Mashiach Now – The Easy Way

A little while back, I was listening to one of Rav Brody’s shiurim, where he was talking about Rav Mordechai Eliyahu z”l. For those of you who don’t know, Rav Eliyahu was a very holy Sephardi Rav here in Israel, and truly a person who was ‘beloved of the nation’.
 
At the end of his life, he was hospitalized for months with a number of serious medical issues. His wife asked him why he was suffering so terribly, given that he’d spent his whole life in purity and holiness, and Rav Eliyahu told her that he was suffering as an atonement for the nation. That’s who he was – always more concerned about Am Yisrael than his own comfort. In truth, that’s how all our great Jewish luminaries have been, and still are.
 
In his last days, he was slipping in and out of consciousness. His wife was constantly by his side, and on one of the occasions that Rav Eliyahu regained consciousness, he told her an amazing thing.
 
He told her that Mashiach should have been here already – as so very many people had predicted – except that the Heavenly Court had just explained to him that there were two tzadikim who were praying for Mashiach’s coming to be delayed.
 
When I heard this, I was puzzled in the extreme. I’ve read story after story about tzadikim and big rebbes who prayed and prayed that Mashiach would hurry up and come already. But to pray for him to be delayed? I simply couldn’t make much sense of it, and if I’m honest, I even felt a bit narked.
 
After all, life can be very challenging sometimes, even for a person with emuna.
 
This was a few months ago, and it’s bothered me ever since. Until I started reading Rav Arush’s book ‘The Garden of Gratitude’, when suddenly, it all got explained.
 
We all want Mashiach to come to save us from our suffering, don’t we? We want everyone to have a good job, a happy marriage, as many kids as they can, a strong connection to Torah, and to Hashem, no more wars, deaths, sickness, starvation etc etc etc.
 
The problem is, there is a fundamental misconception about what will happen when Mashiach comes.
 
The suffering won’t end when Mashiach comes because people won’t get poor, sick, or bereaved anymore; the suffering will end because even when these terrible things happen, people will know that G-d is behind it all, and that it’s all for their very best. So they’ll accept His will unconditionally, and won’t complain, and won’t feel sorry for themselves about how hard their lives are.
 
If this is what it really means to have Mashiach in the world, it follows that if a person reads The Garden of Gratitude, and listens to the emuna CDs, and tries their best to do an hour of personal prayer every day where they thank Hashem for everything that’s happening to them, good and bad, then they are already living in the time of Mashiach.
 
They don’t need Mashiach to come and save them from their suffering, because they already aren’t suffering – whatever happens to them. And when the world is full of people like this, then Mashiach doesn’t need to come with wars, and two thirds of the world being wiped out, and famine, death and destruction, G-d forbid.
 
The only reason for Mashiach to come then is to reveal G-d’s kingship of the world – which means he can come the sweet way.
 
I read this explanation in the Gates of Gratitude, and a enormous light bulb went on in my head. Aha! That’s why these two tzadikim have been praying for Mashiach to be delayed! To give more people the time to learn and live emuna, so that Mashiach can come the sweet way!
 
But what happens if people don’t learn emuna? What happens if people refuse to either accept G-d is behind their suffering, or just can’t manage to accept that their suffering is ‘good’?
 
Then, Mashiach will only come the hard way.
 
Why? Because if people can’t or won’t learn emuna the easy-hard way, via the tests they are sent in the personal lives, then they will have to try and learn emuna the hard-hard way, in the midst of civil unrest, wars, famine and all the other terrible things that happens when societies break down.
 
A person who relies on their doctor, or on their bank account, or on their own intellect will be in a terrible bind when medicines run out, economies fail, and supermarkets and petrol stations all disappear.
 
At that point, there really will be nothing other than Hashem to make us better, to feed us, to clothe us, to protect us, just as it was for the Jews in the desert.
 
So we have a choice. We can either choose to turn to G-d now, to see Hashem’s hand behind all the hardships in our lives and to ask Him to help us believe they are for the very best.
 
Or, we can continue to sit and whine and wait for Mashiach to come and ‘fix’ everything.
 
As I write, there is so much unrest going on all around us. The world is clearly reaching its tipping point. But which way is it going to go, the ‘sweet’ way, or the ‘hard’ way, G-d forbid? The answer to that question, dear reader, is really up to you.
 
Because every one of us who makes an effort to live and learn emuna is tipping the scales Upstairs towards Mashiach coming the sweet way.
 
Every time you give out an emuna CD, you are tipping the scale towards the sweet way. Every time you talk about ‘Hashem’ to a friend, family member of colleague, you are tipping the scale towards the sweet way. Every time you say ‘thank you!’ for a particularly challenging day, or circumstance, you are tipping the scale towards the sweet way.
 
Keep going! It is getting there, it is making a difference – and who knows, the next person who says “Thank You, Hashem!” for losing his job, or his loved one, or his bad result from the doctor could really be doing the one last act required to bring Mashiach the sweet way.
 
May it be speedily, sweetly, and in our days, Amen.