Reverend William Henry Hechler was not a fringe eccentric. He was a devout Christian clergyman, an educator, and—most significantly—a crucial early ally of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism. Hechler didn’t just lend Herzl moral support; he opened doors. His personal connections brought Herzl before dukes, princes, and even the Ottoman Sultan. Hechler helped push the idea of a Jewish state from the pages of Herzl’s writings to the halls of international diplomacy.
But at their very first meeting, Hechler said something strange: “I have only one scruple: namely, that we must not contribute anything to the fulfilment of the prophecy.” That one line has troubled me ever since I read it. Why would a man who gave so much of himself to Herzl’s cause be uneasy about what he was doing? Why would someone who worked day and night to help Herzl realize his vision suddenly claim that he didn’t want to actively bring prophecy to fulfillment?
And how could he say that to Herzl of all people—a man who spent the last eight years of his life consumed with one goal: turning the biblical promise of Jewish return into a political reality? Herzl wasn’t waiting for prophecy to fulfill itself. He was forcing the issue, taking bold political steps to turn ancient words into a modern nation. And Hechler, despite all his help, was uneasy about that. Why?
When the Israelites were tantalizingly close to the Holy Land, the people cry out for water. God instructs Moses and Aaron:
But Moses doesn’t speak to the rock; instead, he strikes it. Though the water began to flow and the crisis passed, God tells Moses that he will be punished for not perfectly following God’s command:
The punishment is staggering. Moses had endured endless complaints, rebellions, and hardships, and now—for hitting a rock instead of speaking to it—he is banned from entering the Promised Land? How could God do this to His faithful servant?
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook offers a different approach. In his work Ein Ayah, Rabbi Kook draws a powerful distinction between two generations: the one that left Egypt and the one that entered the Land of Israel.
The first generation saw God’s power in full display. They watched the plagues devastate Egypt, walked between walls of water at the sea, and ate food that fell from the sky. But their faith was shallow. The moment God’s hand wasn’t obvious, they doubted, complained, and demanded to return to Egypt.
The second generation, the children who would enter the land of Israel, was different. They would live as farmers, builders, and soldiers. Upon entering the Holy Land, they would no longer witness daily miracles. They experienced the natural world, and they were expected to find God within it.
Rabbi Kook explains that the younger generation was more spiritually advanced than their parents’ generation. They didn’t need to see fire from heaven to know God was present.
This helps explain God’s “punishment” of Moses. Moses was a leader of miracles. He turned staffs into snakes. He split seas. He brought water from rocks. He was the perfect leader for a people who needed signs and wonders. But that phase of history was over. The new generation needed to learn how to find God in plowed fields and military campaigns. And Moses, precisely because he was the man of miracles, could not be their leader.
This brings us back to Hechler—and to many religious Jews and Christians today. Like the generation of the wilderness, they are waiting for redemption to come through thunder and lightning. They expect the redemption to arrive in a cloud of glory and that the third Temple will fall from the sky. And until that happens, they passively wait.
But that belief is as outdated as believing the earth is flat. God has already made clear that redemption will come gradually, through natural events. In fulfilment of prophecy, the people of Israel have returned home and brought the land of Israel back to life. Redemption is happening – not with fire from heaven, but with tractors, roads, soldiers, builders, farmers, and Hebrew-speaking children once again playing in the streets of Jerusalem.
Hechler was a good man. But his entire view of redemption was wrong. Because he believed redemption could only come through dramatic, supernatural miracles, he was uncomfortable with Herzl’s activist approach of actively working to fulfill prophecy. Like many Jews and Christians today who still wait for redemption to fall from the sky, Hechler thought redemption should happen passively, by divine intervention alone. They’re still expecting Moses to strike the rock. But that’s not how God is working anymore.
To those still waiting for miracles: open your eyes. We are already living inside the story. The greatest movement in human history is unfolding before us. And each of us has a choice: to join this historic movement or to watch it unfold from the sidelines.
