Can the World Get Better?



Tomorrow marks exactly 30 years since the Rebbe declared that he exhausted his ability to bring Moshiach, and handed the job over to us. It’s kind of surprising, because, if the Rebbe, who was such a holy man, couldn’t bring Moshiach, how can flawed humans like us do it?

Unless that’s the whole point. Obviously, if G-d wanted a perfect world, He could have created it from the get-go. Instead, He created a dark world, inhabited by mostly flawed people, and wants these very same flawed people (not a holy Rebbe) to make the world perfect.

As we’ll see in the next JLI course (keep posted for email next week), the world is inching closer and closer to perfection in almost every metric, from health, to geopolitics, to poverty. At this point, we’re not even inching. We’re going at light speed. A hundred years ago, the race of the day was human flight. Today, it’s reversing the aging process! Soon enough, someone will crack the code, and we’ll reach the prophecy of “eradicating death forever” in a completely natural way.

But Moshiach is more than material abundance and eradication of problems. Moshiach by definition is a complete Torah. G-d gave us 613 mitzvahs, most of which require a Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill. Moshiach means the ability to keep all 613, not just the way we do them now, but actually seeing the impact each mitzvah has. Mitzvahs now are like an asymptomatic Covid carrier. They have tremendous power, but we don’t see the effects immediately.

The solution is simple to explain but hard to attain.

In his talk, the Rebbe said that “if we would only truly want Moshiach, it would have come long ago”. You probably have heard the song, “We want Moshiach Now”. These words are very precise. (1) we (2) want (3) moshiach (4) now.

  1. We- When you have something really good, you want to share it with others. If all Moshiach makes me think about is an end to my problems, I’m not wishing Moshiach on the world.

  2. Want- Wanting is even more powerful than needing. We need to breath air, but if we could figure out some way to survive without it, I don’t think anyone would complain. Conversely, I don’t need dessert, especially after eating a full meal, but I want the chocolate chip cookie. We have all sorts of problems that we need a bailout from, but Moshiach will come when we want perfection for perfections sake.

  3. Moshiach- Moshiach is a perfect world on G-d’s terms. This includes both (1) material perfection and (2) revelation of the truth, that mitzvahs are real, even more real than a chocolate chip cookie.

  4. Now- When I was around 12 years old, the intifada was raging in Israel. Buses and cafes were being blown up by suicide bombers every other day. Someone at the Shabbos table said, “I can imagine the world lasting for another 5 years without Moshiach, but not another 10.” Sure enough, 10 years came and passed, and Moshiach still didn’t come, so apparently, the world could last another 10 years. When the urgency is now, that’s when Moshiach will come.

All of these things are connected. All it takes is one person to want real perfection right now for perfection’s sake, and then Moshiach will come for the whole world.

Can I be that person?

Here’s what I’m running up against:

I have a few problems, some material and some spiritual, some between me and other people, and some between me and G-d. Every time I think about wanting Moshiach, my mind starts to think about these problems. “Oh, when Moshiach comes, I won’t have these problems!”

Once I start thinking like that, I know that it’s not really Moshiach I want, it’s my problems I don’t want. Most of these problems I could fix by myself, but it’s easier to just wait for Moshiach to bail me out.

If I can seize the moment right now to fix my problems, and I’m still bothered that Moshiach isn’t here, then I have a chance to be that one special person.

I can only speak for myself, but perhaps other people have a similar experience. If this resonates with you, maybe you’ll make your life as perfect as it could possibly be, and if you still want Moshiach, you’ll be the one to bring him.

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