In a letter to the yeshiva students in Bnei Brak, HaRav Yitzchok Hacker wrote his unique take on this period.
Yishmoel is wont to say regarding anything they wish to do: 'Allah is with us,' which is why our exile under this rule is more difficult than the other exiles. Yishmoel breached all barriers.
And what is their justification for such action? 'Allah sent us.' They are adapting their credo to their wills.
HaRav Chaim Vital noted that Yishmoel, "A wild one," unbridled, is their very philosophy, part of their religion, as being the emissary of G-d. But precisely the fact that they enslave their beliefs to their desires will cause them to fail.
Here is a glimpse as how Chazal view this condition in the Pirkei deRabi Elazar (28) and in Zohar (II, p 32) at length: The angel of Yishmoel says to Hashem that whoever has circumcised himself deserves a share in Eretz Yisroel. Why, then, does Yishmoel, who did circumcise himself, not have a portion? Hashem replies: True, he performs the circumcision but not the priah, so that he does deserve the exalted place in the heavenly spheres which Israel occupies. But Yishmoel's angel is obstinate, insisting on a portion in Eretz Yisroel. And so, Hashem capitulates as it were: When the land will be desolate and uninhabited by its sons, you will be able to reside there.
Yishmoel is the only nation which fought for Eretz Yisroel. The four Kingdoms [of Jewish exile] did not fight for it. "The eyes of Hashem your G-d are constantly upon it" (Devorim 11:12). Yishmoel is not attracted to Divinity. They flee from it. However, Yishmoel does have a G-dly side because, as the Zohar explains, they are Odom, and they believe in G-d. He is drawn to Eretz Yisroel, the land of G-d, and even has a legitimate claim to it but only when the land is 'empty', devoid of its people, the Jews.
How does one determine if the Land is empty or full? By the spiritual state of Jewry. When they are spiritually at their proper state, then it is full; when they fall from their high stature, the land becomes empty. And that is when Yishmoel can lay claim to it.
It follows that the battle against Yishmoel is not one of battle. The status is always determined elsewhere than the actual battlefield, especially so regarding Yishmoel. The determinant is the spiritual state of Jewry. It is necessary to fill and occupy the land in order to oust Yishmoel from the rightful claim he has on it.
The gemara in Megilloh (3a) teaches: The commentary on Nevi'im, that of Yonoson ben Uziel, was received from Chagai, Zecharya and Malachi. The land shook for four hundred parsecs square." And why?
Some say that the commentary of Yonoson ben Uziel revealed awesome esoteric secrets. The Tosafos Rid explains that because of this revelation, the toil in Torah was diminished. When a diminishing of toil in Torah arises, the land of Israel is shaken violently.
In order for the land to be considered full, it requires toil and effort in Torah study. The conflict with Yishmoel is not a military one at all. Rather it is a question of how much merit exists [of Jewry] to fill the land because when it is considered vacant, we have no merit. The method of ousting Yishmoel from the land is to fill it with mitzvos and Torah, with yet another daf gemora. With concentrated effort.
Chazal tell us that Hashem, the Torah and Jewry are one unity. The Chasam Sofer says (Toras Moshe Devorim 4,14) only applies when they occupy the land of Israel and apply the power of Torah. Here Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah can constitute one cohesive unit and the land is full. We declare here explicitly that we have a task, a mission.
Let us study the prophecy of Doniel (chap. 7) where he sees an animal with ten horns. The small one with an eye is Yishmoel. The commentaries say that all ten horns represent the different peoples of Yishmoel, showing that he encircles all of Israel on all sides, as is written in Tehillim (118:10), "All the nations surrounded me."
The Vilna Gaon notes that they surrounded us in concentric circles, nearer and further. And the posuk continues, "but in the Name of Hashem I will overcome them." The entire Torah is made up of Names of Hashem and this posuk is saying that through learning Torah I will evict the enemy. Only through Torah study can I overcome them.
We have solid guidelines regarding what to do in such situations. I recall that during the Sinai Campaign (in 1956), someone got up in Yeshivas Ponovezh and began reciting Tehillim. The Ponovezher Rov silenced them all, saying that they must persist in their study. "You should always remember that this is what you studied during the Sinai Campaign. This is our secret weapon; this will determine the course of the war."
We tangibly see that whatever took place here did not follow a natural course. The roots of this situation are on a much higher plane. Without going into detail, we can clearly see the Hand of Hashem. This period is designed to make us grow and be uplifted and not to think in natural, superficial terms. When one feels this and concretizes it, the answer is one: Gemora!
