A: This is being composed on a very auspicious day – the 10th of Nisan. On this date which occurred on Shabbat of the year that we left Egypt, every Jewish family was commanded to take either a young goat or a young lamb in preparation for sacrificing it four days hence as a korban (sacrifices) of Pesach. The problem was that these animals were part of the Egyptians’ religious practice, as are the wandering cows in downtown New Delhi of today for the Hindus. This took an immense degree of courage, because the Jews could not have known know what the Egyptians’ reactions would be. To visualize this: picture an order to every US military unit in Afghanistan to gather books of the unholy Koran and explain to their Afghan friends it was being done in preparation for burning them in another four days. There would be mass hysteria, rioting and murder of countless American troops. But these things did not happen with the Egyptians, so add one more great miracle to the events in Egypt.
The other history changing event on the 10th of Nisan occurred 40 years later, when the Jewish nation entered Eretz Yisrael under the leadership of Yehoshua Bin Nun, to take on the 31 powerful Canaanite kings who controlled the Holy Land.
Today, on this 10th of Nisan, we are witnessing the unfolding of yet another episode in the history of our valiant people in Eretz Yisrael.
At this time of the year, “Jewish eyes are smiling” as we look back to our Egyptian experience of 3300 years ago and the great salvation that HaShem had brought forth for us. But on this 10th of Nisan, corresponding to the general calendar of April 2, the eyes of all enlightened nations are on Egypt, but for different reasons. The Moslem Brotherhood political party in Egypt, that now controls the two houses of the Egyptian Parliament, is going to have their man as the next president of that country. This group is among the most radical Islamists in the world, and they have an unabashed, open, straightforward Islamic agenda. Not only will they turn Egyptian society back 300 years, their end game is to uproot the Jewish State.
One should not forget that Egypt, thanks to the US, has the largest army in the Middle East, built on some of the most modern weapons of the US army.
So, permit me to share with you what I forsee unraveling in our part of the world, as HaShem prepares the greatest of miracle of all times for his people in Eretz Yisrael.
The military threats on the Jews in Eretz Yisrael will be overwhelming, to the degree that only those who feel the renewal of HaShem’s eternal covenant with His people in Eretz Yisrael, and those Jews who will do teshuva in acknowledgment that only with HaShem’s involvement can we be saved, will remain in the Land. The others, which include the 350,000 non-Jews who have come here from the former Soviet Union, the Arabs in this country, Christians, and Jews who have no sense of Torah or possess warped ideas of what HaShem wants from this generation, will leave!
Egypt will become Islamic, as will all the surrounding Arab countries. Egypt will be the first to open hostilities against the Jewish State and they will be totally destroyed, as were their ancient namesakes. I would not be surprised if the great Aswan Dam that holds back the billions of cubic meters of water in Lake Nasser, will be the instrument of HaShem (with the close co-operation of the holy soldiers of Tzahal) as were the waters of the Red Sea that crashed down on the Egyptian army of old.
When this will happen, the other Islamic nations will join with several Western Christian nations to avenge the destruction of their Egyptian brothers. But as they approach Eretz Yisrael war will break out among themselves on the background of their religious differences, and the Jewish State will be saved.
This, of course, is not my imagination. It is taken from the Book of Yechezkel chapter 32 and the Malbim’s commentary on verse 17.
B: As time marches on, we begin to find the answer to the age old question: What was HaShem’s intention by having the Jewish people undergo its slavery experience in Egypt.
I submit:
As stated above, the great religious-military leader of Am Yisrael, Yehoshua Bin Nun, entered Eretz Yisrael with the Jewish nation on the 10th of Nisan. Tradition has it that Yehoshua composed the chapters of “Aleinu” that we recite three times daily, at the end of the prayer services. With the opening sentence of “Aleinu,” Yehoshua let his feelings be known as he stepped foot for the first time on the western Side of the Jordan River, or, according to some, when he completed the victory over the city of Yericho.