Kol HaTor
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Kol HaTor - קוֹל הַתּוֹר or "The Voice of the Turtledove" (a reference to Song of Songs 2:12) was written by Rabbi Hillel Rivlin of Shaklov a disciple of the Vilna Gaon . The text deals with the Geulah (Era of Redemption) and describes its signs vis-a-vis an evaluation of a proposed 999 footsteps of the Moshiach’s arrival. It was first published in Hebrew by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher in 1968 to whom the book was passed down over the generations. According to Rabbi Pinchas Winston,
"The original text of Kol HaTor was kept in the manuscript by the Rivlin family, descendants of Rabbi Hillel Rivlin, for over 200 years. In 1947, Rabbi Shlomo Rivlin, with the advice of the great Kabbalists of Jerusalem, decided to publish an abridged version of this lengthy and difficult treatise keeping the Kabbalistic terminology as simple as possible so that it could also be studied by non-Kabbalists. Therefore, the printed Kol HaTor is not the original text. In 1968 it was reprinted again by two different editors (unknown to each other), Rabbi Menachem Kasher and Rabbi Chaim Friedlander (Committee For The Dissemination of Kol HaTor). Rabbi Kasher omitted the chapter on the confluences of Kabbalah and science called Sha'ar Be'er Sheva (Gate of The Seven Fields of Wisdom). The B'nei Brak edition, which did contain this chapter, was out of print for over twenty years, thus making this "lost doctrine" of the GR"A totally unnoticed by scholars and the public. Only recently a new print has appeared in Jerusalem with the Sha'ar Be'er Sheva."[1]
The text has become popularized amongst the adherents of Religious Zionism who perceive parallels between current and recent historical events and those forecast in the book.
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you leave out that the 999 was the numerology of the Vilner gaon's name in some form and that this was the identity of Moshiach Ben Yossef. in fact the sefer is a collections of prayers to effectuate the revelation of the Gra as Moshiach Ben Yossaif! chaim bergstein-i read the kol hator many years ago and this is in the introduction-how could you miss it?
