What makes a long walk long? After all, a line is just an infinite series of dots. So too, a walk is just an infinite series of steps, one after another, and each step wouldn’t necessarily be considered long. The key factor is perspective==>if you focus on one step at a time,then you may not reach the appreciation of length. But after having covered some distance, the product of the number of steps taken during a specified period of time => that’s when you get an appreciation of ‘long’

On the other hand,when each step is a journey unto itself (each step in the infamous Death Marches from the concentration camps was a matter of life and death!, even one step is a long walk.

So, which is it? Is it a loooooooooong walk or an infinite number of very brief steps?
R’Shlomo gave over in the name of Rebbe Nakhman the description of a reality of an interminable journey,but at journey’s end, the wayfarer has gleaned the clarity that each step was necessary to arrive at the destination.
The Zohar says the day Yoseif was sprung from prison to appear before Par’o was Rosh HaShannah. At that moment of release from prison, Yoseif realized that everything he’d experienced -being thrown in the pit, then sold to the arab merchants, sold to Potiphar,Potiphar’s wife’s slander,jailtime and the subsequent forgetfulness (and ingratitude) of Par’o ’s butler – all these occurrences had to happen to set up his appearing before Par’o.

So it is, said R’Shlomo, that each one of us undergoes series’ of events and we’re trying to understand G-d’s plan and what message is being beamed our way. Sometimes we are fortunate to experience the culmination and then we attain the clarity of why we experienced the various unfolding stages of unfolding events.

Y’sha’yahu(60;22) tells us of G-d’s promise (last verse of Haftara of Ci Tavo)”Ani HaShem, b’Eetah Akhee’sheh’na”,I am G-d ,in it’s time I will hasten it(the end of days).
ChaZ”L pick up on the seeming contradiction – if it’s in its time – how is G-d hastening it? And conversely =>If G-d is hastening it, how would that be ‘in its time’? They explain it as follows: If Ahm Yisrael does nothing, the end of days will come as marked on G-d’s calendar. But, if Ahm Yisrael returns and comes back closer, then G-d will push up the gate and hasten the redemption.

I’d like to suggest an explanation of”b’Eetah Akhee’she’na” somewhat along the lines of R’Shlomo’s elucidation of the Rebbe Nakhman torah cited above.
The Redemption will come as marked on G-d’s calendar.The only difference will be, if we,Ahm Yisrael, merit it, then it will seem hastened==> that this long walk didn’t seem as long, because we achieved the clarity that we experienced everything we needed to,just to make it to this point of Redemption.
(The Ivrit root of Akhee’she’na has multiple layers – 1.hasten or 2.to make someone else sense/feel. So,Akhee’she’na -G-d will enlighten us that all the trials that the Jewish People have endured till this defining moment of The Great Redemption were part of this Long Walk to Freedom.)