Forty Years: 2nd Edition 1989

by Meir Kahane and Rabb Meir Kahane

Rabbi Meir Kahane wrote this book in 1982, at the start of "Operation Peace for Galilee" in Lebanon, and republished it in 1989 with an 11 page introduction. Rabbi Kahane reflects on the number forty in Jewish history and reveals its significance as a warning, admonition and opportunity to repent and avoid divine punishment. He recalled: "The idea first entered my head as I sat, one day [in 1980], in Ramle Prison. It was the eve of Tisha B'Av, the tragic commemoration of the destruction of both Temples, the beginning of both terrible exiles. I sat, reviewing the book of Jonah, with its message of repentance, on the day of national tragedy. Jonah enters the city of Nineveh, to which he has been sent by the Almighty, to warn them of impending destruction unless they repent. And as I read, the words of Jonah to the people suddenly leaped out at me: "In forty days, Nineveh shall be overturned!""Forty. The thought suddenly struck me: How many times, again and again, does that number arise in connection with sin and punishment? "And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights" (Genesis 7:12), the punishment of a world flooded for its sin. Forty. And centuries later, as the Jews of the desert "despised the pleasant land" and wept over their "home" in Egypt, the Almighty angrily decreed that the generation of the desert would not enter the Holy Land saying: "And your children will wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your faithlessness" (Numbers 14:33). Again, forty."Rabbi Kahane raises the possibility that the State of Israel may be subjected to a similar period of grace and asks, "If it is true that the forty years began with the rise of the State in 1948 - how many years are left? ... The number may not be exact...but the period is clear ... "I am convinced that the State of Israel is the beginning, not only of the redemption, but also of the grace period granted us. In the very marrow of my bones, I feel that the Almighty, in His infinite mercy and goodness, gives us the final beseeching opportunity to turn needless suffering into glorious and instant redemption."Forty years. The number may not be exact; it may be a few more, a few less, but the period is clear. Forty years of warning, of heartfelt cry from our Father in Heaven. Forty years of grace, of a last opportunity to reverse needles disaster, to bring the redemption with grandeur and majesty"For make no mistake. The magnificent miracle of return and rise of a Jewish State is surely the beginning of the Final Redemption, but hardly the end. The true finality, the magnificent era of the Messiah, comes to fruition gloriously and majestically and breathtakingly only if we cleave to the great axiom "If you walk in My statutes...I will give peace in the land" (Leviticus 26)."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1523377739
• ISBN13: 9781523377732
• Release Date: January 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.9" x 0.3" x 4.0"