Although the Zohar, the Kabbalah’s foundational text, is not a prophetic book as such, it does contain the following two predictions. Commenting on the verses, “In the six hundredth year of Noahs’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the foundations of the great deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth for forty days and forty nights,” the Zohar states that in the six-hundredth year of the sixth millenium both the waters from below and the waters from above will burst forth and flood the world in preparation for the Messianic era (Zohar 1:117a). The lower waters symbolize secular knowledge and the upper waters Torah wisdom.
The sixth-hundredth year of the sixth millenium ended in the year 1840 in the Gregorian calender and spanned the hundred years preceding that date. During the years 1740-1840 virtually every field of human endeavor underwent a radical change. The Industrial Revolution began and the United States of America and France were forever transformed by political revolutions. The changes initiated during that period gathered steam and were followed by revolutions in science, transportation, communications, medicine, media, economics, politics, and art. True to the Zohar’s prediction these advances in secular knowledge have literally flooded the earth, changing the world we live in forever.
The period between 1740-1840 was also blessed with a parallel deluge of Torah wisdom: the Chassidic movement was born and the Kabbalah’s closely guarded, esoteric, mystical traditions were taught to the masses for the first time. These teachings were incorporated into every aspect of Chassidic life, invigorating all areas of Jewish life. Today these teachings are freely available and as the Zohar predicted the upper waters of Torah wisdom have begun to flood the world. Perhaps, this is nowhere more apparent than on the Internet. While the floods of lower and higher waters seem to be independent of each other, there is an ever increasing attempt to unify the deluge of secular knowledge and Torah wisdom inundating us. The final decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twentyfirst century have witnessed an unprecedented number of books written on a host of subjects exploring the parallels between Torah wisdom and the very best of contemporary knowledge in the arts and sciences. These books attempt to unify the unique perspectives and insights provided by these two seemingly different realms. Their success is powerfully expressed in the revelation of Kabbalah’s relevance to the modern world: the profound correlation between the Jewish mystical tradition and contemporary approaches in mathematics, physics, cosmology, psychology, ecology, healing, and many other fields in the arts and sciences.
One of Judaism’s fundamental principles is the obligation to unify the physical, material world and the spiritual, Divine one, by constantly infusing the mundane world with Godliness. Virtually all the mitzvot are in some way related to a physical object, action, or speech (the latter is also considered a form of action). The daily performance of mitzvot trains us to unify the seemingly unrelated worlds of physicality and spirituality as we constantly strive for unity. Judaism’s cardinal belief that “God is One” takes us beyond the bounds of simple monotheism, teaching us that in essence everything is one: everything is part of God’s essential unity.
The Zohar’s second prediction is that by learning the secrets contained in the Zohar and the inner dimensions of the Torah, we hasten the arrival of the Messianic era (Zohar 3:124b). According to tradition the seventh millenium will inaugurate the long awaited redemption with the Mashiach’s arrival. The fact that the world is changing at such a rapid and dizzying pace as we draw near to the end of the sixth millenium is no coincidence. Just as Noah’s Flood created a new world, the flood of secular knowledge and Torah wisdom will also create a new world by ultimately imbuing humanity with a new level of consciousness.
