1: I walk up to Larry on the street and I say "hey", I've got a secret book with the keys to living a good life. I'm a messenger of G-d.
Take this book, it holds the key to a truly blessed life.
He than writes down that the following three things will happen to you over the course of the next month:
1: When you're at your bus stop, a man dressed all in red will walk by you...than
2: On your train home 3 young boys will dance a chassidic niggun right in front of you and then...
3: the next day 2 men with pogo stick will start hopping in front of you as you order dinner at kosher restaurant...
And at the end of the month, you re read his note:
Might you consider opening his book?
Lubavitcher Rebbe story...Why you have to learn Chassidus...
2: Torah predictions which are unlikely:
Take this book, it holds the key to a truly blessed life.
He than writes down that the following three things will happen to you over the course of the next month:
1: When you're at your bus stop, a man dressed all in red will walk by you...than
2: On your train home 3 young boys will dance a chassidic niggun right in front of you and then...
3: the next day 2 men with pogo stick will start hopping in front of you as you order dinner at kosher restaurant...
And at the end of the month, you re read his note:
Might you consider opening his book?
Lubavitcher Rebbe story...Why you have to learn Chassidus...
2: Torah predictions which are unlikely:
At least 3000 years ago, the book Devarim describes what will happen if we go against the will of Hashem...
We are looking for specific predictions...
Devarim 28: After you sin: Many bad things will happen, we will be sent into exile, it will be terrible, but they are things which happen to many nations and are thus not worth noting: But let's look at some very specific prophesies:
1: 49: A nation will come from afar, we won't recognise their language and they'll swoop down like an eagle...
So, this to me seems like a big tick off that we are talking about the Roman exile.
Infant, both the Ramban and Abarbanel bring extensive proofs that this tochechah is referring to the 2nd exile, while the 1st tochechah refers to the 1st exile.
We are looking for specific predictions...
Devarim 28: After you sin: Many bad things will happen, we will be sent into exile, it will be terrible, but they are things which happen to many nations and are thus not worth noting: But let's look at some very specific prophesies:
1: 49: A nation will come from afar, we won't recognise their language and they'll swoop down like an eagle...
So, this to me seems like a big tick off that we are talking about the Roman exile.
Infant, both the Ramban and Abarbanel bring extensive proofs that this tochechah is referring to the 2nd exile, while the 1st tochechah refers to the 1st exile.
(מט) יִשָּׂ֣א יְהֹוָה֩ עָלֶ֨יךָ גּ֤וֹי מֵרָחֹק֙ מִקְצֵ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר יִדְאֶ֖ה הַנָּ֑שֶׁר גּ֕וֹי אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹא־תִשְׁמַ֖ע לְשֹׁנֽוֹ׃
(49) יהוה will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, which will swoop down like the eagle—a nation whose language you do not understand,
Ramban: Devarim (28:42): “God will bring a nation against you from afar” – for Vespasian, and his son Titus, came with a great Roman army into the Land, capturing all the fortified cities of Yehuda, and oppressing them greatly, as is known from the history books: they captured the walls of Jerusalem, leaving only the Sanctuary and the wall of the courtyard, and [the besieged Jews] were [starved to the point where they were] forced to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And when the Sanctuary itself was captured, it was in fulfillment of the verse, “And you shall be plucked from off the land” (v. 63). Then the Romans returned to their own country, taking with them the captivity of Jerusalem, as did many other people who had joined [the Romans in the destruction of Jerusalem] – from Greece, Egypt, Aram, and many other nations. Thus God fulfilled the verse, “God shall scatter you among all the peoples” (v. 64) along with the verses that follow, describing their punishment in exile. Likewise, the verse, “And your life shall hang in doubt before you” (v. 66) alludes to our fear in exile under the various nations who are constantly issuing decrees against us.
The proper interpretation is that these verses [also] allude to those generations at the time of the Second Temple, for [the Romans] schemed against them to annihilate them completely; the text therefore goes on to say (v. 68), “God shall return you to Egypt in ships’ – for this is what happened when [the Romans] finished removing them from the Land.”
The proper interpretation is that these verses [also] allude to those generations at the time of the Second Temple, for [the Romans] schemed against them to annihilate them completely; the text therefore goes on to say (v. 68), “God shall return you to Egypt in ships’ – for this is what happened when [the Romans] finished removing them from the Land.”
(1: Why total decimation? Only twice did Romans totally decimate the nation, us and Carthage, could have just taken us over and taxed us...)
The Eagle: As we learn from historians, including Tacitus who lived during the first century, the Romans marched with standards - poles adorned with the eagle figurines - held high above their heads, as though the eagles were in flight.
2: The Romans came from far away from Israel. Why couldn't a close nation have conquered us?
The force which actually burnt the temple was from Britain, at that point the ends of the earth.
And the Jews did not speak Latin-it was a foreign nation to them! These facts were not true for the Babylonians, and it wouldn't have been true had the Greeks conquered the Jews, whose language the Jews recognised. I
3: The Romans sieged the Jews, and mothers ate the flesh of their children. This wasn't an every day occurrence yet we know from historical accounts that this happened in the Roman siege.
4: You will remain small- will get back to this:
5: You will be sold in slave ships to Egypt:
If they were going to end up in exile, how could one predict with confidence that some of them will be taken back to Egypt in boats to be sold, and that there will not be anybody there to buy them? Why should one think that? It is true that there was a slave trade flourishing and that there were known slave routes, but who is to say that it would definitely happen?
We won't have any rest in the exile:
Why not? Why not just assimilate? That's not normal...
5: You will be scattered and than:
Why should that be an automatic consequence of exile? Not everyone who was exiled from their countries ended up with identifiable communities all over the world. Even when the Babylonians exiled us 500 years earlier, we didn't end up all over the world. The vast majority of the population was taken off to Babylon, a large group went to Alexandria in Egypt, but there were many places in the world without identifiable groups of Jews.
Did any other country go into exile and than get scattered to the end of the earth?
Than clearly it's unlikely! If its likely it should happen a lot!
6: You will come back
The Eagle: As we learn from historians, including Tacitus who lived during the first century, the Romans marched with standards - poles adorned with the eagle figurines - held high above their heads, as though the eagles were in flight.
2: The Romans came from far away from Israel. Why couldn't a close nation have conquered us?
The force which actually burnt the temple was from Britain, at that point the ends of the earth.
And the Jews did not speak Latin-it was a foreign nation to them! These facts were not true for the Babylonians, and it wouldn't have been true had the Greeks conquered the Jews, whose language the Jews recognised. I
3: The Romans sieged the Jews, and mothers ate the flesh of their children. This wasn't an every day occurrence yet we know from historical accounts that this happened in the Roman siege.
4: You will remain small- will get back to this:
5: You will be sold in slave ships to Egypt:
If they were going to end up in exile, how could one predict with confidence that some of them will be taken back to Egypt in boats to be sold, and that there will not be anybody there to buy them? Why should one think that? It is true that there was a slave trade flourishing and that there were known slave routes, but who is to say that it would definitely happen?
We won't have any rest in the exile:
Why not? Why not just assimilate? That's not normal...
5: You will be scattered and than:
Why should that be an automatic consequence of exile? Not everyone who was exiled from their countries ended up with identifiable communities all over the world. Even when the Babylonians exiled us 500 years earlier, we didn't end up all over the world. The vast majority of the population was taken off to Babylon, a large group went to Alexandria in Egypt, but there were many places in the world without identifiable groups of Jews.
Did any other country go into exile and than get scattered to the end of the earth?
Than clearly it's unlikely! If its likely it should happen a lot!
6: You will come back
מח וְעָבַדְתָּ אֶת-אֹיְבֶיךָ, אֲשֶׁר יְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ יְהוָה בָּךְ, בְּרָעָב וּבְצָמָא וּבְעֵירֹם, וּבְחֹסֶר כֹּל; וְנָתַן עֹל בַּרְזֶל, עַל-צַוָּארֶךָ, עַד הִשְׁמִידוֹ, אֹתָךְ.
נג וְאָכַלְתָּ פְרִי-בִטְנְךָ, בְּשַׂר בָּנֶיךָ וּבְנֹתֶיךָ, אֲשֶׁר נָתַן-לְךָ, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ--בְּמָצוֹר, וּבְמָצוֹק, אֲשֶׁר-יָצִיק לְךָ, אֹיְבֶךָ
(נה) מִתֵּ֣ת ׀ לְאַחַ֣ד מֵהֶ֗ם מִבְּשַׂ֤ר בָּנָיו֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יֹאכֵ֔ל מִבְּלִ֥י הִשְׁאִֽיר־ל֖וֹ כֹּ֑ל בְּמָצוֹר֙ וּבְמָצ֔וֹק אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָצִ֥יק לְךָ֛ אֹיִבְךָ֖ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶֽיךָ׃
(55) to share with any of them the flesh of the children that he eats, because he has nothing else left as a result of the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you in all your towns.
(סב) וְנִשְׁאַרְתֶּם֙ בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֔ט תַּ֚חַת אֲשֶׁ֣ר הֱיִיתֶ֔ם כְּכוֹכְבֵ֥י הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לָרֹ֑ב כִּֽי־לֹ֣א שָׁמַ֔עְתָּ בְּק֖וֹל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃
(62) You shall be left a scant few, after having been as numerous as the stars in the skies, because you did not heed the command of your God יהוה.
When were the Jewish people scattered to the ends of the earth? It began at the destruction of the 2nd temple by the Romans.
Infant the Ramban and later the Abarbanel explain that this 2nd Rebuke refers to the 2nd exile by the Romans, while the first tochechah refers to the 1st temples destruction...
And their are many indications of the correctness of this position, but lets stay on topic...
if you're a prophet would you guess that the Jewish nation will be scattered throughout the world?
Rabbi Gottlieb believes this would be a wild gamble:
After all, if you take the entire , how many nations living at that time period were scattered throughout the world? Very few...
1st off: Most nations would take the slaves for themselves, if you're a nation with a special culture, why split up? Stick together...or assimilate...
And yet it happened, Jews were indeed scattered throughout the world!
What are odds? 1 in 100? 1000?
If they ask, ASSYRIANS DIDN'T RALLY SCATTER everyone across the world.
Prediction #2: The nation that afflicts us will come from afar, a nation we don't know their language
If you are going to predict exile scattered all over the world, how can you be sure that at no point will any Jewish society form an independent government in some portion of the earth's surface? Don't forget, we are talking about two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago the world wasn't organized with maps and boundary lines so that every square millimeter of the earth's surface belongs to one nation or another, and sometimes to two or three. On the contrary, there were vast areas of the earth's surface that were unclaimed, unsettled, and simply wild; for example, parts of Russia, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Africa. Who is to say that Jewish exiles would not form an independent society in one of these places?
Now that means that for each of these predictions, if I don't have a Jewish perspective, and I look at it neutrally, or I look at it as a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Taoist, a Confucianist, or as an atheist, I would expect them not to occur, and I would not be able to explain them if they did occur.
If I were to assign probabilities to each of these detailed predictions from any of those non-Jewish points of view, the probabilities would be very low. Total destruction and exile, let's say that this occurred in 10% of all ancient wars. Then a non-Jewish observer would give it a probability of 1/10. How often did the conqueror speak an unknown language? We don't know. Neighbors did fight, and the languages of great empires were widely known. Let's say generously that it happened a quarter of the time giving us a probability of 1/4. Being scattered all over the world as a result of exile, as far as I know, didn't happen at all. Strictly I suppose the probability should be zero! But let's be generous and give it a probability of 1/10. To take a nation that is scattered all over the world and thus be unable to organize itself into an independent society, again, I don't know what the probability of that would be, so I'll give it a probability of 1/4. To survive under these conditions and return to one's land has never happened in the history of the world - strictly speaking we should give it a probability of zero! But let's be generous and say 1/10.
Now, when you have predictions for a sequence of events, and each event has a probability, and you want to know the probability of them all coming true, you multiply the probabilities. So, we multiply 1/10 * 1/4 * 1/10 * 1/4 * 1/10 and we come out with a probability of 1/16000. This is a very small number. That is the confidence that a neutral observer would have in this prediction. What is the likelihood that a prediction like this would come true? One chance in every sixteen thousand tries. Given the evidence the observer had to go on, there is no way for him to explain why it came true.
But, it happened. That being the case, this is what I called earlier a unique prediction. It is a prediction whose truth no one else can explain. Had anyone seen the prediction before it happened, the response should have been that this is fantasy. Therefore, when it comes true, it contributes to the truth of Judaism. It is a relevant piece of evidence.
Infant the Ramban and later the Abarbanel explain that this 2nd Rebuke refers to the 2nd exile by the Romans, while the first tochechah refers to the 1st temples destruction...
And their are many indications of the correctness of this position, but lets stay on topic...
if you're a prophet would you guess that the Jewish nation will be scattered throughout the world?
Rabbi Gottlieb believes this would be a wild gamble:
After all, if you take the entire , how many nations living at that time period were scattered throughout the world? Very few...
1st off: Most nations would take the slaves for themselves, if you're a nation with a special culture, why split up? Stick together...or assimilate...
And yet it happened, Jews were indeed scattered throughout the world!
What are odds? 1 in 100? 1000?
If they ask, ASSYRIANS DIDN'T RALLY SCATTER everyone across the world.
Prediction #2: The nation that afflicts us will come from afar, a nation we don't know their language
If you are going to predict exile scattered all over the world, how can you be sure that at no point will any Jewish society form an independent government in some portion of the earth's surface? Don't forget, we are talking about two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago the world wasn't organized with maps and boundary lines so that every square millimeter of the earth's surface belongs to one nation or another, and sometimes to two or three. On the contrary, there were vast areas of the earth's surface that were unclaimed, unsettled, and simply wild; for example, parts of Russia, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Africa. Who is to say that Jewish exiles would not form an independent society in one of these places?
Now that means that for each of these predictions, if I don't have a Jewish perspective, and I look at it neutrally, or I look at it as a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Taoist, a Confucianist, or as an atheist, I would expect them not to occur, and I would not be able to explain them if they did occur.
If I were to assign probabilities to each of these detailed predictions from any of those non-Jewish points of view, the probabilities would be very low. Total destruction and exile, let's say that this occurred in 10% of all ancient wars. Then a non-Jewish observer would give it a probability of 1/10. How often did the conqueror speak an unknown language? We don't know. Neighbors did fight, and the languages of great empires were widely known. Let's say generously that it happened a quarter of the time giving us a probability of 1/4. Being scattered all over the world as a result of exile, as far as I know, didn't happen at all. Strictly I suppose the probability should be zero! But let's be generous and give it a probability of 1/10. To take a nation that is scattered all over the world and thus be unable to organize itself into an independent society, again, I don't know what the probability of that would be, so I'll give it a probability of 1/4. To survive under these conditions and return to one's land has never happened in the history of the world - strictly speaking we should give it a probability of zero! But let's be generous and say 1/10.
Now, when you have predictions for a sequence of events, and each event has a probability, and you want to know the probability of them all coming true, you multiply the probabilities. So, we multiply 1/10 * 1/4 * 1/10 * 1/4 * 1/10 and we come out with a probability of 1/16000. This is a very small number. That is the confidence that a neutral observer would have in this prediction. What is the likelihood that a prediction like this would come true? One chance in every sixteen thousand tries. Given the evidence the observer had to go on, there is no way for him to explain why it came true.
But, it happened. That being the case, this is what I called earlier a unique prediction. It is a prediction whose truth no one else can explain. Had anyone seen the prediction before it happened, the response should have been that this is fantasy. Therefore, when it comes true, it contributes to the truth of Judaism. It is a relevant piece of evidence.
(סד) וֶהֱפִֽיצְךָ֤ יְהֹוָה֙ בְּכׇל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים מִקְצֵ֥ה הָאָ֖רֶץ וְעַד־קְצֵ֣ה הָאָ֑רֶץ וְעָבַ֨דְתָּ שָּׁ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר לֹא־יָדַ֛עְתָּ אַתָּ֥ה וַאֲבֹתֶ֖יךָ עֵ֥ץ וָאָֽבֶן׃ (סה) וּבַגּוֹיִ֤ם הָהֵם֙ לֹ֣א תַרְגִּ֔יעַ וְלֹא־יִהְיֶ֥ה מָנ֖וֹחַ לְכַף־רַגְלֶ֑ךָ וְנָתַן֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה לְךָ֥ שָׁם֙ לֵ֣ב רַגָּ֔ז וְכִלְי֥וֹן עֵינַ֖יִם וְדַאֲב֥וֹן נָֽפֶשׁ׃
(64) יהוה will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, whom neither you nor your ancestors have experienced.*whom neither you nor your ancestors have experienced See note at 11.28. (65) Yet even among those nations you shall find no peace, nor shall your foot find a place to rest. יהוה will give you there an anguished heart and eyes that pine and a despondent spirit.
(סח) וֶהֱשִֽׁיבְךָ֨ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ מִצְרַ֘יִם֮ בׇּאֳנִיּוֹת֒ בַּדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֣רְתִּֽי לְךָ֔ לֹא־תֹסִ֥יף ע֖וֹד לִרְאֹתָ֑הּ וְהִתְמַכַּרְתֶּ֨ם שָׁ֧ם לְאֹיְבֶ֛יךָ לַעֲבָדִ֥ים וְלִשְׁפָח֖וֹת וְאֵ֥ין קֹנֶֽה׃ {ס}
(68) יהוה will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.
The fact that the slaves were taken to Egypt was also surprising...
"A future generation will see the plague and sickness directed against the land - nothing planted and nothing growing, not even any grass. They will ask: what caused this awesome anger? And they will answer: because they abandoned the covenant of God who took them out of the land of Egypt. And they worshiped other gods." (Deut. 29:21-25 paraphrased)
Mark Twain wrote of his visit to the Land of Israel in 1867:
"A desolate land whose soil, though rich, produces only thorn bush and thistle - a silent mourning expanse. There exists a state of neglect that even the imagination is incapable of granting it the possibility of beauty of life and productivity. We arrived in peace to Mount Tabor; we did not see a soul during the entire journey. Everywhere we went there was no tree or shrub. Even the olive tree and sabra, those faithful friends of barren lands, were almost completely missing from the land. The Land of Israel dwells in sackcloth and ashes..." (The Innocents Abroad, 1867)
Mark Twain wrote of his visit to the Land of Israel in 1867:
"A desolate land whose soil, though rich, produces only thorn bush and thistle - a silent mourning expanse. There exists a state of neglect that even the imagination is incapable of granting it the possibility of beauty of life and productivity. We arrived in peace to Mount Tabor; we did not see a soul during the entire journey. Everywhere we went there was no tree or shrub. Even the olive tree and sabra, those faithful friends of barren lands, were almost completely missing from the land. The Land of Israel dwells in sackcloth and ashes..." (The Innocents Abroad, 1867)
"You will return to God and listen to Him with all your heart and soul. And God will return your exiles and gather you from all the nations He has scattered you. Even if you will be scattered to the ends of the heavens (a colony on the moon! - Klauzenberger Rebbe) God will take you from there and bring you to the land that your ancestors inherited, and you shall inherit it." (Deut. 30:1-5paraphrased)
"Yet even so, even while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or spurn them, lest I break My covenant with them by destroying them, for I am their God. I will remember them because of the covenant I made with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the Land of Egypt under the eyes of the nations, so that I might be their God."(Vayikra 26:44-45)
"The Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Persian, rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dreamstuff and passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed, made a vast noise and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up, held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weaking of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
Do you know how many Jews there are in the world? I would estimate about 14 to 15 million. There's a graph from Lashinsky's The Jewish Dispersion. At the very bottom of the graph, there's a little broken line that keeps bouncing along the bottom of the graph. That little line represents the number of Jews in the world. During the Roman Empire, the Jews constituted 9% of the population. Simple demographics tell us that without the Crusades, the pogroms, the Holocaust, assimilation...the Jewish people today would number well into the hundred millions.
We've lost 90 to 95% of our nation. We keep diminishing and diminishing, yet we're still bouncing up and down there, barely hanging on, at the bottom of the graph. Demographically, we should just pack it in. Why don't we?
Devarim 4:27
We've lost 90 to 95% of our nation. We keep diminishing and diminishing, yet we're still bouncing up and down there, barely hanging on, at the bottom of the graph. Demographically, we should just pack it in. Why don't we?
Devarim 4:27
There's a book called "The Jewish Mystique," written by Ernest Vanderhaag. He writes that in the last 50 years of Western civilization, there were four people who shaped the world: Marx, Freud, Einstein, and Darwin. (Three of them were Jewish - and one of them was wrong!) And this is only in the last 150 years of western civilization; just decades after Jews were even permitted into universities!
(ג) וְהָלְכ֥וּ גוֹיִ֖ם לְאוֹרֵ֑ךְ וּמְלָכִ֖ים לְנֹ֥גַהּ זַרְחֵֽךְ׃
(3) And nations shall walk by your light,
Kings, by your shining radiance.
Kings, by your shining radiance.
(ו) וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ אֵ֚לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תְּדַבֵּ֖ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
(6) but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
(יט) כִּ֣י יְדַעְתִּ֗יו לְמַ֩עַן֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְצַוֶּ֜ה אֶת־בָּנָ֤יו וְאֶת־בֵּיתוֹ֙ אַחֲרָ֔יו וְשָֽׁמְרוּ֙ דֶּ֣רֶךְ יְהֹוָ֔ה לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת צְדָקָ֖ה וּמִשְׁפָּ֑ט לְמַ֗עַן הָבִ֤יא יְהֹוָה֙ עַל־אַבְרָהָ֔ם אֵ֥ת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֖ר עָלָֽיו׃
(19) For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of יהוה by doing what is just and right, in order that יהוה may bring about for Abraham what has been promised him.”
"For that which comes into your mind shall never be. That which you say, 'Let us be like the nations, like the families of other lands, serving wood and stone.' 'As I live,' says God, 'with a mighty hand and outstretched arm and with outpoured fury, I shall be king over you.' " (Yechezkel 20:32-34)
"And I shall make the land a desolate waste so that its proud strength will cease, and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate that no one will cross them. Then they shall know that I am God when I make the land a desolate waste because of all the abominable things they have done." (Yechezkel 33:28-29)
"Behold, I will raise my hand to the nations and my banner to the peoples, and they shall bring your sons in their arms and your daughters on their shoulders." (Yeshaya 49:22).
It is also writen in the book of Zohar, in Waera, page 32 (written before Islam and a lot before the Arabs conquered the holy land):
"Damn that moment that Yishmael (Ismail) was born and got circumcised. What did God do? He kept the chlidren of Yishmael away from being mentally close to him and gave them a grip on the holy land, as a reward for their circumcision. And in the future (our present) the children of Yishmael would control the holy land when it is empty of anything, like their circumcision is incomplete, and they'll prevent the people of Israel from returning to their land, until their reward for their circumcision will be over".
"Damn that moment that Yishmael (Ismail) was born and got circumcised. What did God do? He kept the chlidren of Yishmael away from being mentally close to him and gave them a grip on the holy land, as a reward for their circumcision. And in the future (our present) the children of Yishmael would control the holy land when it is empty of anything, like their circumcision is incomplete, and they'll prevent the people of Israel from returning to their land, until their reward for their circumcision will be over".