Under the Cover of Darkness

The darkness of today has a very specific purpose: To conceal the fact that the physical world has made the final preparations for the coming of Mashiach.  

It’s morning. My kids are up. The oldest is playing piano from a teacher we found on social media. The youngest is taking an online course in drawing and making her own visual zoo. One of my kids is learning Arabic with a teacher from a country we cannot even enter. 

Twenty-five years ago, none of this was possible.  

A hundred years ago, to make ends meet you needed to work in a factory at least twelve hours a day. Two hundred years ago, even teenagers would work fourteen hours a day.  

If Mashiach came in 1803, people would have still needed to work most of the day. If he came in 1903 or even 2003, wealth and technology couldn’t have offered the type of life that a subject of the Kingdom of David is expected to live.  

Today is different.  For many Israeli high-tech companies, there is so much cash in their bank account that a keen business planner could hire twice as many employees to work four hours a day. The business would still make a profit.  

Everybody could be like the Chofetz Chaim, who ran his grocery store just long enough to make ends meet, and then run to the Yeshiva to learn Torah.  

Wealth Fit for a Kingdom 

The last ten years have seen billions of dollars flow into Israel from its newly discovered natural gas reserves. Ironically, the largest source of this income is from the biggest find, called “Leviathan”, named after the great fish that we will feast on with Mashiach Ben David.  

There is another estimated $200 billion in shale oil reserves inside the Negev Dessert. Jordan has more than ten times that amount, and all of it is located less than fifty miles from the Jordan River. When Eretz Yisrael will include what is now Jordan, as Hashem promises, our national finances will become like Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, every citizen: 

• Pays no taxes 
• Receives first-class healthcare for free 
• Receives k-12, university, and post-graduate education for free 
• Receives all electricity costs covered by the government 
• Receives generous loans for starting a business  
• Receives generous research grants 
• Receives monthly income from the state in the form of shared oil revenues 

If Israel were to attain this level of wealth, the amount of money invested in Torah education could skyrocket. Today, a Kollel student receives a monthly stipend of NIS 3,250 (about $855) from the government. Yeah, that’s it. The average university student gets NIS 4,907 (about $1,300) per month in benefits (source: Do Israel’s haredim really live off the state?). 

As more oil revenue rolls in, we could triple the amount of money invested in Torah. Every family could learn Torah full-time and support themselves on the resources and Land that Hashem gave to Am Yisrael! The Kingdom of David would finance everything we need to dedicate our entire being to serving Hashem through His Torah and mitzvot.  

In the last decade, new technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), IoT (internet of things), quantum computing, Web3, AgriTech, and others have emerged. These technologies can create multi-trillion shekel companies with the capacity to generate high tax revenues. They didn’t exist a decade ago.  

A mere four years ago, remote work (working from home) was considered unproductive. Today, remote or hybrid work is a part of everyday life. Instead of wasting time commuting to work, we could earn income by working from home on the computer for several hours before going to Yeshiva for full-time learning. This different use of time is new to this decade.  

What’s Holding us Back?  

If we can spend all day learning with a study partner on Zoom in between davening at the local Beit Knesset and watching a Rabbi Wallerstein z”l shiur, then why don’t we? 

Because we are too busy using our wealth to buy Netflix movies. We are too busy squandering our days on social media.  

Why do we do that?  

Because the yetzer hara is too strong. There is too much temptation in our time to resist, and the Satan is fighting as if his life depends on it.  

If we didn’t have a yetzer hara in 1803, we could have learned a few hours of Torah after work. If we didn’t have a yetzer hara in 1903, we could have put any energy we had left at the end of a 60-hour work week into our Shabbat prayers. If we didn’t have a yetzer hara in 2018, we could have learned Torah on the commute home.  

If we didn’t have a yetzer hara in 2023, we could have . . .  

When Hashem tells the Satan to stop – which is exactly what He will do in the Days of Mashiach – we will already have the technology, wealth, and logistics in place for every Jew to serve Hashem morning, day, and night. 

The Lubavitcher Rebbe told us that the great table of the righteous for the End of Days has been set. The Leviathan has been prepared and everything is ready. All we have to do is open our eyes.  

Under the cover of darkness, God has brought His physical world to the point where Mashiach Ben David can assume the throne.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.