In the ancient world, time was understood as circular, with set cycles repeating themselves over and over without progress or destination. This is commonly referred to as “the law of eternal return.”
In Judaism, time has a clear trajectory and goal that was defined from its very inception. According to Jewish thought, the desired destination of all time and history is a perfected world of peace and prosperity, distinguished by a pervading awareness of G‑d’s presence.1
Before creation reaches its crescendo, however, humanity in general, and the Jewish people in particular, are in a state of exile. Whether as a result of our collective eviction from the Garden of Eden, the loss of our ancient homeland and sovereignty, or an acute sense of existential alienation, it often feels like the human race is adrift through the choppy seas of history.
And what is the shore that we are all aiming to reach? Redemption, return, reconnection, renewal.
This dynamic dialectic of exile and redemption runs throughout human history, but it will one day resolve in an era of ultimate redemption, described by the Sages as yom shekulo Shabbat, a [never-ending] day of Shabbat.2
In Hebrew, the difference between the words exile, golah, and redemption, geulah, is but a single letter, alef. Alef, a silent letter, numerically equals one, representing the underlying presence and unity of G‑d that pervades all of existence.3

The transition from golah to geulah is thus marked by the discovery of G‑d’s infinite oneness hiding within the fragmentation of the finite world.
According to Kabbalah, G‑d created a world in which His presence is not overt; we must seek Him out.4
But why? Doesn’t this Divine occlusion introduce the very experience of exile we strive to overcome? The answer is that in order for the Infinite One to create a finite world teeming with multiplicity, He had to constrict His own omnipresence, thus creating the space within which creation itself could arise and exist.
In the language of the mystics, this is referred to as G‑d’s tzimtzum, or self-contraction.5 Such concealment allowed for the emergence of a purely materialistic worldview, in which the so-called “natural order” is perceived to be completely independent from its Divine origins.
Furthermore, G‑d’s tzimtzum created the conditions necessary for the phenomenon of human free will to emerge, which is an integral component of G‑d’s plan for creation. Accordingly, it is the task of humanity to “bring G‑d home” from His self-imposed “exile,” thus fulfilling the original intention of creation, which is to reveal G‑d’s Presence and Providence within the world.
This meta-historical process will culminate with an awareness that nature itself is supernatural—that there is truly nothing other than G‑d. As the prophet Habakuk6 says: For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of G‑d as the waters cover the sea.
This shift from exile to redemption, from fragmentation to unity, is therefore quite literally radical, because it is simultaneously a decisive break with what has been (dualistic consciousness based on artificial binaries), as well as having been present and available at the root of our experience all along. G‑d’s unity, like the silent alef, is always present, just waiting to be acknowledged and aligned with, thereby transforming golah, exile, into geulah, redemption.
This dawning of Divine consciousness will disclose the seamless fusion of the natural and supernatural orders revealing that the perceived dichotomy between nature and Divinity was never truly accurate; the Divine hand was guiding the natural order all along. As Isaiah7 prophesies: Your Teacher will no longer hide from you, for your eyes will behold your Teacher. The invisible G‑d will be seen from within His handiwork. The earth, our bodies, nature will all be appreciated for what they truly are—expressions of Divinity. As the verse8 says: G‑d’s unity will be perceived within one’s own flesh!
Such revelation of Divinity from within the natural order itself is part of the messianic unveiling. For if it were to occur otherwise, through miraculous intervention or purely spiritual means, the current dichotomies and binaries that fragment us and our world would only become more entrenched, taking us further afield from time’s ultimate destination—which is the revelation of G‑d’s hand in creation.
Fittingly, as the arc of history bends ever forward, the fulfillment of Judaism’s utopian vision for the future as articulated by the Hebrew prophets is already materializing all around us, not through miraculous means, but through natural progress and scientific discovery.
For example, according to Swedish economic historian Johan Norberg:
“If someone had told you in 1990 that over the next twenty-five years world hunger would decline by 40%, child mortality would halve, and extreme poverty would fall by three quarters, you’d have told them they were a naive fool. But the fools were right. This is truly what has happened.”
Additionally, through too many medical advances to count, miracles are all around us. Today the “lame are dancing” with the aid of prosthetics, the “blind can see,” as eighty percent of visual impairment has already been cured, and through stem cell research scientists are well on their way to curing deafness, bringing to life the messianic prophecies of Isaiah: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer….
Incredibly, after so many millennia of aggression between nations of the world, there is now a move towards nuclear disarmament. Echoing Isaiah’s famous prophecy,9 They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore, technologies once developed for weapons of mass destruction are now being harnessed for medical and agricultural purposes—to improve, rather than destroy, people’s lives.
War, hunger, and disease—the three greatest struggles in humanity’s long history—are becoming increasingly more manageable and could potentially be eradicated if humanity were to undergo a messianic shift of consciousness. If we were to adopt a mindset of abundance and redemptive cooperation rather than the current exilic paradigm of scarcity and competition, many of the artificial boundaries and superficial obstacles to universal peace and prosperity would dissipate and disappear.
Only when humanity begins to see the world through G‑d’s eyes will our world achieve its full messianic potential. Such Divine consciousness is the lens through which the essential oneness of everyone and everything in existence becomes apparent.
It is this singular change in our perception that precipitates and embodies the messianic era. Everything else in the Biblical prophecies is merely an external expression of this internal shift. By consciously illuminating and creatively articulating the integral presence of the silent alef hidden within all creation, we are able to bring the world a quantum leap closer to crossing over that thinnest of lines between golah and geulah, bringing humanity across the finish line of history once and for all.

After the passing of R. DovBer of Mezritch in 1772, R. Menachem Mendel of Horodok led a group of Chasidim to settle in the Holy Land.
One day, an individual climbed the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and sounded a shofar. Soon the rumor spread that Mashiach had arrived, setting off a great commotion in the street.
R. Menachem Mendel went to his window and sniffed the air. “No,” he said, “unfortunately, the redeemer has not yet arrived. On that day, The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of G‑d as the waters cover the sea, and all flesh will perceive the reality of the Creator. I do not sense the Divine truth that will permeate the world in the era of Mashiach.”
R. Gronem Estherman, a renowned spiritual teacher, explained, “Why did R. Menachem Mendel need to go to the window to sniff for the presence of Mashiach? Because the immanent presence of G‑d was already a tangible reality within the walls of his room.”

A universal shift in Divine consciousness is what will result in global change and redemption, not the other way around.
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