A question regarding best conditions for the upcoming redemption...

28 Nisan 5780 | 13th Day of the Omer

King David's harp, in stone (source)

Included in the Ashkenazi reading of haftarat Shemini (last week's portion from the prophets) was II Samuel 7 from the beginning until verse 17. (Linked document is in both Hebrew and English.)

Samuel, as you may recall, is the navi (prophet) who anointed David to be the monarch of Israel. In this chapter, haShem assures Nathan the prophet that He will never withdraw His favor from David or his family line, although they will be punished for sins by means we are all familiar with.

He also mentions two things that He did for David before assuring him of the continuing kingship through his family:

1. The king was already settled in his palace.
2. HQB"H had given him safety from all his surrounding enemies.

Of course, #1 won't necessarily apply to David's descendant, Mashiah ben David, may G-d prepare him and send him quickly. In other words, he will not have assumed the throne of his ancestor before he is recognized.

But I have a question: Will #2 apply to him (and to us)? How will we know when we have safety from all our surrounding enemies, or must we fight for it? It seems that even the coronavirus isn't sufficient to keep our nearby enemies from coming after us and our land. And even our "best friends" among the nations have not sufficiently considered our needs — let alone our rights — to the land, its holy places and the decision of who will be allowed to dwell on it. We are thereby informed of our lack of simple sovereignty, never mind the absolute right to reign here that H' offered us and never took back.

You could say that haShem took us out of our land because we sinned against Him, but He never gave it to anyone else either; and now that He has brought us back, those who have tried to take it over cannot have the right to stay here unless they are willing to be ruled by us. What was promised to David is also promised to us through his descendant.

But, as David said in verse 2,

Here I am, dwelling in a house of cedar, while the Ark of the LORD abides in a tent!

 Do we need to say, "Here I am, dwelling in Eretz Yisrael in an apartment (or a house), while the LORD is homeless among us?"

Look at what happened after King David stated his concern! We need at least to be aware of it in our day — in spite of the nations' objections and the actions taken against us since we spurned haShem's gift to us of a large part of our land and Har haBayit in 1967/5727.

Maybe someone has better words than I do to express this...

***
Have we been thinking about the water sitting in our closed buildings for the last two months (office buildings, schools, shops, etc.) and how we're going to restore water safety to pipes and sinks when they open again? Lots of stuff is precipitating into the water they're holding, including potentially harmful organisms and chemicals from the pipes. Have we noticed whether there has been any harm done? Here is a discussion from The Conversation.

***

I've been watching the rise of Lake Kinneret (otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee) all winter. Now that winter is officially over according to both the solar and the Jewish calendars, and the rain has stopped for the most part, we nevertheless observe the rise continuing. (I don't know whether the snowmelt from Mt. Hermon has stopped yet. It receives both winter and spring snow.) As of this morning's post, it has 13 more centimeters (5.1 inches) to go before it overflows into the neighboring towns (or our water authority uses the canal it dug to send the excess water down the Jordan River — hopefully they will do so before that happens.). Despite our being hit with corona along with the rest of the world, we see this as a positive sign (a wink from Shamayim, if you will) that we have a future in the eyes of haShem.

I consider the impending overflow of the Kinneret a real harbinger of the upcoming redemption! This hasn't happened in many years, along with an abundance of rain over the rest of the country.

If you want to watch with me in two languages:

In English: Jerusalem Weather Station
From the top horizontal navigation bar, click the "What's now?" menu
Click on the bottom option, "Kinneret Lake" (in Hebrew, מפלס הכינרת). You will see a page in Hebrew pop up within the site.
Scroll down a little to a graphic of the lake on the right column of the page with the upper red line (קו אדום עליון kav adóm elyón) marked on the right side of the graphic, with its level (this portion of the page has 2 columns). On the graphic itself there is a line of waves and the height of the water in the lake.
The result is just to the bottom left of the lake graphic, the second line, in the same column.

בעברית:  ירושמיים

משורת התפריטים האופקי למלאה, לחץ על מה עוד קורה עכשיו

לחץ על האפשרות התחתונה, מפלס הכינרת

גלול למטה מעט למטה לגרפיקת הכינרת, מימין למסך

אני חושבת שיכולים להבין את זה מכאן. להגיד לי אם לא 

The updates seem to occur at approximately 9AM/09:00 Israel time (usually 7 hours ahead of US Eastern time).

The site is only in Hebrew and English. Keep in mind that the whole area we're talking about is well below sea level! So, the calculation is the opposite of what you'd think it would be: the height-of-water number looks higher than the upper-red-line number, with a minus sign on both numbers.

I also apologize for any difficulty navigating this part. I almost didn't try to explain it at all. Please let me know whether it works for you or not.

Brachot uv'riut | ברכות ובריאות | Blessings and health - to all who read, think and heed