Sweetening the Birth Pangs of Mashiach - Rabbi Yeshayahu Pinto shlit"a

Holy words recently delivered by the Admor Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto shlit"a. These are his holy words.

We are in the week when the son of David comes, closer than any other time to the arrival of Mashiach. Anyone whose spiritual senses are sharp can truly feel and smell the Redeemer, who is closer now than ever before.

It is known that before the Geulah (Redemption), there must again be an aspect of opening the womb for the birth of the soul of Mashiach. Simply put, this would seemingly come about through the bite of a serpent, which causes bloodshed, Heaven forbid, before the Geulah—this is the matter of the danger of the birth pangs of Mashiach, the bloodshed before the Geulah.

However, through the tzaddikim who study Torah primarily at night and engage in the service of Hashem and the holy yichudim (unifications), all of this serves as a preparation to awaken the yichud of the dawn, which is the yichud of the splitting of the Red Sea that will occur again in the future. Everything that happened in Egypt, during the Exodus from Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea, will provide strength for the Geulah, which will be greater and more immense than the Exodus from Egypt.

Through the study of the night and the service of Hashem at night, the birth pangs of Mashiach involving war are sweetened before the Geulah. This is the secret of what is brought in the holy Zohar, Parashat Pinchas (Bamidbar 249b), that there is a doe in the desert; after she becomes pregnant, when the time for her birth arrives, Hashem sends a serpent to bite her on her womb, and thus the womb expands and she gives birth easily.

The story is known regarding our holy teacher, the Arizal zt"l; when he was studying with his students and his disciple, our teacher the Maharchu zt"l, and they reached this Zohar, the Arizal told them, "I cannot reveal secrets here, because there is great danger in this matter."

Rabbi Chaim Vital pressed him to reveal this secret. The Arizal could not refuse the Maharchu and revealed to them the secret of the doe and the serpent. When the Arizal finished teaching them the secret, people came and informed him that his son was ill with a high fever. The Arizal and the Maharchu went and found the child with a high fever, and seven days later, the son of the Arizal passed away.

The students were saddened, but the Arizal continued to teach them the secrets of the Torah. Time passed, and they reached another secret of Torah; again, the Arizal did not want to reveal it, and again the Maharchu pressed him, and the Arizal relented and revealed the secret. When he finished, the students saw that the face of the holy Arizal was filled with worry.

He told them that a decree had been issued against him for revealing the secret to them. After performing certain tikkunim (rectifications), he asked them to go outside the city and study Torah there. He warned that if, Heaven forbid, there were any dispute or argument between the students, he, the Arizal, would not complete his year. Thus, the students were with the Arizal all week, and on Shabbat, the wives and children would join.

After five months, the wives quarreled among themselves. They told their husbands, and an argument broke out among the students. That same Shabbat, the Arizal said that a decree had been issued against him, and that same week, the great light, the holy Arizal zt"l, departed from the world.

Behold, the matter of "As a doe longs for streams of water" is a great secret. If we sweeten the birth and avoid the bite of the serpent through Torah, mitzvot, and attachment to Hashem at night—Tikkun Chatzot and Tikkun Karet—we merit to be redeemed with an eternal redemption, not through the birth pangs of Mashiach, and not through wars and bloodshed.

This power is in our hands, to awaken the dawn with the light of Torah. Therefore, a person should know that the Torah studied at night has immense power; it sweetens the exile and brings about the redemption of our souls.

Yoshiyahu Yosef.