Our parashah mostly deals with legal matters between people: economic laws, laws of damages, buying and selling, and loans. Each of these laws can be applied to the situation of the Jewish people in exile. The Talmud presents the following scenario: a person borrows money from another and does not repay it. When the lender encounters the borrower in the marketplace, he "chokes" him, demanding and pressuring him to return the money. A third party observes the lender's pressure, intervenes, and says, "Leave him alone, I'll give you [the money]." The law is that the third party is obligated to pay the borrower's debt.
However, the matter is not so simple. Depending on how the loan guarantee is structured, the guarantor may or may not be liable to repay the lender with their property. This is referred to in Talmudic terminology as "obligation" (shibud in Hebrew). In the scenario presented, the question remains whether the third party's property is "obligated" (meshubadim) to the borrower (to recover the debt through seizure) or not.
Here we find a disagreement between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud: according to the Babylonian Talmud, the "obligation" (of the third party's property to the borrower) only arises if the third party performed an act of acquisition (kinyan, in Hebrew) regarding the debt to be paid. If no such act occurred, the third party is not obligated to answer to the borrower with their property. On the other hand, the Jerusalem Talmud holds that the third party's property is "obligated" even if they only spoke about assuming the debt, without taking any action.
The logic behind the discussion is based on the fact that, according to the Babylonian Talmud, for there to be an "obligation" on the guarantor's property, there must be an action that brings it into existence, and in our case, the loan (which would be the action) occurred long before the guarantee, so there is no action or "obligation," except when there is a "kinyan," an acquisition of responsibility, in which case the guarantor's property becomes "obligated" to the lender.
According to the Jerusalem Talmud, a "kinyan" or action that places the "obligation" upon the guarantor's property is not necessary: the very benefit the guarantor receives by proving himself financially reliable serves as the "action" to bind his property to the lender. The fact that the lender stopped pressuring the borrower as soon as he heard the guarantor say, "Leave him alone, I'll give you [the money]," demonstrates the guarantor's credibility and is sufficient "action" to bind his property to repay the debt.
This same law applies to the situation of the Jewish people in exile. At the "heels of the Messiah," in the moments before the Final Redemption, when darkness is twofold and redoubled, and spiritual and material suffering covers the whole earth, the Jewish people find themselves in a situation of being "hanged" by the spiritual darkness of exile.
In such a situation, God Himself saves the "hanged man" and assumes the "debt." Disregarding the Divine attribute of severity and judgment, which demands that the Jewish people themselves pay for their debts, God "obliges" Himself toward the Jewish people and, so to speak, pays their debts.
In this scenario, there is a difference of opinion between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud: the Babylonian Talmud opines that the "obligation" only falls on God when there is an action (kinyan): the Jewish people have to "demand" from God that He enter as a guarantor and "obligate" Himself for them.
On the other hand, the Jerusalem Talmud opines that it is not necessary for the Jewish people to strongly demand that God take sides in their "hanged" situation, but it is sufficient to simply "remind" God of their suffering.
In conclusion, according to the two Talmuds, when the Jewish people pray and ask God, "How long will this exile last?", it is more than enough for God to "compel" Himself to His people and bring true and complete Redemption through the Righteous Messiah.
Adapted from Shulchan Shabbat