Rabbi Zilberstein Says Trump’s Sudden Turn Shows the Strange Times Before Redemption

At the end of his regular class for doctors and rabbis at Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital, Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein was asked how to explain what participants saw as Donald Trump’s sudden shift against the Jewish people, alongside arrests of yeshiva students and a wider sense that “everyone is against us.” The rabbi responded that this may be a sign that “the Messiah needs to come,” citing the verse from Deuteronomy, “You shall be maddened by the sight of your eyes.”

Zilberstein said the verse describes being stunned by extraordinary events, and compared Trump’s change to seeing “such a great friend, who was so much in our favor and helped us so much, and even his daughter converted,” suddenly become hostile. He said that situation fits the biblical phrase about being “maddened by the sight of your eyes.”

After the class, he referred to Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s writing in the essay “Ikveta DeMeshicha,” where Wasserman described the current era as one in which Jews witness unprecedented events unfolding rapidly, leaving them bewildered and unable to understand what is happening. Zilberstein was asked whether the situation could be connected to persecution of the Torah world and claims that there is no divine assistance for the state when yeshiva students are pursued. He replied, “Everything can be true, we need to ask the great leaders of the nation.”

When attendees asked him for a halachic ruling that would bring swift salvation, he said, “It is clear, it is written in the Torah, ‘you shall be maddened by the sight of your eyes.’ This is the time now, surely there will be salvation here.” In another account from his teachings on the “Sich Yitzchak” line, he also rebuked a caller who cursed the U.S. president after the Iran agreement, saying he would not accept such language because Trump had long done many good things for Jews and even for gentiles, who also owe gratitude, so it is not right to speak that way even after a sudden and puzzling reversal.