Tzipisa LeYeshua?

Each one of us is instrumental in bringing about the Geulah. The question is: Do we want it? And why do we?

Some years ago, I read a story by Etka Gittel Schwartz. The narrative started out describing a mother who was preparing for a family trip – packing a lunch of pita and yogurt, worrying that the kids had trouble falling asleep because of the excitement of the trip, wondering if she should get the laundry from the bedroom and risk waking the baby. As the story progressed, it became clear that the anticipated trip was… aliya l’regel during the time of the second Beis Hamikdash.

That story created a paradigm shift for me. It was as if I suddenly realized that the characters we read about in history books and in Torah – they were real people, just like me and you. Moms packing lunches, doing laundry, dealing with kvetchy tired babies. In Mitzrayim, at the Beis Hamikdash, before the Holocaust – they were all just regular people.

And suddenly I saw myself as part of History, too.

Galus Lite?

It can be difficult to identify with the previous generations of galus. Most of us have grown up in an environment of unprecedented luxury and freedom. Sure, we knew we were in galus – but there was that underlying feeling that we could relax, sipping cold drinks in our air conditioned living rooms and waiting for Mashiach to take us Home. America is the last stop, after all – and there was always Eretz Yisroel waiting there for us, if things got uncertain.

We compared ourselves to previous generations and wondered – they were so much greater than us, and endured unimaginable challenges. If they could not bring Mashiach, what could we possibly accomplish that they could not?

With the proper perspective, our mission is clear. If we find ourselves in a situation of relative comfort and safety, yet are still in Galus, we can presume that we have a unique tafkid to accomplish in OUR world, in THIS lifetime – something that can only be perfected in the precise, exact reality that Hashem has chosen to put us into.

Why? – Lamah?

For the past very, very long 10 months, I have felt my world expanding. The old Me focused mostly on my inner circle: my health, my parnassa, my marriage, my family, my community.

But now… my sense of Self has broadened, feeling the tug of the strands that connect me to each and every Jew on the planet.

To the family of 5, still living in a hotel room and wondering how they will ever return home.

To the 24 year old chayal, recently returned home to his wife and baby, who is called back to reserves to search for hostages.

To the Ivy League student who’s been hanging out at the Chabad House, trying to figure out what makes him suddenly different.

My world is suddenly 3-dimensional. I feel in my bones that I am part of something Big. Something engineered to bring forth results that only I, You, We, an entire generation of American, Israeli, European, chareidi, modern, secular, Litvish, Chassidish, Sefardi 21^st century Jews can accomplish.

In Lashon Kodesh, there are 2 words for Why. The common one, Madua, demands an answer. Why were you late to class? Why do salmon swim upstream?

There is also “lama,” best understood through its composite words “le mah?” “For what?” Some ‘why’ questions cannot be answered absolutely by our feeble intellect: Why Simchas Torah? Why the babies? Why tens of families left in an unimaginably torturous limbo of the unknown? We can only attempt at l’mah? What can we do? What goal could Hashem be pushing us towards?

Even with this clarification, we cannot possibly know the “what” with certainty. But I can tell you what it’s NOT.

It’s not being addicted to the news. It’s not obsessing over the American Biden/Trump/Harris political bashing fest. It’s not being paralyzed by worry.

And one more thing is certain.

It’s not “staying the same.”

In the Jewish media, there is a new construct: The “October 8^th Jew”. It is generally used to describe previously unaffiliated Yidden who are now grasping for connection with Jews and Judaism.

But what about us?

If we are the same person today as we were on October 6, haven’t we missed the point? More importantly – aren’t we missing the opportunity that is custom-made for us?

What are we yearning for?

R’ Ahron Lopiansky, shlit”a, in the early days of Covid, expressed a cautionary message about widespread assumptions that “Mashiach must be coming.” Firstly, as our long history has painfully demonstrated, tzaros – even horrific, soul-crushing, nation-decimating tzaros – do not inherently, in the short term, bring the Geulah. And our history has also showed the dangers of the dashed hopes of false messianism.

More importantly, R’ Lopiansky points out that equating our desire for Mashiach purely with “fixing our tzaros” is misunderstanding what the geulah is about – roughly equivalent to the father of a kallah expressing their wish that his deceased parents would have been alive to attend the wedding…. so that they could foot the bill.

R’ Lopiansky lists the 4 characteristics of Yemos Hamashiach described by the Rambam, to give us an insight into what we are missing – and why we should be yearning for it:

Restore our nationhood by reinstating a central authority: Currently, we have rabbanim and batei din, but no one entity has the authority to create binding decisions on all, or to enforce them. Mashiach will be our king, with the authority to restore the national apparatus.

Restore Torah: We learn, we do mitzvos – but we are prevented from observing the vast majority of mitzvos including korbanos, mitzvos hateluyos ba’aretz, and tahara. In the era of Mashiach, we will once again be zocheh to fulfill the entire Torah as it was meant to be observed.

Restore the wholeness of the Jewish people: We (frum Yidden) tend to think of ourselves as “Klal Yisroel”, but 90% of our nation barely knows they are Jewish, and they are dwindling fast due to ignorance and intermarriage. Mashiach will return all Jews so our nation can be whole again.

Restore the Divine Presence:  Although we try to do everything right, we struggle to feel a true connection to Hashem, and to sense His response to us. In the time of Mashiach, we will revel in the glory of the revealed Shechina, and experience the joy of that ultimate relationship.

Tzipisah Leyeshuah?

The story is told of a Jewish innkeeper in Czarist Russia, who hosted a traveling Rav for the night. At midnight, the innkeeper and his wife were awakened  by heart-rending cries from the Rabbi’s room. Upon rushing to the room to see what was wrong, the innkeeper was relieved to find that the Rav was simply davening for Hashem to return the Yidden to Eretz Yisoel for the geulah. The innkeeper’s wife, however, was not happy. “Go to Eretz Yisroel? But we just got a new chicken coop! Tell the Rabbi to stop davening, I don’t want to leave!” Hearing the innkeeper’s message, the Rabbi responded: “But don’t the Cossacks come rampaging through your village every once in a while?” The wife had the perfect solution: “Tell the Rabbi to daven for Hashem to take the Cossacks to Eretz Yisroel!”

Are we really yearning for the geulah?

Could it be that Hashem is helping us along, by ‘turning up the heat’?  

(What’s your chicken house?)

End Game

R’ Elya Meir Bloch ztz”l brings down a medrash that refers to the many events and dialogues that are written down in the Torah. Of course, there were many thousands of people who lived during those 2000 years, and many millions of actions and conversations occurred that were not written down in the Torah. Clearly, Hashem only wrote down the events and discussions that were relevant for the trajectory of the Torah’s narrative: getting from the Creation of the world, to the giving of the Torah and entry into Eretz Yisroel.

What about after? After the time of the Neviim, what gets recorded? 

The answer: Hashem writes down all the people and events throughout history, who are instrumental in bringing about the final geulah. 

And Eliyahu Hanavi will read from it.

We can’t know why current events are happening. We dare not be so presumptuous to predict when Mashiach will come, or what will make him come faster.

But there is one thing we do know.

We want to try our hardest to be written in that book.

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