This Torah reading begins by describing the mitzvah of the Sabbatical year. Just as every week, we rest on the seventh day, in the land of Israel, every seventh year, the land is left to lie fallow.

This pattern is also reflected in the pattern of history as a whole. There are to be seven millennia in the history of man. The seventh, like the Shabbos and like the Sabbatical year, will be an era of peace and understanding.

It is a mitzvah to accept the Shabbos early; we are commanded to add from the mundane to the holy and commence our observance of the holy day before sunset. Similarly, we must cease working the land before the Sabbatical year begins. This also applies with regard to the seventh millennium. That era will be inaugurated before its chronological time.

This points to the importance of our present age. In terms of the total scheme of history, it's late Friday afternoon; we are already in the final quarter of the millennium. It is short moments before Shabbos, as it were. No wonder the world is beginning to look a little Shabbosdik.

Let's take an honest look at our world: We are in the midst of an information revolution. Resources of knowledge that have been gathered for centuries are now only a few strokes of a keyboard away from any person with a pc. Instant communication from one end of the earth to another has transformed our world into a global village. We are producing enough food to feed all of mankind; it's only political strife that is preventing hunger from being eliminated. The search for spirituality has become so much a part of our lives that chroniclers of the major trends leading to the millennium place it among the top 5.

Now isn't that all somewhat Messianic? Today, when a person speaks about redemption, his words resound with the power possessed by an idea whose time has come.

We can precipitate the coming of Mashiach by anticipating the spiritual awareness that he will introduce. By living in the spirit of the Redemption, we make that Redemption a reality not only in our lives, but also within the world at large.