“Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever.” (Genesis 3)
Man comes full circle. The putting forth of the hand in an attempt to reach immortality, to be as G-d. To be G-d! The essence of unbridled arrogant pride and ambition, the apex of Hillul Hashem. Yesterday, the first man, we, those of the final era.
Lasers, superconductors, transplants, near-human computer intelligence, artificial insemination and birth outside the womb, and above all, the discovery, tinkering with - and soon – creation of genes. Life itself, creation, becomes the goal of the neo-Adam. And he moves closer and closer to attainment of the moment when he sees himself as becoming Creator, Omnipotent and sovereign of life itself. It is the apex of Hillul Hashem and [...] the reason why this era - by its very nature - becomes the moment of [redemption] “in its time.” The moment when Man begins to move toward Divinity is the moment when G-d rises to touch him and say, “You who come from the dust and who wishes to rule – go; Go and rule the dust.”
And as an integral part of all this and so as to emphasize even more the reason for this era being the moment of “its time,” is the fact that in the arrogant attack on G-d as Creator and King, it is the Jew who, sadly, leads all the rest. And the words of the Rabbis echo throughout the ages: ‘This nation (the Jews) is likened to the dust and the stars: When they go down, they go down to the dust and when they rise, they rise to the stars.” (Megila 16). And the reference is not only to Jewish destiny. It is true, too, for the very characteristics of the Jew. One who is capable of achieving the highest spiritual heights, of climbing the tallest elevation of the soul. And one who is also capable of leading all the rest in descent to the depths of anarchy and rebellion and decadence and the casting off of the yoke of Heaven. Intoxicated and seduced by his intelligence, it is exactly that which becomes for the Jew the source of an arrogance that leads him, the son of the people that gave the world the idea of One G-d, to reject with contempt, the very existence of G-d. No one is a s vociferous and as much a leader in the struggle to deny G-d and enthrone Man and his intellect on the throne of Creation, as the Jew. And because of this, too, this must be the era of “its time.”
(Rav Meir Kahane - taken from "Forty Years")
