The Melitzer Rebbe: This is the generation of Moshiach

Last night, the Melitzer Rebbe had a siyum (festive completion of learning a Talmudic tractate) in his house, with a minyan of his sons, sons-in-law, and closest talmidim (pupils). In honor of his father's yahrtzeit, the Rebbe said a siyum on tractate Sota.

It was the most astounding siyum I ever heard. With the voice of a pilot doing a pre-flight check, the Rebbe read one by one the preconditions for the coming of Moshiach that our sages listed on 49b, the last page of Sota. Especially when the Rebbe reached the conditions, "The heads of the generation are like the face of a dog," he nodded, paused, then completed the list. In a calm matter-of-fact manner he then said, "this is the generation of Moshiach."

A week ago, I told the Rebbe that I had four speaking invitations (Denver, Atlanta, Toronto, and DC) to North America that coincide most timely with the upcoming release of The Trail to Tranquility, which is running a few weeks behind schedule and hopefully will be released by this coming July 1st, G-d willing. The Rebbe told me not to leave Israel. Now I understand why.

It's time to fasten our seat belts: It looks like we'll be taking off for Geula (redemption) any minute. Nows the time to grab as much Torah and tshuva as we possibly can. If you've harmed a neighbor, don't wait until the High Holidays to make amends - do it right away.