Redemption is a process
When Rav Berland was in South Africa during the summer of 2015, he gave a shiur where he explained that the revelation of the Moshiach wouldn’t change anything at all in the world. Until everyone did teshuvah, there simply couldn’t be a true redemption, and the real work of the Moshiach would be to bring everyone in the world back to God.
At that time, he said: “These next six years, from 5775 to 5781 (2014-2021), are the years of redemption. These are the years when the whole of Am Yisrael will do teshuvah; even the biggest criminals and thugs are going to do teshuvah. There are no criminals in Am Yisrael, there are no wicked people in Am Yisrael. It’s all just stages of the redemption [process.] It’s all just stages in the evolution of the neshamah, in receiving the different stages of the soul. The biggest criminal is going to end up being the biggest tzaddik…
“We also need to bring the 70 nations back in repentance. The King Moshiach is going to return all the nations back to God, because God forbid that even a single goy should die! We don’t want any non-Jews to die, except for [exceptionally evil] people like Hitler, yimach shmo, but even common murderers can do teshuvah.”
Redemption is a process
The Rav was sending a clear message that redemption is a process, and that the process that will culminate in true peace, and the coming of the Jewish redeemer, is already occurring right now, however it may look externally.
Moshiach, “the son of Yishai,” is likened to a sprout for a very good reason: For many long weeks, months and even years, the seed of Moshiach lays underground, hidden from public view, apparently decaying and rotting away. Until… that first sprout of redemption finally bursts forth.
Excerpted from One in a Generation, the forthcoming biography of Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, which will be published, G-d willing, in January 2018.
