Hashem Awaits Moshiach: Personal and Collective Redemption

1“For Your salvation I hope, Hashem.”¹ Targum Yonasan ben Uziel renders it: “For the redemption of Moshiach ben Dovid, who is destined to redeem Bnei Yisrael and bring them out of exile, for that redemption my soul waits.” This needs a closer look. Suppose “for Your salvation” means the salvation of King Moshiach, for which we wait, that he come and redeem us. How, then, are we to read the rest of the verse, “I hope, Hashem”? Those words imply that the hope is for the salvation of the Holy One, blessed be He. If the verse speaks of Moshiach ben Dovid, as the Targum says, it would have been more precise to say, “For your salvation I hope to Hashem.”²

2Let us first cite a teaching of the Gemara: “Rava said: When a person is brought in for judgment, they say to him … ‘Did you anticipate the salvation?’” Rashi explains: “according to the words of the prophets.”³ What does Rashi mean? In its plain sense, “Did you anticipate the salvation?” means looking forward to King Moshiach. Why add “according to the words of the prophets”?

3Let us also cite a Mishnah in Avos: “Yehudah ben Teima says: Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and mighty as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven …” The Mishnah goes on: “May it be Your will, Hashem our God and God of our fathers, that the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt speedily in our days …”⁴ The difficulty is plain. What does Yehudah ben Teima's “Be bold as a leopard” have to do with the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash? And why did the sage of the Mishnah set a prayer in the middle of the Mishnah?

4aWe will explain this through the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on the verse “Gather and listen, sons of Yaakov, and listen to Yisrael your father.”⁵ The holy sefer Be'er Mayim Chaim, by R' Chaim of Chernowitz, discusses the verse “We have become orphans, and there is no father.”⁶ Why, it asks, does the verse say it twice, “orphans” and “there is no father,” when an orphan is by definition one who has no father? It explains that although we are “orphans” in exile, full of troubles and suffering, what pains us most is that “there is no father”: we have become distant from our Father in Heaven. As Chazal said, “Woe to the children who were exiled from their father's table.”⁷ We must feel that we lack a Father, and through this the words “Bring us back, our Father, to Your Torah, and draw us near, our King” will be fulfilled in us.⁸

4bThe same is true of “Gather and listen.” This verse speaks of Israel's redemption, for here Yaakov wished to reveal the end of days.⁹ To come to the redemption, we must first know that we have become distant from our Father and need to draw close to Him. This is “Gather … and listen to Yisrael your father”: you should know and recognize that you lack a Father. Those are my holy father's words.

5aTo explain all this, we may say as follows. The Midrash teaches: “Any redeemer who comes and speaks to Israel with a doubled ‘remembering’ is a true redeemer.”¹⁰ Why does the doubled wording of redemption matter so much that Chazal said of it in particular, “he is a true redeemer”? It seems that the answer lies in a well-known idea: there are two kinds of redemption, personal and collective. When a Jew distances himself from the Torah and the mitzvos and blemishes his keeping of the Torah, he is in a personal exile. Anyone who causes such a blemish is, Heaven forbid, like Bnei Yisrael in Egypt, who had sunk into the forty-nine gates of impurity, the lowest depths of defilement. Of this Chazal said, and the Rambam rules so: “A person is obligated to see himself as if he himself had left Egypt.”¹¹ He must see that he himself has left his own personal exile of Egypt. That is why we mention the Exodus from Egypt every day and at every time: so that each person draws the Exodus into himself, personally.

5bBesides this there is the collective redemption, for which we wait every day, longing for Moshiach to come. The personal and the collective redemptions depend on each other. When, with the help of the Holy One, blessed be He, each of us leaves his own personal exile of Egypt, there will surely be a collective redemption with the coming of the righteous redeemer. As Chazal tell us, R' Yehoshua ben Levi asked Moshiach, “When will the master come?” He told him, “Today …”¹² Later Eliyahu explained, “This is what he told you: ‘Today, if you will listen to His voice.’”¹³ And the salvation of Hashem, as it were, that the Shechinah should leave its exile, depends in turn on the collective redemption. We have said this several times, based on Chazal's words: “When Israel is in pain, what does the Shechinah say? ‘My head is heavy, my arm is heavy.’”¹⁴ It follows from what we have said that the redemption of the individual, the redemption of all Israel and the salvation of Hashem are all one, and each depends on the others.

6Now the Midrash we cited is clear. “Any redeemer who comes and speaks of a doubled ‘remembering,’” that is, of personal and collective redemption, “is a true redeemer.” For that is what the redemption of Israel is: the collective redemption depends on the personal one, and the two are one.

7Rashi's words, too, become clear: “Did you anticipate the salvation?” means “according to the words of the prophets.” One who truly wants and waits for the coming of Moshiach cannot be content with waiting for the collective redemption. He must also anticipate and work toward his own personal redemption, on which the collective redemption depends. That is the meaning of “according to the words of the prophets.” The prophets' way was to rebuke Israel and so arouse it to teshuvah, so that each one would come to his own personal redemption. So a person is asked whether he anticipated the words of the prophets, who rebuked Israel to return in complete teshuvah; that is, whether he repented and so brought about his own personal redemption. For we must return in complete teshuvah, and each of us must leave his individual exile. Through this we will bring near the collective redemption with the coming of Moshiach, and the Shechinah's going out of its exile.

8The two parts of the Mishnah now connect as well: Yehudah ben Teima's “Be bold as a leopard” and “May it be Your will that the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt.” When we take it upon ourselves to serve the Creator and begin to do so, fulfilling “Be bold as a leopard and light as an eagle,” we leave our personal exile of Egypt as a natural result. That brings the collective redemption closer, and the time of Moshiach draws near, which is included in the words “May it be Your will that the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt.” So the prayer “May it be Your will” belongs in this Mishnah.

9This also explains Targum Yonasan, which reads the verse “For Your salvation I hope, Hashem” as speaking of the salvation of Moshiach. When we are privileged to see Moshiach come, the Shechinah will be redeemed through his coming. This is “For your salvation I hope, Hashem”: as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself waits for the salvation of Moshiach. He seeks and asks of Klal Yisrael that we draw close to Him, that each one bring about his own personal redemption. Through this the salvation of Moshiach ben Dovid will come, and the Shechinah will no longer be in pain. That is the intent of the verse “For your salvation I hope, Hashem”: Hashem, as it were, is the One Who hopes for “your salvation,” the salvation of King Moshiach.

10aWe may say that this is the meaning of the words “I believe with complete faith in the coming of Moshiach, and even though he may tarry, nevertheless I will wait for him every day, that he will come.”¹⁵ At first glance, what does “even though he may tarry, nevertheless I will wait” mean? We do not know when the end of days will come. When Yaakov Avinu wished to reveal it, Heaven did not allow him.¹⁶ So what sense is there in saying that even if Moshiach seems to tarry we will wait for him anyway, when we do not know the time of his coming at all?

10bRather, the words acknowledge that it depends on us: when each of us leaves his own personal exile of Egypt, the son of Dovid will come. This is the meaning of “even though he may tarry”: we have not yet drawn close to Hashem, and so the coming of Moshiach is delayed. Even so, we entreat the Holy One, blessed be He, and resolve firmly before Him that from now on we will strive to draw close to Him. This is “nevertheless I will wait for him every day, that he will come.” “Every day” hints that through the days in which we serve Hashem we bring his coming near. It is like what two holy sefarim, the Tiferes Shlomo of Radomsk and the Zera Kodesh of Ropshitz, say on the words “And rebuild Yerushalayim, the holy city, speedily in our days.”¹⁷ By filling “our days” with avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem, blessed be He, they explain, we help bring about the building of the Beis HaMikdash and of Yerushalayim.

11May Hashem grant that we be privileged to set right our days, and our nights as well, and through this draw close to our Father in Heaven and be privileged to greet Moshiach speedily in our days. Amen.