Through the Strait Gate

The Transformative Power of Propecy

When Walter Benjamin was fleeing Nazi Europe in 1940, he reached out for a different understanding of time and agency than the one that seemed to be closing in on him. He wrote: “We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous, empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which Messiah might enter.”