You can try borrowing from a frum friend or frum book library, contacting the book's publisher (www.feldheim.com), or asking a Jewish bookstore if they could order it for you.
But now the possible date is approaching and also, I keep wanting to distance myself from the Internet, hopefully getting off completely at some point.
(I know. I keep saying that. I'm progressing toward my goal, but encounter the same quandaries everyone else does regarding Internet disconnection.)
Anyway, I figure I'll just do it now.
The Prophetic Predictions of the Chafetz Chaim's Disciple
Moshe Aharon Gromb was a close talmid of the Chafetz Chaim and Sara remembers him described as "a keeper of the Chafetz Chaim's money" — though she never understood what that meant.
Anyway...
Not long after the Nazi invasion into Poland, Sara Lederman and her two children ended up on the Soviet-occupied side of Poland.
They were alone because the Lederman husband/father was languishing in a Soviet prison after attempting to cross the border illegally with a Palestinian visa in his pocket.
Then the Soviet government insisted all refugees must leave due to "overcrowding."
Refugees could return to German-occupied Poland or go deeper into Russia.
They could also go anywhere else in the world — including Eretz Yisrael.
However, the spitefulness of the Soviet government meant that a person jailed for illegally crossing the border with a Palestinian visa might be forbidden from going davka to Eretz Yisrael.
Because the situation at that time demanded the ability to see the future in a world of chaos and uncertainty, a feeling of helplessness swamped anyone faced with this decision.
So Sara Lederman decided to consult with the daas Torah available to her — her saintly & scholarly brother, Moshe Aharon Gromb.
The year was 1939.
Here is what her son, Dov, writes on page 56 ("Mother" is Sara Lederman):
Moshe Aharon didn't even give Mother the chance to present all the sides of her argument.
When he learned the purpose of her visit, he told her that he had already registered for Palestine, and that she should do likewise.
Mother was shocked.
She knew her brother to be violently opposed to the secular Zionist movement and she could not fathom what had happened to him.
"You, Moshe—to Palestine?!" she exclaimed.
Moshe Aharon looked her straight in the eye and said, "Yes, Palestine! Now is the time to go there. This war that just started will go on for six years."
Mother was beside herself.
"Six years?! If the war continues that long, there will not be a single Jew left in Europe!"
Moshe Aharon looked at her enigmatically, "Yes, you are so right."
Mother couldn't think of what to say.
Her brother continued, "Yes, the war will last for six years, and three years later the Jews will gain their own state and..."
At this point, Mother could no longer listen. The thought of a six-year-long war was terrifying, yet sadly enough, it had a truly prophetic ring to it.
But Moshe Aharon's next declaration—about a Jewish state in Palestine—especially after the calamity that her brother had predicted for European Jewry—seemed downright outlandish and absurd.
But Moshe Aharon hadn't finished.
"Then the Messiah will come," he said, and named a year whose last digit was five.*
Now mother was sure that he had lost his mind and she stopped listening.
*Their conversation was in Yiddish, in which units are mentioned before multiples. Thus she only heard the last digit of the predicted year, but not the entire number.
(Unfortunately, the family could not make it to Eretz Yisrael at that time and spent the war years in Russian gulags.)
Sara Lederman comforted her children in 1942 by saying "All we have to do is hold out three more years."
After the military situation turned for the better in 1943, she told them, "Just two more years."
After returning from the Soviet gulag to Poland and seeing the horrific destruction of European Jewry, her brother's prediction of a Jewish state in 1948 felt "too incredible to believe."
But after that too came true, she expressed deep regret over not listening to the rest of his predictions.
What Does This Mean for Us?
2025 is coming up...but does that mean anything?
Not sure.
This book was published in 2002 and since buying it, I've seen two years ending in 5 (2005 & 2015) come and go with only the bells of Mashiach ringing ever louder...but no Mashiach himself.
And aren't we supposed to anticipate his coming every day?
Yes!
And 2025 feels close — but also kind of far away.
So I don't know exactly what to do with this information myself, except let it hover at the back of my mind.
But if it makes you feel better and stronger, so here it is.
And if it makes you feel worse, then...well, try to forget about it.
Predictions made over the centuries by great people have unfortunately come and gone, and we need to hold strong and hopeful no matter what.
A Mini Book Review
In addition to developing a strong affection for the Lederman family and root for them all the way (they all come out as winners; the two children ended up as wonderful Jews who raised wonderful families of their own and contributed so much to the revival of religious Jewry), you get a glimpse of pre-War Poland, the experience of surviving Soviet labor camps and villages.
The second part of the book describes Sara Lederman's rescue work, along with in-depth stories of several Jewish children she rescued from gentile homes, orphanages, and monasteries after the War.
You'll also see what it was like to come to Eretz Yisrael as a frum refugee under British occupation.
It's a book I've re-read often since I first bought it.
Sara Lederman unwittingly displayed true heroism as she risked her life to save Jewish orphans after the Holocaust, entering both monasteries and Jew-hating villages to bring hidden Jewish children back to Am Yisrael.
the-chafetz-chaim-to-rav-yaakov-yosef-herman-you-are-going-to-see-the-generation-that-is-going-to-see-mashiach.html
For another post on the Lederman book, please see:
Part II - America's Scary New Direction: Jewish Communists