This teaching is reaffirmed by Rabbi Chaim Vital, the illustrious disciple of the Arizal, who wrote that before the final curtain falls upon the stage of history, Yishmael will sadistically torture our people in ways the world has never before seen.
One need not have great powers of discernment to recognize the painful veracity of these predictions. Yishmael does not merely kill, he slaughters. Remember Daniel Pearl, bound and forced to his knees to proclaim to the world “I am a Jew,” only to be decapitated. And remember the two Israeli soldiers who were ambushed in Ramallah and hacked to pieces, the killers holding up their bloody hands in a gesture of victory and throwing the remains out the window to a frenzied mob that danced on the body parts until they were ground into pulp. What sort of nation can do that?
We are the generation that has been destined to witness the fulfillment of the prophecy given to Hagar (Genesis 16:11-13). “Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you shall name him Ishmael….and he shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and all over his brethren shall he dwell….”
The long arm of Ishmael’s terror has indeed reached every part of the world.
The barbarism continues unabated – suicide bombings, decapitations, senseless and brutal acts of terror. And as always, when Jewish blood is spilled, the nations of the world look away. We, however, dare not. We must call out to our Heavenly Father, for only He can help us.
But what exactly does that mean? And how do we navigate these stormy seas?
(To be Continued)