A Letter to the Generation of Return

Beloved children, brothers, and sages of this generation that today inhabits the land of our fathers:

Today is the 17th of Tamuz. The sun rises, and our innermost being feels the rigor of the fast. We remember the day when the first Tablets of the Law, written by the finger of the Eternal, were broken; the day when the walls of Jerusalem were breached and the enemy besieged our sanctuary.

The prophets warned us with grief: when Israel goes astray, when it distances itself from the Source of Life to pursue what does not profit, the natural result is the hiding of the Light and the arrival of adversity.

Like a father who corrects his child with love, the Eternal allowed us to stumble so that we might learn.

He told us: “You did wrong, you suffered exile, but now you have learned.” The punishment was never destruction; it was education. The exile was the great school of dispersion.

And look around you today. Your eyes are seeing what generations of our elders could only dream of amidst tears.

You are living the fulfillment of the divine promises: “I will gather you from among the nations from where I scattered them.”

You have seen a nation born in a single day. The land that lay desolate today flourishes beneath your feet.

Therefore, this fast must not be merely a day of passive sadness, but of active introspection. If straying from the Torah and baseless divisions tore down our walls, it is the return to wisdom, justice, and righteousness that will rebuild them forever.

To this generation that witnesses the miracles of return, I say: act with the maturity of one who has learned the lesson of history. The Holy One, Blessed Be He, is slow to anger, immense in kindness, and infinitely merciful. He is essentially Good.

Just as the prophecies of the fall were fulfilled with precision, with that same mathematical and spiritual certainty, the promises of the final redemption are being fulfilled.

May this 17th of Tamuz transform the memory of brokenness into the strength to build a holy, united, and wise society. The radiance has begun to return; it is up to us to walk toward it.

Eternal Promises of Return, Strength, and Redemption:

1. The promise of return from the dispersion:

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.- Ezekiel 36:24

2. The roar of the lioness in exile:

Look, a people rises like a lioness, and lifts itself up like a lion; it shall not lie down until it devours the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain. – Numbers 23:24

(This powerful passage evokes precisely that awakening of the children of exile who, upon seeing their people under siege, rise with spiritual and diplomatic fierceness before the nations of the Earth to intercede for Israel, proving that the Jewish soul is never extinguished, regardless of the distance).

3. The final recognition of the nations:

Thus says the Eternal of Hosts: In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. –Zechariah 8:23

And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Shabbat to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Eternal. – Isaiah 60:23 (Isaías 66:23)