The First Flowering of our Redemption?

Just before Chanukah, I met Devorah Fastag who wrote a brilliant, original sefer that influenced my thinking about the status of women in Judaism very deeply. I met her in December at a Torah lecture that she gave and, because I was so impacted by her book The Moon's Lost Light, I took the opportunity to ask her if she had written anything else.

She told me about a lengthy essay she had written about the establishment of the State of Israel and its relationship to messianic times. It was difficult reading, she warned me, not a sugar-coated, romantic picture. What she wrote was ill-suited for a feel-good Yom HaAtzmaut program. I was warned that it would be emotionally hard to read and might create cognitive dissonance for me as a religious Zionist.

There are three themes in Torah that are endlessly fascinating to me: Jewish women, Eretz Yisrael and geula. Like her book about women in Judaism, this essay wove together several of my most personally compelling Torah topics. I would not be deterred.

Concerned that it might lessen my simchat Chanukah, she sent me the essay in two parts - one before Chanukah and one after.

I swallowed Part I in one huge gulp and was anxious to read the rest. After I read the essay as a whole (it's 76 pages - the length of a small book), I knew that this Torah needed to be read by other people as well.

The manuscript needed a bit of editorial attention and it needed a home on the internet where people could access it. Through the kindness of Jewish-e-books, which also sells The Moon's Lost Light, Mrs. Fastag's essay, "Whatever Happened to the Aschalta Degeula?: The hidden reasons behind the events of the pre-messianic period" is now available for free in three different formats. 

If you don't have an ereader like a kindle or a nook, you can read it on your computer by downloading the PDF version.

Here's the official promo:

Why does the State of Israel resemble the "beginning of the redemption" physically, yet not spiritually? This booklet delves into the hidden reasons behind the events of ikvesa demeshicha--the pre-messianic period--to unravel the mystery of the State of Israel.

Free download is available from Jewish-e-books.com.

The essay doesn't cost money, but it does require an investment of time and thought. It's a powerful essay that just might change the way you understand what was going on spiritually at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel.