Period Of Wandering, Part 4

The Goal of the Four Exiles of the People of Israel

Question: The Jewish people went through four exiles. The first, the Egyptian exile, lasted 210 years. Next, the Babylonian exile lasted 70 years, then an even shorter Assyrian, Babylonian exile, and the very last exile endured for about 2,000 years.

The Book of Zohar says: “Why were the people of Israel enslaved among all nations? In order for the world to be exalted with their help.”

Yehuda ha-Levy writes in the book The Kuzari: “There is a hidden wisdom in the fact that Nature leaves us in exile.”

Later sources also say that Jewish knowledge after the destruction of the First Temple spread throughout the world. There are so many historical facts how the ancient Greeks learned from the prophets.

In particular, Baal HaSulam in his article “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” writes: “sages of Kabbalah observe philosophic theology and complain that they have stolen the upper shell from their wisdom, which Plato and his Greek predecessors had acquired while studying with the disciples of the prophets in Israel.”

Does this mean the exile itself was a programmed event?

Answer: Yes. We see this from the ancient sages of the times of Rabbi Akiva who knew that there would be a first and second exile. In addition, it was known in advance when all the people would come together again and what would happen to them in our time.

Question: So people don’t have any freedom of choice at all?

Answer: People have freedom of choice. It consists only in accelerating these events, but in no case skipping them.

Question: For what purpose were the people of Israel driven out of their land?

Answer: The fact is that a person must feel himself completely remote from all other people, both in the people of Israel and throughout the world. Moreover, such a mixture should be achieved between them that they are an almost homogeneous mass. Therefore, the people of Israel went into exile in order to psychologically and morally mix with the peoples of the world.

Only after this was it possible to return and restore the people of Israel, first in unity among themselves, and then with the peoples of the world. In the process of exile, there was a “relocation” of special qualities, the so-called “points in the heart,” capable of uniting with each other and revealing the Creator.

It comes from the people of Israel and goes to all the nations of the world. Therefore, we see that in the process of exile there was a kind of infusion of the people of Israel into other peoples and the peoples of the world into the people of Israel.
[261775]
From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel”, 7/15/19