The Talmud tells us that when a person dies and his soul goes to heaven, the heavenly court of judgment asks six questions: “Raba said, Did you do business with honesty and integrity? Did you fix set times for studying Torah? Did you participate in the commandment to be fruitful and multiply? Did you await the Redemption? Did you engage in the pursuit of wisdom? Did you have fear of Heaven?” (Shabbat 31a)
Each and every one of these questions is an investigation not just of our accomplishments, but of our overall character, values and goals in the lives we have led.
All very noble and important. But I would like to focus on the fourth question asked. “Did you await the Redemption?” …Await the redemption…await the redemption?! What do you mean, await the redemption?! We should storm the heavens and drag down the Messiah!
After 2,000 years of anti-Semitism, holocausts, pogroms, Crusades, killings, beatings, pillages, degradation, forced conversions, we are told to patiently, passively, wait for our salvation?
The tzaddik the Grandfather of Shpole would say, “Lord, save Your people before it is too late. Otherwise, there may not be anyone left to save.”
And now, in the United States and elsewhere, in this “good” exile, where most gentiles accept us or at least tolerate us, there is a spiritual genocide. We are losing hundreds of thousands of Jews to massive assimilation and intermarriage.
Rabbi Yaakov of Emden writes in his siddur that the last sentence immediately prior to the morning Shemoneh Esrei, “Tzur Yisrael kumah b’ezrat Yisrael, Rock of Israel, rise to the aid of Israel and redeem and liberate Judah and Israel,” should be said with a broken heart, pleading for salvation—yet in many shuls we sing it with a sweet melody.
The central paradigm of the Jewish religion is redemption. The Jewish religion is founded on the Divine assurance that the world will be perfected. The messianic dream is the great moving force of Jewish history and of the Jewish role in the world. In the future there will be no more violence. All mankind will recognize God is king and will follow the Jews to Yerushalayim and to the Third Temple.
Our prayers reflect a yearning for salvation, such as the 15th blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei, “Es Tzemach David,” that we say three times daily, the second paragraph of Aleinu L’Shabeach and the Ani Ma’amin. It is a foundational principle of Judaism.
How many of us await the Redemption daily? Do we think about and hope for the Moshiach? Do we even want the Moshiach? We are so busy with our daily routines that it almost seems that the answer is we don’t.
Too often we focus on our personal individual salvation. We think that the goal of being religious is to do mitzvot so one can be rewarded and arrive in Olam Haba, or heaven. Many of us understand that there is a second, grander, purpose to our lives—that we need to do kindness toward others, feed the poor, give charity, create righteous children, spread love and build moral, ethical, peaceful communities and a better world. In this way, we “force” the Messiah to come down and lead us. We see that not only must we “await” the Messianic era, we should do whatever we can to hasten it.
So when we die and go to heaven and the heavenly court of angels will ask us if we did our part to improve the world around us to lead to the ultimate redemption, what will we say?
Moshe of Ujhely waited his whole life for the Messiah; he never went to bed without reminding his sons: “If he comes, wake me right away.”
By Martin Polack
Martin Polack is a business analyst and is involved in adult Jewish education.
