The Prophecy of the Vilna Gaon: “When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, the ‘Times of the Messiah’ have started, that his steps are being heard”
Jewish Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (1720-1797) known as the Gra, or the “Vilna Gaon”
It was in the year of 1720 that a young prodigy and genius was born. The Gaon (Hebrew for “genius”), Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman was to become the most influential Jewish leader in modern history. He would be known as the most renowned Ashkenazi Torah authority in the past thousand years. His vast skills in memorization, his extraordinary talents, great wisdom and his comprehension of all branches of Torah and secular knowledge were early recognized.
By the age of seven, he gave his first public discourse on the Torah demonstrating an intellect that was fully developed to abstract thinking as an adult. By the age of ten years, his wisdom in the understanding of the Torah was so renowned for he no longer could find a teacher with the command of the Torah as he. Known as “The Gra”, this prodigious Torah giant set the standard of Torah study, absolute devotion to G-d and a character perfection emulated by centuries of later students of his manuscripts and books.
Authentic Picture of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman
According to the enlightening article in the Jewish Virtual Library called the“Vilna Gaon – Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna”we read that at a very young age, the young rabbi went into a self-imposed “galus” or exile where he wandered from community to community as a beggar and sage. For forty years, he studied in isolation.
To the Gaon, the Torah was paramount and primary to all other studies.
According to the Gaon’s son’s testimony, his father did not sleep more than two hours in a twenty four hour period for over fifty years. His memory and biblical knowledge was legendary, for he had no peers equal among the sages for the breadth for this knowledge included both revealed and hidden Torah knowledge.
Yet he was also knowledgeable in secular sciences including authoring books on grammar and mathematics. His yeshiva, (academy of Torah study) was the premier yeshiva of the world for over 100 years and recognized as the model of all subsequent seminaries of Torah studies.
After forty years of studying in isolation, he finally settled in the town of Vilna.
Living a quiet life, his fame as a Tzaddik (righteous man) and Torah scholar soon spread all over the land. In spite of a life of poverty, he gave 20% of all his income to charity and even would limit his own personal needs so he could marry an orphan girl or redeem a captive. Though in constant study, his ear was also kept to the needs of the local population. He began a local yeshiva, accepting students from the renown Torah scholars of that ere and from the writings of these students, scholars today are given a glimpse of the rare breadth of intellect that the Gra upheld.
Rabbi Moshe Shturnbuch: The Great Grandson of the Gaon of Vilan osb’m
Today, the Grand Rabbi Moshe Shturnbuch is the great grandson of the Gaon of Vilna osb’m and is a Edah Charedit, an Ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jew. Today Rabbi Shturnbuch (Sternbuk) is the Raavad or the Vice-President of the Rabbinic Court and eligible to become the Chief Rabbi (Gaavad) if the present Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss were to decease or could not fulfill his responsibilities of the Haredi Rabbinic Court.
As reported by Rabbi Lazer Brody with Lazer Beams in late March, 2014, titled, “Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch: We Hear the Footsteps of Moshiach”, we read;
Rabbi Lazer Brody – “Rav Shternbuch received a closely guarded secret that came to him from Rabbi Yitzchak Chever zatza”l, who received it from Rabbi Chaim of Volozhyn zatza”l, who received it from the Gaon of Vilna himself, who revealed it shortly before his death:
“When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard.
And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat clothes and don’t take them off, because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin visiting Crimea for the first time since Annexing Crimea for the Victory Day Celebrations in Sevastopol marking the defeat of Nazi Germany
So today, for those with “eyes that can see” are standing on the cusp of awaiting for the Messiah son of David (Moshiach ben Dovid) to come, but in reality the time of the Guela (days of Redemption) is already upon us. As Dov Bear Barleib commented on Rabbi Brody’s blog, we read:
Dov Bear Barleib – “The Gog ben Gog Shmittah (Gog-Magog) cycle came and went without Geulah because too many of the enablers of the Gush Katif fiasco (2005) were observant Jews. They successfully delayed the Geulah one and only one full Shmittah cycle to the Cycle of the half Xtian/ half Muslim (half iron and half clay) 11th horn dude from the Book of Daniel, the Obamanation that makes desolate.
Gavriel the Angel then vows at the very end of the Book of Daniel that that last Shmittah cycle will not pass without Mashiach coming at the end of that last seven years. The 7th year or the Sabbatical year begins in 6 months (Rosh Hashanah 5774 or 2015). We are now 18 months until the end of that Shmittah cycle (Rosh Hashanah 2008 to Rosh Hashanah 2015 in the Jewish year 5775).”
The prospects for the true arrival of the era of the Messiah to finally be upon us appears also to be associated with the conquest of ancient Constantinople, or Istanbul today. As Dov Barleib wrote concerning the Statue of Nebuchadnezzar, we are in the era of the legs of the statue that were made of legs of iron and clay.
This concept of ten toes of iron and miry clay (ceramic) collaborates less with Vatican Rome’s Christian notion that the two legs of the image were the Western Roman Empire in Vatican Rome and Eastern Byzantine Roman Empire in Constantinople.
Instead it merges beautifully with the Jewish and Islamic understanding that at the end of days, the last major forces will be Islam and the Amalekites that harassed the Children of Israel as they were traveling towards the Promised Land, and later had to fight in the days of King Saul and King David.
This converges with the Shiite understanding in the Islamic hadiths that during the last days, the Islamic forces of the Bani-Israelite Pashtun Tribes will rise up with the Islamic Mahdi (Islamic Messiah, Isi ben Mariam) to confront the Dajjal, the Islamic anti-Messiah. So, who is this Islamic anti-Messiah called the Dajjal? The modern understanding in the eyes of the Muslim people is that the Dajjal is NATO Rome fronted by the power the Greater Satan, the aerial power of the United States.
- See more at: http://destination-yisrael.biblesearchers.com/destination-yisrael/2014/05/the-prophecy-of-the-vilna-gaon-when-you-hear-that-the-russians-have-captured-the-city-of-crimea-the-.html#sthash.uUX3TAjU.UrSxcmjh.dpuf 
Subject: The Prophecy of the Vilna Gaon... 
Mon Oct 26, 2015 11:23 am
