The Chafetz Chaim’s Warning About the Final War Before Mashiach

Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, the foremost disciple of Israel Meir Kagan, once recounted a remarkable teaching from the time of the First World War. During that turbulent period, his teacher was asked whether this was the final war of Gog and Magog described in Jewish tradition as preceding the redemption.

The Chafetz Chaim answered in the negative. He explained that after this war there would be a pause, and afterward another war would break out. Following that, there would once again be a period of calm. Only the great war that would come afterward, he said, would be the final one. This teaching was later remembered as a profound reflection on the sequence of world conflicts leading toward the era before the coming of Mashiach, offering a perspective rooted not in prediction but in spiritual insight and historical awareness.

The Power of Being Separate From the Nations

Years later, during the tenure of Rabbi Natan Wachtfogel, as the mashgiach of Lakewood Yeshiva, there was widespread fear surrounding the threat of atomic warfare. At that time, he delivered a powerful and memorable address to the students of the yeshiva.

His words were direct and penetrating: “How can a Torah student be afraid?” He taught that one who is spiritually separate and distinct from the nations has no reason to fear danger, and that such a person would be protected even from the threat of atomic bombs. In his view, this was not a matter of uncertainty, but of spiritual principle.

However, he stressed that this protection depends on one essential condition: a person must truly be separate from the nations.

He based this on the verse in Book of Vayikra: “I have separated you from the nations… and I shall separate you from the nations to be Mine.” His explanation was that when the Jewish people remain spiritually and culturally distinct from surrounding societies, they belong to God in a unique way. In his vivid language, they exist on “a different plane,” beyond the ordinary reach of outside forces.

This idea was not presented as a physical guarantee, but as a spiritual framework: the more one’s life is defined by Torah values rather than by external culture, the more one inhabits a different moral and spiritual reality.

The Final War and the Lesson From Egypt

Rabbi Wachtfogel then added that he possessed a received tradition from Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin stating that in the final war before the coming of Mashiach, anyone who is truly separate from the nations would be saved.

He was careful to clarify that this does not require a person to be one of the thirty-six hidden righteous individuals, as no person is expected to reach an impossible spiritual level. Rather, one is required to remain distinct from the customs and culture of the surrounding nations. In his explanation, this meant not becoming attached to their values, their newspapers, their music, or their books, and not allowing one’s identity to be shaped by outside influences.

In such a state, he taught, God says: “You are Mine.” Once a person stands within that spiritual domain, no outside power has the same hold over them.

To illustrate this principle, he pointed to the exile in Egypt. According to Jewish tradition, the Hebrew people did not change their names, their language, or their manner of dress. When the Ten Plagues struck Egypt, it was the Egyptians who suffered the blows, while the Israelites were protected.

For him, this served as a clear spiritual lesson, that when a people remain faithful to their identity and values, the surrounding reality does not affect them in the same way. The central message, therefore, is not merely about wars and future events, but about spiritual identity, inner separation, and the belief that remaining true to one’s covenantal identity creates a different kind of protection.