“He said: ‘Go and tell this people: hear you indeed, but understand not; and see you indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears and understanding with their heart, return and be healed.’  Then said I: ‘Lord, how long?’ And He answered: ‘Until cities be waste without inhabitant and houses without man and the land become utterly waste; and HaShem has removed men far away and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land. And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up; as a terebinth and as an oak whose stock remains when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the stock thereof'” (Is 6:9-13).