King in the field

We are fighting a war against tyranny and evil. Against multiple fronts. Against enemies who want to destroy the Jewish people G-d forbid.

How much longer will this continue? How much longer do we need to fight? The Jewish people could really use a warm embrace from Above. A Celestial hug.

We are indeed seeing wonderful miracles, Divine intervention. Israel fights against world opinion, yet the world is powerless to stop us. World powers and states are forced to defend Israel, in order to prevent things from escalating.

But we still feel that enough is enough. We would like to be able to relax, to take back the hostages, to destroy Hamas, to scare Hezbollah and Iran into submission. We would like these two thousand years of exile to end. To see the final Redemption with Moshiach.

Perhaps this month, the Hebrew month of Elul, offers us an opportunity to feel a taste of warmth and closeness to our Creator.

The first Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe, explains that the month of Elul is a time when the King is in the field.

A king is usually in his palace, surrounded by ministers, servants, and soldiers. No one can see him, unless someone has special status; so the common folk have no easy access to see him. But then one day the king goes on a journey, and when he travels back to his palace, and sees the people in the field, he steps down from his carriage and walks over to the people, so that they can greet him, and he shows them all a smiling face.

The whole year the King is in the palace. G-d is running the world, but we can’t really see Him. We only know that He’s everywhere, but we don’t feel that we can easily access Him. But when the month of Elul comes, it’s a time of mercy, when G-d, so to speak, goes out to the field to the people, and with a smiling face He becomes available, so that we can approach Him and ask for our needs.

Rosh Hashana, the New Year, is a time of serious prayer, leading to the days of repentance and Yom Kippur. But before the High Holy Days, there is the month of Elul, a time of when we can readily and easily greet the King, as He smiles to us.

Because in the month of Elul,  the King is in the field.

May we soon experience total happiness with closeness to G-d, as we draw the warmth of Elul into the entire year, and as we very soon see the complete Redemption, when all Jews will be brought to the Holy Land of Israel, and we gather in the Bet Hamikdosh, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, all our people united as one, close to our Father and King.

May it happen very soon.