn broke and the transition was so sudden that I almost missed the moment.  With the breathtaking view in front of me, the sudden transition to daylight hit me like a ton of bricks. 
 
Of course, this process repeats itself until actual sunrise as well.  Ever-increasing amounts of light turn the sky from black, to purple, then blue (on this particular morning, I saw the most gorgeous teal I could never describe).  The difference in light in every five-minute time period is actually quite astounding.  Finally some pink starts to hit the horizon and again – one split second, and the amount of light has increased ten-fold with sunrise.
 
Think about it for a minute.  We know when sunrise is going to be, and there is even a sense of expectancy out there in the park.  The birds are chirping, and the air is cool and fresh.  But what if you had no sense of time, or birds to announce the beginning of a new day?  Just one split second before the dawn, the dark is just as deep as it was at the beginning of the evening.  In fact, it’s actually the coldest part of the day.  You have absolutely no idea when exactly the dawn is going to come – it is only after the sky suddenly lights up that you realize that the night is indeed over.
 
Our lives are no different.  Everyone faces difficult periods of time, during which we wish that perhaps at least we could know when it was going to end.  When that moment of personal salvation does finally come, it is so sudden that our heads spin.  But holding onto our emuna until we get to that moment is extremely difficult, because there is no way of knowing when that magical moment will suddenly hit us.
 
However, just as the exact moment of the dawn is calculated with perfect precision – so is the dawn of our salvation, both on a personal level and for the entire Jewish people.  So do not worry about how dark it looks outside, or all the problems the world currently faces.  Don’t listen to the Evil Inclination when he tries to tell you lies that all this suffering will never end.  Even if it G-d forbid it seems to get worse – don’t give up hope!  Just like the temperature drops as the dawn approaches, this is also a great sign that salvation is now one day closer.
 
It was no different in Egypt when the Jewish people were redeemed.  Conditions in Egypt, which had already been unbearable, were deteriorating rapidly.  Moshe arrived on the scene, but then Pharaoh actually made the slave labor worse, not better!  Imagine the despair the Jewish people must have felt.  In hindsight, more than 3,000 years later, we know how the story ends – but they didn’t!  The Jewish people at that time did not know that they were five minutes before the dawn – all they could see with the darkness.  Then, at long last, they called out to Hashem with all their might, and before they could blink it was redemption!
 
A seminal moment in the Haggadah that is recited on Seder night is: “V’hisheamda lavoteinu…”   “In every generation, our enemies rise up and try to destroy us, but the Almighty G-d saves us from their hands!”  Our primary enemy is not Hamas, or Hizbollah, or Iran.  We all have a common enemy – the Evil Inclination.  Bringing that moment of redemption, for ourselves and the entire world, depends on each and every one of us strengthening our emuna day in and day out.  We fight this war every day, but it is especially important to focus on our emuna now, on Passover, when Hashem promises to save us every single year.  If the Jewish people could hold onto their emuna in the darkness of the Egyptian exile, so can we!
 
If you can, get up and experience praying at dawn, when the world is fresh and your soul is naturally awakened and yearns to sing to Hashem.  When you are unable, remember the lesson of the dawn – the time of our redemption has already been calculated and it will come just like the dawn, no matter how dark it seems only seconds before.  Our job is just to strengthen our emuna until then – may it be very soon and in our days, AMEN!