 So there's a famous passage in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud tractate Shabbat, 31A, which gives us the questions to our final exam. The Talmud spills the beans. And everyone wonders what's going to happen after we leave this world and go to the next world. So the Talmud tells us basically what is going to happen when we enter the next world. And Rava says, at the moment that a person is brought before the heavenly court, they say to him, did you deal honestly in business? That's who they're going to want to know. Were you honest and fair and righteous in your business dealings? Number two, did you have set times for learning Torah? Was Torah something that you took seriously and that you didn't do it when you felt like it, but you established a schedule in the same way that people have a schedule every Monday and Wednesday and Thursday. I'm going to the gym. So I have set times for studying Torah. That's what they're going to want to know. And the more the better. So obviously, it's good to have a set time every day. Either you get up in the morning and you study for a certain amount of time, or you go to a class at night or whatever. This is going to be the second question on your final exam. Did you have set times for studying Torah? Number three, did you engage in trying to have children? Asakta of the period of Irvia? So that's a third question. The fourth question, which is the topic of tonight's program. See Pisa Liashua. Did you look forward in anticipation to the coming of the Messianic Age? Did you look forward during your lifetime for the coming of the Messianic Age? Now, the Talmud actually has a few other issues that come up. They're often not really discussed when this passage is discussed. One of the questions the Talmud also seems to say that we're going to be asked is did you engage in dialectics of wisdom, which basically means did you try and think during your lifetime? Did you try to understand your life? Did you try to understand the world? Did you try to understand the things that happened to you? Did you try to understand the wisdom that you were studying? It's one thing to read the Bible, for example. But did you try to think about it and understand it? And therefore, the Talmud says, did you try to derive one thing from another, meaning that you learn something, but you can learn something from that if you really think about it. And if you go through life properly, you can learn from everything. The Talmud says, who is the wise person? The Talmud answers, the wise person is the one who can learn from everyone. Everyone can teach you. We can learn from everything in life. So that's one of the questions. But usually, these first four are the ones that are raised. Did you deal honestly in business? Did you set times for studying Torah? Did you engage in trying to have children? And did you look forward anticipating the Messianic Age? Now let's try to understand some of the background and context for the need to have accountability when it comes to yearning for salvation. Most people can understand why it would be relevant to have to defend whether we were honest in business. That makes sense to us. And the other question's also dealing with how we lived in this world. We can understand why we'll be held accountable. But why are we held accountable for this question of did you look forward anticipating the redemption? We know that our Bible begins with the story of creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the $64,000 question is why? Why did God create the world? He didn't need the world. God could have been very happy and fulfilled without creating anything. That's why he's God. God doesn't have any needs. God doesn't have anything that compels him. Why does God create the world? And so our sages over the centuries most pointedly expressed by Rev Moshe Chaim Lutsato, who we'll be studying in two weeks here tonight. But the Ramchal in many of his books explains that God created the world in order to have a vehicle upon which to bestow His goodness. God is good, and the nature of good is to want to do good. And so because God, by nature, is good, is benevolent, is loving, is giving, God creates as an act of love, as an act of giving, as an act of what the Torah says, Chesed. The book of Psalms says, olam chesed yebaneh. The world was created as an act of loving kindness. Mankind was placed in God Aden. Aden means pleasure, delight. So we were put into paradise. That's what God wants for us. God wants for human beings to have the ultimate pleasure. That's what God wants. If God wants to give, the Ramchal explains that he's not happy with giving you a second or third class pleasure. He wants us to fly first class. He wants us to have the ultimate pleasure possible. That's God's design for the creation of the world. And what is that ultimate pleasure to which mankind is able to achieve? The ultimate pleasure is to partake of the ultimate good. The ultimate good, believe it or not, is not dark chocolate. There are many other pleasures which we aspire to, but the ultimate pleasure is the source of all pleasure and all beauty in the world. The ultimate pleasure is the ultimate good that is God himself. So the pleasure to which we have the ability to achieve is some connection with God, knowledge of God, a relationship with God. And that's God's agenda for the creation of the world. Therefore, God places us in paradise. And what is in the center of that Garden of Eden? The tree of life is placed in the middle, in the center. And we know the tree of life is symbolic of Torah. Torah says, etch haim he, the Torah is a tree of life to those who grab hold of it. And therefore, history has a goal. If that's God's agenda and that's God's plan, history has a goal. History is marching toward the fulfillment of this goal, which is for mankind to realize and actualize our potential. We have the potential to achieve greatness. And greatness is measured spiritually in knowledge of God and closeness to God. Number two, when God launches the Jewish people, we see this in the book of Genesis chapter 12, where God says to Abraham, go to the land where I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, God says to Abraham. I will bless you and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing. That's what Abraham is told. You're not to become a people just to be a separate people for no other reason than being separate and different. You are here to be a blessing. And God says, and all the families of the earth will bless themselves by you. And that is our role in history. The Jewish people are here to be a blessing to the rest of the world. And ultimately that means that we are here to help the world achieve the goals that God has set for the world. That is our role in history. History will reach its intended destination through the work of the Jewish people. Number three, there's a little book called Safer Hamitzvotakatan, appropriately. The book, the small book of commandments. We know from our tradition that the Torah has 613 commandments. The question is, what are those commandments? What is the definitive listing of those commandments? And there are numerous lists. Maimonides has the most famous composition of these 613, but there are different lists. They don't all agree on the commandments. So one of these works is called the Safer Hamitzvotakatan, the small book of commandments. And this book assumes, this book assumes that if we are going to be asked whether or not we awaited the salvation, the coming of the messianic age, so this book assumes we would not be asked this question. It would not be on our final exam unless there was some prior obligation. He assumes that there must be some prior obligation in the Torah that requires us to believe in the coming of the messianic age. And he finds this, and he asserts that the source of this requirement is embedded in the first of the 10 commandments. The Nochi Hashem Elokechah Asher Hotsai-Sichah Me'eret Mitzrayim Me'beis Avadim. I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery. And the Safer Mitzvotakatan assumes that if God in his mercy redeemed us from the Egyptian bondage, then obviously we have to believe that he will redeem us in the future exiles as well. It simply makes sense. If we have a precedent that God redeems from exile, then the Safer Mitzvotakatan says that we have to assume that God will redeem us in the end, in the ultimate exile. We actually see the word Anohi, that's the first word in this first of the 10 commandments, Anohi, I am. So this word Anohi is used by God to reassure Jacob. When Jacob had to descend to Egypt, when we find the famine in the land of Canaan, there's no more food to support Jacob and his family. Jacob has to go down to Egypt, which is not where he wanted to go. He knew the promised land was Israel. He didn't want to go down to Egypt and God reassures him. And God says in Genesis chapter 46, Anohi, I will descend with you. God says to Jacob, I will descend with you. I'm gonna go down with you into your exile and I will surely bring you up. So God says to Jacob, not only am I gonna go down with you into your exile, I'm gonna bring you up back from your exile. And that same word Anohi introduces the final redemption. We know that in the book of Malachi, the last of the minor prophets in chapter three, verse 23, the promise is Hinei Anohi Sholeach Lachem et Eliyahu Hanavi. Hinei, behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord, which is the messianic age. The time when God is going to be one and his name will be one, that's the day of the Lord. It's not talking about a 24-hour day. It's talking about an era, an epoch. And that's the day that the Bible speaks about. One day, God will be one in his world. And so the prophet says, behold, Anohi, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet who is going to announce the coming of the Messiah before that great and awesome day. Rashi, the great commentary from France about a thousand years ago, actually tells us this is the meaning of the famous declaration that we make from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four. Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. What does that mean? Shema Yisrael here, oh Israel, listen, Israel. Adonai Elohenu Adonai Hashem is our God. Adonai Echad, God is one. And Rashi explains what this means is it's actually eschatological. It's speaking about the future. It's saying, listen, Israel, Adonai Elohenu, God is our God. We as the Jewish people, Israel has a relationship with God, a knowledge of God. The whole world isn't there yet. And so this verse in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four says, and ultimately, Rashi says this word is sort of implied in the verse, Adonai Echad, God will be one. Not that God is one, that God ultimately will be one as the prophet Zechariah says, the prophet Zechariah says, Bayom HaHu Ye Adonai Echad Ushmorechad. In that day, God will be one and his name will be one, meaning every human being will know God. And that is the hope that's embedded in this verse that we say twice a day, listen, Israel, Hashem is our God, but ultimately, that knowledge of God will spread to the entire world. As we approach the end of the five books of Moses, in the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, God promises that he will return the Jewish people to their homeland from their exile. One of the great prophecies of the Messianic Age, which is repeated by almost all the prophets, is that the Jewish people who will be scattered through the ends of the world, God will return them and bring them back to their homeland. And that is stated very clearly and unambiguously in the 30th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. The prophet Isaiah in the 42nd chapter and the 49th chapter says that the people of Israel are to be an or lagoyim and light to the nations. That is our mandate, that is our job description. We're supposed to be a light to the nations. And Isaiah promises in the 60th chapter that one day the nations of the world will come to your light. It's been a long history and the Jewish people have not been loved yet in the world. We're most often rejected, despised, vilified, hated, persecuted. But the Bible promises one day the world is going to get it. One day the world is going to understand. One day the world, God says, will come to your light. And this is reflected in numerous passages throughout the Bible. The prophet Zechariah, Zechariah says in the 8th chapter, verse 23, that 10 people of all the languages of the nations of the world will take hold of the corner of the garment of a Jew. Saying, let us go with you for we've heard that God is with you. When you read this today, if you read it 100 years ago, you would think that the prophet Zechariah was on LSD. What is he talking about? That the whole world is in the grab hold of a Jew and say we want to follow you, we've heard God is with you. Our experience has been not like that. Our experience has been we want to take hold of you to persecute you, to destroy you. And yet the prophet says this is what is going to happen. The world is going to come to us and say we want to follow you because we know that God is with you. Now one of the striking features of the Tanakh, of our Bible, when it comes to the messianic concept, is that there is very little in our Tanakh that specifically and explicitly describes the person of the Messiah. You will not find many passages in the Bible that specifically speak about the person of the Messiah. Maybe there are a dozen. But there are a tremendous number of passages in the Bible, hundreds, that speak about what the world will look like when the Messiah is here. That is the focus of the Bible. What is the world going to look like when the Messiah is here? And that's how we will know who the Messiah is. Not by describing the Messiah, what can you say? The Bible says he'll be righteous. Plenty of righteous Jews. The Bible says he'll be wise. There are many wise people. The Bible says he'll be a descendant of King David. There are many descendants of King David. So describing the Messiah, it's not that helpful. So the Bible never tells us he'll be 6'2". It's gonna have blonde hair or whatever. The Bible doesn't do that. The Bible gives us incredible detail about what the world is going to look like when he's here. And the way we're going to know who the Messiah is by looking out our window, by reading the New York Times or the Globe and Mail, and seeing how these things happen. Have the Jewish people returned to their homeland? Has the temple been rebuilt in Jerusalem? Are the Jews living in peace in the world? Have all the weapons of war been destroyed? As Isaiah says, they're gonna beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. The Bible speaks about the Jewish people, as I said, being a light to the nations and spreading the knowledge of God, and that's gonna make peace throughout the world. So think about it. The Bible is describing something which is mind-blowing. That God's people, we're gonna come back to their homeland. We're gonna return to God spiritually. We're gonna return to our land. We're going to rebuild our temple. We're gonna live there in peace. We're gonna be able to actually fulfill our function of being a light to the nations, and that light's going to spread and bring monotheism to the whole world, which will bring peace to the entire world. That's incredible. That doesn't happen, as we say in Yiddish, every Monday can done a stick. It doesn't happen all the time. When it happens, it'll be mind-blowing. That's front page news of every paper and website on the planet. And when that happens, everyone is going to notice. That's why the Bible never speaks about believing in the Messiah. You don't have to believe in it. You'll see it with your own eyes. And so we will know who the Messiah is because when the world is transformed, all we need to do is to see who is reigning, who is sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem. That's the Messiah. And this might be why the Talmud's question is not Tsipisa l-Mashiach. The Bible doesn't, the Talmud doesn't ask that. Did you look forward to the coming of the Messiah? The Talmud says Tsipisa li-Ishua. Did you look forward to the salvation of the world? Did you look forward to the messianic age? Because that's what the Bible ultimately describes, the messianic age. But the truth is you cannot separate the Messiah from the messianic age. They're like twins. Now there actually seem to be passages in the Bible that teach that we are supposed to await the coming of the final redemption. The prophet Habakkuk, chapter two, verse three says, for there is yet another vision about the appointed time. It will speak of the end and it will not deceive, though it may tarry. It may tarry. It may take a little bit of time. Await it, await it, wait for it. For it will surely come. It will not delay. So we're told in the scriptures itself to await the coming of the redemption. Now these concepts are codified in Jewish law by Maimonides in his mission to Torah in his great code of Jewish law in the Laws of Kings, chapter 11, verse one, where Maimonides says anyone who does not believe in him in the Messiah or does not long for his coming, if you don't look forward to the coming of Messiah, they deny not only the prophets, you're not only denying the teachings of the prophets, but you're denying the Torah of Moses as well because the redemption is promised by Moses as well in the five books of Moses. Maimonides here is not only requiring a belief that the Messiah and the Messianic age are coming. It's not only that we're required to believe that this is a concept that's going to happen. Maimonides says we are required to anxiously await this promise. We're supposed to anxiously await for it to happen and believe that it can happen at any moment. The Talmud actually teaches in tractate Eruv in 43 that if a person takes an oath that he will become a Nazir, a Nazarite, on the day that the Messiah comes, he cannot drink wine on that day because the Messiah might show up on that day. Maimonides not only taught about this in his mission to Torah, in his great code of Jewish law, but in his commentary to the Talmud, to tractate Sanhedrin, he writes in his commentary to the chapter at the end of the tractate a commentary which becomes the basis of what is known as the 13 Principles of Faith of Maimonides. And he writes there that even though he may delay, even though the Messiah may delay, nevertheless, I anticipate that he could come any day. The Chafetzchayim, I grew up with a grandmother who told me stories about the Chafetzchayim all the time, a saintly rabbi who passed away at the age of 95 in 1933. My grandmother spoke in Yiddish. I didn't understand a word she was saying. And I would smile and nod, but I remember hearing about the Chafetzchayim, the Chafetzchayim. We'll have a chance to hear about him a lot tonight because the Chafetzchayim was someone who was infused with a passion for the idea of the Messiah's coming. And he wrote a little pamphlet, a booklet called Sipisa Liashua, Looking Forward to the Salvation. He says there that the word Sipisa to look forward is related to the word Sofeh. But Sofeh is a lookout, someone who's a lookout. And a lookout is always patiently waiting for any moment for what they're trying to look for. A sentry, a guard, a lookout, a Sofeh, of Avram Yitzchakuk, the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel. He says that we have to hope even when there are no imminent signs of its fulfillment. Meaning that we have to look and hope, even though it doesn't look like anything's on the horizon. And Rav Kuk writes, just as a lookout doesn't leave his post, even when everything is quiet and nothing seems to be happening, but they stand ready to detect any enemy movement and to react to it at a moment's notice. So we must maintain a state of constant alertness and readiness so we may respond when the time comes. This was written way before the advent of soldiers manning ICBM tunnels. I recently saw a documentary about people who are underground for years with these intercontinental ballistic missiles. And they stand watching, they're on guard, waiting for the time when God forbid they may have to launch those missiles. It could be a very boring kind of a distance. What do they do for years and years and decades? It's 50 years, more than 50 years that these people are sitting in the silos manning these silos, looking out. Rav Kuk wrote this more than 50 years before American soldiers were stationed on the border of North and South Korea, looking patiently, waiting for any sign of enemy movement. And we know how scary it is there and how it could be very boring to sit and wait for years and years and years. And yet that's what it's so fair does. That's what a lookout does. The Khafetz Chaim offers an example of a seriously ill person. Imagine someone who is deadly ill and they know that a doctor is supposed to bring a cure for them. And so this person anxiously awaits for the doctor to show up. Any footsteps that this person hears, any creeping around the door, any knock on the door brings tremendous excitement. And any delay of this doctor showing up does not diminish their anticipation. As a matter of fact, the more the doctor delays in coming, the more excitedly this patient looks forward to the doctor showing up at any moment. Imagine the wife of a prisoner of war held for years and years and the woman does not know if and when her husband is going to be released. And she will sit and wait patiently and anxiously for the day that her husband will be released. I tell a story that in 1995, I went on a speaking tour of South Africa. And one of my stock was in Cape Town. I spoke at the university there and afterwards they took me to a house where I was being billeted. And I went to bed early. I was exhausted. I got up about midnight to go to the washroom and I couldn't get out. I was locked into this bathroom. It's crazy. How did this happen? I don't know. But what am I gonna do? Everybody in the house was asleep. I will not wake people up from their sleep. As a matter of fact, the Talmud says it's a horrible sin. It's called Gezelshaina to steal someone's sleep, to wake them up, God forbid. But what am I gonna do? I can't knock as loud as I want. So I had to wait. Thank God they had a Newsweek magazine in there. I think I read it about 400 times. But I had to wait from the back midnight until I heard the first pitter-patter of feet or people speaking was eight o'clock in the morning. And waited eight hours to get out of that bathroom. That was brutal. You know, the Talmud says that we're not supposed to predict the time the Messiah is going to come. You're not supposed to come up with predictions and calculations. I know the date, I know the year. And the funny thing is that almost all of our great rabbis predicted when it's going to happen. And one of these great rabbis was the Malbun, who lived about 150 years ago approximately. And he made a prediction. And he defended his prediction. He told a story. He said there was a father and a son that were going on a long journey. And they're traveling for many, many weeks. And after all this traveling, the son turns to the father and says, we're almost there yet. And the father says, not yet. And they travel another few weeks. And the son says, we're almost there yet. Not yet. Travel some more. We're almost there yet. No, not yet. A few more weeks. We're almost there yet. Father smacks him across the face. So the son goes flying off the wagon. He dusts himself off, gets back on the wagon. Now he keeps his mouth shut. He figured out that it's becoming annoying already. I asked four or five times. My father doesn't want to hear about it anymore. They travel another two weeks. They see someone on the side of the road. And the father says, are we almost there yet? So the son says, what's going on? When I asked the question, you smacked me in the face. And now you ask the same question. And the father says, when I asked the question, we were almost there. So the Malbom says that when the Talmud says you should not make predictions, they were saying that you shouldn't predict if you're not almost there. But the Malbom figured that we're almost there. And therefore, one of the reasons why it's so important to not give up and to watch carefully and to look with anticipation and excitement is because we're at the end of a long journey now. Our sages have said that all the signs that Talmud gives that will predate the coming of the Messiah, all the signs have been fulfilled already. The Talmud says, for example, that before the coming of the Messiah, chutzpe jazge, chutzpe is gonna be all over the world. We live in such a world. When I grew up, you would not think about talking back to a parent. To talk back to a principal of a school. Today, talking back is normal. Today, chutzpe is the name of the game. And the Talmud gives many other signs they've all been fulfilled. The Talmud says that we actually have a timeline. We're now in the year 5,777. The Talmud says that the Messianic Age will come by the year 6,000. We're almost there. And so if we're almost there, at the end of this very long journey, our history goes back over 3,000 years. So why give up now? We've come so far. Now this hope and anticipation for the coming of the Messianic Age is specifically articulated in the 15th blessing of the Shimonah Esrae. The formal Jewish prayer is called the 18. It's really a misnomer because it originally had 18 blessings. They added a 19th, so now we have 19 blessings. It's recited three times a day. It's also called the Amidah because we stand up when we say this prayer. It's also called the silent meditation because we don't say it out loud, whisper it to ourselves. But in the 15th blessing of the Shimonah Esrae, we say, may the offshoot of your servant, David, soon flower and may his pride be raised high by your salvation, for we wait for your salvation all day. We express this, we are awaiting your salvation all day. Blessed are you Hashem who makes the glory of salvation flourish. But the truth is that of these 19 blessings of the Shimonah Esrae, 10 of them are blessings that look forward to the Messianic Age, to the redemption. And the truth is that so many of our prayers are prayers of expectation and hope for the coming of the Messianic Age. The Kaddish, one of the most well-known Jewish prayers, said so many times during the prayer services. One of the lines says, may he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of all of the house of Israel, swiftly and soon. It should come swiftly and soon. In the aleinu, which we end every Jewish prayer service, we say therefore we place our hope in you Hashem, our God, that we may soon see the glory of your power when the world will be perfected under the sovereignty of the Almighty, when all of humanity will call on your name. In Avinu Malkenu, one of the most famous Jewish prayers, said many times during the year, one of the prayers in that long prayer is our Father, our King, Avinu Malkenu, let salvation soon flourish for us. In the Bekatamazon, the Grace After Meals, we say in one of the blessings, may Jerusalem, the holy city, be rebuilt soon in our time. In the Kaddushah, the holiness prayer that we say on Shabbat and holidays, we say, when will you reign in Zion, God, soon in our days, forever and ever, may you dwell there, may our eyes see your kingdom. And this is a major theme, if you go through the prayer book for the high holidays, this theme of the perfection of the world under the kingship of God is the major theme in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah, the high holidays. Now there are many people throughout our history who have personified the ideal of yearning for messianic salvation and redemption. Ruf Shmuel of Salant, during his prayer of the Shmone Esrae each day three times, just prior to saying that 15th of the blessings, Et Tzemach David Avdeche, praying for Messiah to come before he would say those words, he would look to his right and he would look to his left. He paused and he looked to his right and he looked to his left. His students asked him what this meant. And he said, the Messiah could come today and I don't wanna recite a blessing unnecessarily. I'm looking to see if he's here already. If he's here already, I need to pray for him to come. It's told that the Chavitzchayim and other great sages always had a suitcase packed. And ready to go, they were ready to go at a moment's notice. Ruf Moshe Tidalbaum, one of the great Hasidic masters, he said, if I had known in my youth that in my old age, Messiah had still not come, I would not have physically survived due to the pain his delay would have caused me. I wouldn't have made it this far in life. However, it's only because of my trust and hope that he will come that I have survived until this day. Rehber of Radeshitz, a great Hasidic rabbi, once stated in in, in the morning he asked the innkeeper, where did you get that magical clock? He said, every time that clock chimed, I felt a surge of elation and I started dancing. The innkeeper said it was left by a grandson of the Chose of Lublin. When he couldn't afford to pay for his room. So Rehber understood that this must have been the clock of the Chose himself. And he said, usually a clock is depressing. It's depressing when you listen to a clock ticking because it tells us that moments of time and life are passing us by. Another piece of time is gone. He said, but the seer of Lublin, the Chose, he lived each moment of his life focused on the coming of the Messiah. And so each time his clock chimed, it indicated that we are one moment closer to the redemption. Now, if we don't yearn for the redemption, if we don't look forward to the coming of the redemption, it shows that we are totally out of touch and disconnected from God's goals for the world. God has a plan for the world. And if we don't hope for that to happen, it shows how disconnected we are from God's agenda. The world is not supposed to be a place that is war-torn and that's dangerous to live in. The world is not supposed to be a place where you have to take off your shoes before you get on a plane. That's not supposed to be the kind of world we're living in. The world is not supposed to be a place where there's widespread ignorance and illiteracy of basic Jewish texts among so many hundreds of thousands of Jewish people. That's not supposed to be the kind of world we're living in. Where a huge percentage of Jewish people today are practicing non-Jewish religions. That's not supposed to be the world we're living in. The world we're living in today is a world where we have access to our homeland. But far too many Jewish people have no interest in living there. That's not the kind of world that God wants. There's an old parable that's told of a God-fearing Jew, but a simple Jew, living on the plains of Russia in the 19th century. One day he comes home and he tells his wife that the rabbi said that soon the Messiah is going to come and take all of us to the land of Israel. His wife said, that's terrible. Don't we already have enough problems? Who's going to tend to our chickens? Who's going to watch our geese? You better go back to the rabbi and tell him to forget about it. It's going to be a total disaster. So the man went back to the rabbi with his wife's message. And the rabbi told the farmer to go home and tell your wife that any day the Cossacks can come. And they can plunder and steal all of your fowl from you. They'll take all your chickens and geese anyway. Clearly, we'd be much better off when the Messiah will come and take us all back to the land of Israel. So the farmer went home and told us to his wife. And she thought about it. And she admitted that the rabbi had a good point. So suddenly she exclaimed, I have a perfect solution. Let the Messiah come and let him take all the Cossacks to the land of Israel. And everything will be perfectly fine. We also need to long for the coming of the Messiah because God's honor is diminished in an unredeemed world. One of the tactics that Moses used repeatedly when he argued with God to forgive the Jewish people of their sins was that what will the world say if the Jewish people don't make it to the land of Israel? All the nations are gonna say you're an impotent God. You were powerless to redeem your people. How are you gonna look God? It'll be terrible for your PR. If you don't redeem your people and take them to the land of Israel, you've got to forgive the people of Israel. The honor of God is a critical idea in the Torah. David, King David felt scandalized that he was living in a beautiful palace and yet there was no permanent temple for God's presence. When the Jews came to the land of Israel, they were still taking that temporary portable sanctuary they built in the desert when they came out of Egypt. It wasn't a permanent dwelling place. It was temporary and for hundreds of years that's where the presence of God had to be in the land of Israel. And after hundreds of years, David said, this is ridiculous. How could it be that I, the king of Israel, am living in a beautiful palace and God is in a temporary portable shelter? He felt that it was a disgrace to God. One day, Shraiga Fival Mendelewitz was teaching the book of Psalms and he read to his students the 84th Psalm verse three, 84th chapter, my soul yearns indeed it pines for the courtyards of Hashem, for the courtyards of the holy temple. But when he reached the very next verse which says, even the bird finds a home and the free bird its nest, tears round down his cheeks and he lamented, everything has its place except for the shrine, except for God's presence which remains in exile. So how could we not pray for the end of exile if God's honor is disgraced? Another vital reason for looking forward to the messianic age is according to Rev. Ibeshitz that even if we have no other merits, if we as a people have no other merits to warrant the redemption, God might send the messiah simply in the merit of our yearning and expecting of him. Rev. Shimon Schwab, a great leader of German Jewry in North America, responded to the question of why the Jewish people today deserve for God to send the messiah. And he wrote, I would answer because our faith in the coming of the messiah and our continued trust despite constant disappointments, normally a person who is disappointed over and over again would give up. Consider a woman who hears that her husband is coming home after not having heard from him for many years. She had hoped that he would return alive from the war every day for a full year. She went to the airport to await his arrival, but he did not come. That is when she finally gave up. Messiah has not yet come. Yet, he has not given any signs of life. Imagine what that means. My father and your father and my mother and your mother and our grandparents and great-grandparents year after year at the Passover Seder. And on Yom Kippur said, Le Shana Hababah Yushalayim, next year in Jerusalem, for thousands of years, that's what our parents and grandparents expressed. Nevertheless, they did not stop singing about the rebuilding of the beta-mictus, the holy temple. And if it does not materialize, we will still not give up. This requires immense faith. And if we ask what our generation can say for itself, as to why it deserves the coming of Messiah, we reply that we deserve it for only one reason. We did not give up. We waited patiently and we are still waiting, no matter how many disappointments and backslidings we had to experience, we don't know the word Yehush giving up. We don't know the phrase to give up. We all know there are reports that when many Jews were entering the gas chambers in Hitler's Holocaust, they were singing that passage from Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith, Anima Amin Be'emunesh Lema. I believe with perfect faith they sang in the coming of the Messiah. And even though he may tarry, I still await his coming. Now because yearning for the Messiah is so critical, the Chafetzchai am taught that all of the many troubles that have befallen us, from which we have still not been saved, they are because we did not scream and increase our prayers in response to those troubles. If we had prayed properly, the Chafetzchai am said, we would not have returned empty-handed. And it's not enough that we pray from the liturgical prayers in our prayer books three times each day. The Chafetzchai am said several times each day we must pour out our own personal requests in solitude, in our own homes, in our own language, out of the depths of our heart. He says such prayers would emerge with very deep intent and with broken hearts. Such prayers will certainly not go unanswered. We need to show that we really desire the coming of the Messiah and are preparing for him. We need to show it, not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. They tell a story of two couples that were childless for many years. And these two couples each went to get blessings from a great Rebbe. And the Rebbe blessed each couple that they should have a child. After a year, one of the couples became pregnant. And they had a child. And the other couple didn't. And that lasted for many, many years. And finally they went back to the Rebbe. And they said, Rebbe, you blessed both of us that we should have a child. They had a child a year later and we still are barren. Why is that? And the Rebbe said, maybe because after the blessing they went out and purchased a baby carriage. They expressed their faith that the blessing will materialize. The British of Rebbe, living in the 18th century in the invitation to his son's wedding, said that the wedding will take place in Jerusalem. If, unfortunately, for some reason, the Messiah does not come, arrangements will be made for the wedding to take place in Berdichev. The Chafetz Chaim in his pamphlet that I mentioned before, see, peace to Yeshua, says that if we really take the idea seriously of the messianic age potentially coming now, we have to prepare for it. And he advocated studying the portions of the Talmud dealing with the sacrificial system of the temple in Jerusalem. For thousands of years we have not practiced the sacrificial system. We don't even know what to do anymore. And he said if we take this seriously, that we can have our temple, we have to learn these laws and train the priests so they will know what to do. And so, following in his advice, today there are rabbinical schools that focus their course of study on these sections of the Talmud. They do exactly that. The Gaona Vilna, the great tourist sage of the 18th century taught that the redemption will only take place if we start the process ourselves. And he believed that settling the land of Israel was a vital part of this. Even though he tried and was unsuccessful to move to Israel, many of his students made the difficult journey back then and settled in the Holy Land. Toward the end of his life, the Havitz Chaim grew increasingly despondent over the fate of European Jewry. Don't forget he passed away in the year 1933. And he probably had premonitions about what would be coming soon. He probably had premonitions about the coming cataclysm in Europe. And he was into his 90s already. And once Shabbat with his family and disciples around him, he said, we have to demonstrate our overwhelming desire for the Messiah. And he lowered his voice and he said, I must go to Havitz Chaim Ozer in Vilna who was a great leader back then of world Jewry to discuss what to do. As soon as Shabbat ended, the Havitz Chaim began making plans for this journey. He was over 90 years old. He could barely get out of his chair. And his students and his family were very nervous and fearful that he might not even survive the journey. However, he said this goal was worthy of sacrificing his life. Now let's think for a moment about the kinds of things that we ourselves today grow impatient about. I'm speaking about myself now, but I suspect this applies to many people. I do not like having to wait on the phone for customer service for a half hour. To me that half hour is torturous. What's taking so long? What is taking so long? I do not like getting stuck in traffic. I do not enjoy slow lines for checkout at the grocery store. And I don't like delays at the airport. I flew back to Toronto today from the United States. And after getting through very long security line, I found out that my flight was delayed for over an hour. When the plane finally landed, they didn't let us off for 20 minutes because they couldn't get a gate. And then when we finally got out of the plane, I discovered that there were only two agents on duty to process all the people at immigration coming out of that flight. It seemed that it took forever. A whole day of schlepping and delays and waiting. My wife and I had a package delivered that we were waiting for for a long time. When we got it, this is what the side of the box said. Just what you've been waiting for. What are we really waiting for in our lives? What are the kinds of things that we get anxious about? And we get nervous about and we get upset, why is it taking so long? Why is it taking so long? What are we really waiting for? And why aren't we impatient about the Messiah not being here? Why are we not impatient? If I get impatient about having to wait an hour for a flight, why am I not similarly impatient about the fact that the world is not redeemed? I think part of the problem is that for many of us, the entire promise of the Messiah and a redeemed world seems like a dream, like science fiction. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem possible. And we give up. We feel it hasn't happened by now. It won't happen. They tell a tale about a small town in Europe that hired someone as a lookout for the coming of the Messiah. Well, hire this guy. He'll be on the lookout for when the Messiah comes. And they told this guy, look, the pay isn't great, but it is wonderful job security. Some of us feel that if the Messiah did not come to previous generations that we're much more worthy than we are, why would he come for us? And we fail to realize that history is a continual process. It's a building project of our people over time and our efforts and our merits are cumulative. And we are like midgets that are standing on the shoulders of giants. So maybe we're not as worthy of previous generations but we can place ourselves on their shoulders. Ruf Chaim Vitale, the great Kabbalist writing in the 16th century, said that in our generation he knew what it was gonna be like before the coming of the Messiah. The Talmud speaks about how low the generation is going to be. And he taught that in such a generation when there are such huge challenges to godliness and to holiness, he says even minor acts, even small virtuous things that we do are more weighty than the great deeds of prior generations. However, an issue of even greater concern is that it seems that we to a great extent don't appreciate the diminished and compromised world that we're living in. It doesn't seem to bother us and we don't appreciate what we're missing. Ruf Shimon Schwab offered this parable. He said, imagine you're at a wedding, everyone is well dressed, the band is playing, the photographers are snapping away, the smorgasbord is wonderful, everyone's having a great time, but something is missing. The bride hasn't shown up yet. And no matter how attractive the surroundings are, most people would realize that a wedding without a bride is not a wedding. It's nothing. Well, the truth is the world without Mashiach, an unredeemed world is not a world. It's like a wedding without a bride. The only difference is that we don't even realize the bride is missing. We go through our lives, we don't even realize the bride is missing. We don't appreciate the loss of our holy temple in Jerusalem. We don't appreciate that God's presence is no longer palpable in the world. We don't appreciate the loss of having access to the Urim Vittumim and prophecy that gave us clarity about God's will. Ravmeir Shapiro, I'm sorry, Ravmosha Shapiro, who was a great tourist sage just passed away a few months ago, pointed out that Ravchayim Vitaal, again writing in the 16th century, he wrote a book called the Shaarei Kedusha, The Gates of Holiness. And he wrote that he witnessed individuals in his generation who were not successful in attaining Ruach Hakodesh, the Holy Spirit. And so he wrote his work to help them achieve Ruach Hakodesh. Rav Shapiro notes that if a book like that came out today, how to achieve the Holy Spirit in your life, people would think it was a joke. That gives us a sense as to what we are lacking today in exile. Part of this I believe is because we've become used to exile. We're used to it. This also happened after 210 years of slavery in Egypt. It became the new normal. That's why when God said he was going to redeem them, God said, I will take you out from under the Sivlot Mitzrayim. I'm going to take you out from under the burdens of Egypt. But the Gary Rebbe said the word Sivlot sounds like the word Savlanut, leaves bold. I'm going to take you out from your Savlanut, from the fact that you were putting up with Egypt. You became patient with it. You tolerated it. That was the problem. Not only were you enslaved, you were tolerating it. You were putting up with it. You were used to it. And that's what happens to us. We become used to our exile. The darkness of this exile is so severe that we don't even realize we're in darkness. The Baal Shem Tov said that at the end of the age there's going to be a double concealment. A double concealment. God's presence is going to be concealed. But then the fact that God's presence is concealed will be concealed from us. We're not even going to realize we're in exile. And I think that a large part of the problem is that we are living in a very comfortable exile. It's a golden, gilded cage. The materialistic world that we're living in has a way of drawing us in and trapping us like a spider's web. We have to have more. We have to have the latest. We have to be successful. The world is a competition. The successful person is the person who has wealth. The person does not have wealth, they're not successful. We don't measure success today in any other way. That's our world. And so the question is, do we really want to live? Do we really want to live in a world that is more intensely spiritual? Do we really want that? Do we want the kind of life that the Mashiach is going to bring? What does my manani say? At the end of his mission to Torah, he says, the sages and prophets did not yearn for the days of Mashiach out of a desire to control the whole world. We were not looking for the Messiah to come so the Jews will be on top. He says, nor was it in order to rule over the nations of the world. Nor was it in order to be exalted among the nations of the world. Nor was it in order to eat, drink and be merry. That's not what we're looking forward to. It was only in order to be free to focus on the Torah. That's what the Messiah is supposed to do, to make a world of peace where we're not distracted from the Torah. And so we should be able to spend our time delving into the wisdom of the Torah without disruptions or distractions. Do we really want that? And the question is, what do we do with our free time now? We don't need the Messiah to come to have free time. Every single person has free time. But do we fill it up with holiness and spirituality and Torah and godliness? Or do we keep on pursuing other things? They tell a parable about a poor man and he wasn't able to support his family. And he heard that if he traveled to a faraway island, it would be a place that was filled with precious jewels. There's an island where that's all they have is diamonds. So he saves every penny and he borrows and he gets himself a little tiny rowboat. And he goes on this perilous journey far away to this island. In the hope that maybe he'll be able to bring back some riches to be able to support his family. And he gets to the island and it's true. The island is full of diamonds. So he says to himself, I need a bigger boat. I don't wanna just bring back a few diamonds on this tiny little rowboat. Gotta buy a bigger boat for myself. I'm also hungry, I gotta buy lunch and dinner. So he picks up some diamonds off of the shore and he goes into a restaurant and he orders a big meal and he puts the diamonds on the table by the cash register. And the fellow looks at him and laughs and said, are you crazy? It's not worth anything here. Everybody has diamonds that roll over the place. You can't buy food with that. This guy gets so upset. What am I gonna do? What is valuable here? He says, you know, there's a little tiny fish that swims off of the coast of this island. It's very hard to catch. But these fish are very valuable. People on this island love these fish. If you could figure out how to catch some of those fish, you'll be very wealthy. So the man says, okay, gets into his rowboat and he takes a few days, catches one of these little fish. He gets better at it, catches some more. He goes and he buys himself after a few months a big ship and he fills this big ship up with these little fish that he's catching. He's the richest guy in the island. He's the biggest expert in catching these little tiny fish. And he's so happy after he fills his big ship up with these little fish, he starts sailing back home. The people there, they're home, they're waiting for him. Already two years, they're waiting and they see a fish coming towards the land. Not if they see the big ship. And they hope it's their father and their husband. And they look and they're trying to see, is it him? And as the ship gets closer to the shore, everyone's smelling, what's that horrible smell? Can't figure it out. They don't see any jewels or gold or diamonds on the ship. They start seeing that the whole ship is filled with these little fish. And this man comes off the ship and he's got a big smile. Look at what I have. I was the richest guy on that island. And they look at him like he's mad. What are you talking about? Little smelly fish. And then he gets shocked into realizing, what did I do? I went there to that island to bring back diamonds and I got so distracted, that I brought back a whole shipload of little fish. And he got very, very depressed. Until he reached into his pocket, he found one or two diamonds that he had put there the first day when he was on the trip. But that's what happens to us in this world. We come into this world, we're supposed to pick up diamonds. We're supposed to pick up jewels. We're supposed to grow in holiness, in spirituality, in Torah, we're supposed to grow as human beings. And we get distracted by all of the riches of this world. But the truth is that all the gold and all the stocks and all the big houses and all the fancy cars are worth very little ultimately. You can't take it with you. I wanna conclude by sharing a famous passage from the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 98A. Yeshua Ben-Levi asked Elijah the prophet, when will the Messiah come? When is the Messiah going to come? And Elijah answered him and said, go ask the Messiah yourself. Don't ask me, ask the Messiah. So Yeshua Ben-Levi said, and where is he? Where is the Messiah? So Elijah responded at the gate of the city. The Messiah is sitting at the gate of the city. And Yeshua Ben-Levi said, and how will I recognize him? How am I gonna recognize him? So Elijah responded, he is sitting among porpers afflicted with leprosy. He's sitting among porpers, lepers. He says, all of those other lepers, they untie and tie all their bandages at the same time. So what do the other porpers do? When they have to change their bandages, they take off all the bandages, every one on their body, they clean themselves and then they put the back all the bandages on. But the Messiah, he unties and ties his bandages one at a time. Because the Messiah says, maybe I will be needed at any moment. I've gotta be ready to go at any moment. Therefore I deal with my bandages in this way. So I will not be delayed. So Yeshua Ben-Levi went to the Messiah and he said to him, Shalom alecha rabbi umori, please upon you my master and my teacher. The Messiah said to him, peace be upon you son of Levi. Yeshua Ben-Levi asked him, when is the master coming? When are you coming? And the Messiah answered him today, I'm coming today. So Yeshua Ben-Levi went back to Elijah the prophet and Elijah asked him, what did he say to you? Yeshua Ben-Levi answered, he said, peace be upon you son of Levi. And Elijah said to him, he has assured you and your father that you are both destined to enter the world to come. But Yeshua Ben-Levi said to Elijah, he lied to me. The Messiah lied to me. For he said, I'm coming today and he did not come. So Elijah said to Yeshua Ben-Levi, this is what he meant when he said he's coming today. He was referring to a verse from the book of Psalms which says, hayam today, if you will listen to his voice. There's a verse which says today, if you will but listen to his voice. And we learn two important things from this passage in the Talmud. Number one, that we can change our situation very quickly and very easily. All we need to do is wake up and listen to what the Messiah is calling us to do and listen to the voice of God. What is God calling us to do? And they're calling us to just keep our eyes on the prize, to keep our eyes focused on why we're in this world and what we're supposed to be accomplishing. And this passage in the Talmud says that if we do this, the Messiah is waiting for us. It's not that we have to be waiting for the Messiah. The Messiah is waiting for us. And once we turn around, someone once said that the distance between here and redemption is like the distance between going from east to west. And the student said to his teacher, east to west, what a long journey. And his teacher said, no, all you need to do is turn around. And all we need to do in life is just to stop, figure out where we are and turn around and get focused and we can bring the redemption. Let it come speedily in our days.