The Last Arm-Wrestling Match of History
אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
TL;DR
Rav Touitou's chiour on "Le dernier bras de fer de l'histoire," delivered 24 Tammuz during Ben HaMetsarim, maps the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil at the end of days. Drawing on Masechet Sotah 49b, the Zohar HaKadosh, the Arizal, and the Ramchal, the Rav argues that we are living inside the last arm-wrestling match: the forces of evil have received their final authorization to act, their primary target is emunah, and the single move that wins the match is refusing to let go.
I. The Arm-Wrestling Match You Are Already In 💪
The Rav opens with a framing image. Two arms locked. One belongs to the forces of evil (Sitra Achra). The other belongs to the Jew who holds onto emunah. The evil side is muscular, confident. It says: look, nobody is coming to save you. And you say: I keep my arm on HaShem's side, because it is not because I no longer hear You that You no longer hear me. It is not because I no longer see You that You no longer see me.
That is the entire shiur in one sentence. Everything that follows is evidence for why this moment is the one we are in, what the forces of evil are doing with their final authorization, and what a single Jew can do to tip the match.
II. The Signs from Sotah 49b: The Checklist Is Complete ✅
The true texts (Sifrei Emet) do not give a precise calendar. They give signs. The Rav reads the list from the last page of Masechet Sotah (49b) and says plainly: every item is checked.
From the north will come evil. Everything will become extremely expensive. Children will lose respect for parents. Your worst enemies will come from your own blood, your own family, not from legitimate adversaries. The situation will be very complicated.
The Rav does not linger on the list. He says: look at it, it is complete today. We are in the last steps before the great shofar.
III. The Final Authorization: The Zohar's Teaching on Evil's Last Surge 🌑
The Zohar HaKadosh teaches that before the Geulah, the forces of impurity (Sitra Achra) will receive a last authorization to act. HaShem will appear to have deserted the world. Each person will be able to do whatever he wants, call himself whatever he wants, sleep with whomever he wants, insult whomever he wants. The basic values that hold human society together will be trampled.
Lying will be called truth. Swindlers will earn their living easily. Manipulators and people with bad hearts will win their court cases. They will slip through every door. And the honest person will ask: what is the point of being religious? What is the point of being good? What is the point of staying loyal to a camp whose Owner seems to have left?
The answer: He has not left. This is the last test.
Sod dimension: The Rav connects this to the Arizal (500 years ago) and to the Zohar (nearly 1800 years ago). The forces of evil know the date of the Geulah. They are fighting with everything they have precisely because they know their time is ending. Their maximum surge of power is itself the proof that the end is near. As the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) explains in the Da'at Tevunot: evil is compared to a flame. It grows tallest just before it goes out.
IV. The Primary Target: Emunah 🎯
The Zohar specifies the strategy. The forces of evil will not attack with physical violence alone. Their primary weapon is spiritual confusion. Their target is the spinal column that holds a Jew upright: faith.
How do they attack it? By multiplying problems to create division among Jews. By bringing down spiritual leaders. By spreading immorality and confusion. By letting success come to those who abandon the path, so that the faithful person looks around and says: the one who does not keep Shabbat, who is married to whoever, nothing happens to him, he is in good health. And I who keep Shabbat and mitzvot am sick.
That is the combat of the end of days. Can you keep your faith when everything rational tells you to abandon it? Where is G-d? What is He doing? It is so unjust. So I leave too. When You come back, I will come back.
The Rav says: that is the arm you must not release.
V. Social Media: The Tree of Knowledge Replayed 📱🌳
The Rav introduces a striking Kabbalistic reading. According to classical Kabbalistic thought, social media platforms are not evil in themselves. They are tools. The question is who uses them and for what purpose. The Rav calls them the modern equivalent of the Etz HaDa'at (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil): instruments that can go either way.
But at the end of times, these tools will serve the side of evil far more than the side of good. The ratio the Rav gives: 10% success, 90% catastrophe. You might find a spouse through social media. But there will be far more divorces caused by social media.
The spiritual dangers he lists: lashon hara spreading at a speed unprecedented in history. The pursuit of recognition (likes feeding pride and constant comparison). Loss of time that pulls people from Torah study, from prayer, from their own families locked away in their rooms. Exposure to impurity through images. And above all, deformation and confusion of information, because people have been formatted to listen without thinking, making it easy to turn all of humanity against one people through propaganda.
The Rav notes that these same platforms can also serve good: diffusing Torah, encouraging people in difficulty, organizing acts of generosity, bringing Jews closer to their roots, sanctifying HaShem's name. He credits Adam, Shlomo, and Jerome Saint-Nigo with pushing him to go on social media in 2012, a camera that has remained lit ever since.
Practical takeaway: Put a filter. The stakes are not technological. They are spiritual. Discipline your consumption. Verify. Reflect before reacting.
VI. Yechezkel 38-39: The Nations Turn, Then Burn 🔥
The prophet Yechezkel (chapters 38-39) describes a coalition of nations led by Gog rising against Israel. The Rav reads this as describing both a physical and a spiritual war. The Chachamim explain that this last physical war hides the most powerful spiritual combat in history: kedusha versus tumah.
The nations will turn against Israel. But then the same forces of evil that were used against Israel will turn against those nations. The mal that a person feeds ends by consuming the one who feeds it. Wars, revolutions, economic crises, moral collapse: all manifestations of this auto-destruction.
The Rav draws a historical pattern: when Israel is tested and condemned by the nations, the same test then enters those nations, and Israel becomes the spectator watching how they react. He predicts that in coming years, some nations will no longer recognize the flags that were raised above their own city halls.
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai teaches that the nations will experience great upheavals at the end of times before recognizing the sovereignty of G-d and the truth of the Torah.
VII. What You Do Now: The Five Protections 🛡️
The Rav synthesizes what all the sources agree on. The best protection in the final arm-wrestling match:
Study Torah. The light of Torah consumes the forces of impurity. It takes very little light to chase a great deal of darkness.
Multiply prayers. Especially now, during Ben HaMetsarim.
Practice tzedakah. The Rav opens the shiur by noting the kollel needs support, and closes with the same call. The connection between generosity and spiritual protection is not incidental.
Preserve the unity of the Jewish people. Division is the primary weapon of the other side. Unity is the antidote.
Guard your emunah above all. This is the most important rule. Because that is the arm in the match. Release it and you lose. Hold it and HaShem will tip the balance.
VIII. One Person, One Gesture: The Pinchas Principle ⚡
The Rav closes with Pinchas. One man changed the history of Israel. One among you, the Rav says, can change the destiny of our entire people with a single action that could shake the Throne of Heaven.
In an arm-wrestling match, the final shift does not require enormous force. It requires one small move that destabilizes the other arm enough to begin turning it. Whether the gesture is small or large, at the end of times, that is all it takes.
G-d will give us the victory. That is a promise. Our part is simply not to withdraw the arm called the Emunah of the people of Israel.
Touv. Ve'LeHitra'ot.
AI-assisted drafting (Claude Opus 4.6). All claims checked and final text approved by the author.