When I was a little girl, I remember shopping with my mother, Florence Berkowitz, z”l, in a supermarket, paying for the groceries and then receiving S&H Green Stamps. We would take the stamps home, lick them and then put them in a book. Once the book was filled, we would go to a redemption center to trade in the stamps for various home goods.
It was only when I got older that I realized that for us, the ultimate redemption center revolves around geulah – our hope for deliverance from our galut – our exile, and the coming of Mashiach. As a religious Zionist, I say the Tefillah L’shlom HaMedina – the prayer for the State of Israel recited in shuls across the world every Shabbat. It includes the iconic words that the creation of the State of Israel is reishit smichat geulateinu – the first flowering of our redemption.
I have always been taken with the explanation offered by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner that now we are no longer at the start of the geulah – but rather in the midst of it – bi’emtzah ha’geulah. The events of the past year and a half are a reminder that whether we are at the beginning of the geulah or in the middle of it, we have a lot more work to do to get to our redemption center.
