Gog

There has been much talk in the Jewish blogs lately regarding the identity of Gog. It would seem that exerting of efforts to identify Gog are not productive. I might touch on those reasons later. What I wanted to mention was the ideas behind the Wars of Gog uMagog.

The Wars of Gog uMagog are mentioned 3 times:

• Zecharyah 12
• Zecharyah 14
• Yehezkel 38

This is a scriptual support for the tradition that there are 3 Wars of Gog uMagog. It has been fairly well circulated in the name of the Chofetz Chayim that WW1 and WW2 were stages 1 and 2.

The Ramchal made this tradition regarding the 3 stages fairly explicit in his Tikkunim Chadashim, Tikkun # 60.

It would seem from the Ramchal (and other sources which I will not discuss now) that the 1st stage was WWII, not WWI: He states there that Gog will come up to Yerushalayim but won't be able to enter. All we need to do is take Yerushalayim to mean the entirety of Eretz Yisrael. The Nazis under Rommell were stopped in Egypt. This threat was one of the reasons for the founding of the Palmach. See also here.

Obviously with the above, there is no connection between the name Gog and the names of the characters involved, either for WWI or WWII.