How many times have we seen all these people online go crazy ‘speculating’ about Moshiach stuff?

Hands up: I was also doing that a lot the first ten years I got to Israel, off the back of the autistics, who were preparing the ground for people like me to start taking the whole idea of ‘moshiach’ seriously enough to move to Israel.

If that’s the only thing the autistics did for me, and for many others, dayenu.

My grown-up daughter told me  yesterday she is so grateful we made aliyah 20 years ago, so her and her sister could grow up as ‘Israelis’.

Without all the struggles to fit in, speak the language, make friends, feel at home, get a job etc, that so many of us olim experience.

It’s honestly the biggest present I think me and my husband could have given our kids, that their home is ‘here’ and not ‘there’.

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So, if that’s all the autistics did, dayenu.

Before I started reading them, I was stuck being ‘modern orthodox’ in London, thinking I was a tzaddeket because I kept shabbat and gave some tzedeka…

And then all of a sudden, I started to realise that ‘geula’ was a real concept. ‘Moshiach’ is a real concept. ‘Sincere teshuva’, even, is a real concept.

And that understanding led me to make aliya, led me to Rebbe Nachman, led me to Rav Berland, led me to being way, way happier than I otherwise would be, even if the ‘externals’ of life would have remained a lot more comfortable, in many ways, if we’d stayed put.

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The suffering and difficulties we went through the last few years, the last 20 years, since we moved, are really what helped to break my yetzer hara, and to get me closer to at least trying to have a real relationship with Hashem.

I wouldn’t wish them on anyone, or want to go through it all again myself – but I recognise the huge spiritual value of what all the hardships did for me, because I had / have a lot of bad middot, and the difficulties is what has been reducing them, by making me more humble.

If I’d stayed a big external ‘success story’ in London, that simply wouldn’t have happened.

Either I’d be in the loony bin, or everyone around me would be.

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Which brings me to the point of this post.

Around 10 years ago, I finally realised that all this ‘geula speculation’ is:

1. Totally pointless.
2. Doing more harm than good.
3. Actually taking people away from making real, sincere teshuva
4. Is mostly engaged in by people who have a) no desire to change anything about their real life or bad middot b) like to crank up attention and drama, for their own reasons.

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This got reinforced two years ago, when a certain person started ‘channelling prophecies’ claiming they were from the Rav.

We all saw with our own eyes, how much trouble that caused spiritually, and at this point, I am of the view that the whole episode probably just obscured the truth even more.

‘Nuff said.

(Just to keep this ‘real’, I have no idea what really went all with that. It’s part of the ‘staying out of speculation’ to not starting slagging people off about any of these things, because who knows, what ‘great scheme’ is really happening here, with all this.)

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Point is: the speculation about Moshiach has always been the biggest stumbling block, to geula really happening.

That’s probably why the Rav tried to turn the heat down on the whole subject, by famously saying ‘only in another 200 years!!!’

Because in the meantime, we have so much work to do within our own dalet amot, and on our own bad middot.

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Rav Natan famously said that for him, the Moshiach had already come.

What does that mean, tachlis?

It means that for him, he was already living the reality that Ein Od Milvado, God is all there is, and trying to have that emuna every second of the day, and to live it as a reality.

I’m not claiming to be on the level of Rav Natan, I am currently struggling a lot with fallen fears, and occasionally, yeoush about what is happening or not happening – but one thing I know:

Waiting for ‘Moshiach’ to come and fix all the things that are wrong in my life, and with myself, is totally and utterly NOT what I’m meant to be doing right now.

God wants me, and everyone else, to take personal responsibility for their own lives, their own ‘mess’, and to stop blaming everyone else for what’s going wrong, and to stop acting like a ‘victim’, and to stop using ‘Moshiach coming’ as a crutch to keep ducking the necessity of getting real, and dealing with our problems ourselves.

Of course, with copious prayers and holding God’s hand, and tons and tons of hitbodedut and real soul searching.

There is no other way.

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So, if you prefer all the soul-draining speculation about ‘Moshiach coming’, feel free to carry on.

If it’s prompting you to move to Israel, to start making some sincere teshuva in other areas, to try to ‘fix’ all the stuff required to fix – then good stuff is still coming from it, spiritually.

But if you are just an armchair spectator of geula, thinking that it’s enough to constantly point to ‘signs and wonders’, while making zero progress on overcoming bad middot and having emuna – YOU ARE IN THE WRONG RELIGION.

That’s how xtians relate to the ‘end of days’.

And some of those xtians believe that they will be ‘caught up’ to heaven when all the bad stuff happens, where they can sit on their comfy sofas having a beer with ‘moshiach’ while humanity gets destroyed around them.

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If this sounds ridiculous, how different is it, really, to believe that when Moshiach comes, shuls in chul will somehow ‘grow wings’ and set everyone down inside the Holy Land, safe and sound, and also with a large luxury apartment, to boot, in Jerusalem?

That’s an uncomfortable parallel, I know.

It should be.

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Bottom line:

WE are here to work on overcoming bad middot and to develop some real emuna.

It’s the work of 120 years.

Endless ‘speculation’ about moshiach coming is actually far more akin to what evangelical xtians engage in, than Jews.

Jews yearn for moshiach to come every single day, and we don’t duck the ‘bad’ in the world. We know things are very broken, at the moment.

But, we also don’t think ‘moshiach’ is going to do all the hard work for us, to fix what is so obviously our own responsibility to fix, or try to fix, via hitbodedut, and deep, sincere teshuva.

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May we just hear good news.

And in the meantime, may God enable each one of us to make the teshuva required gently, so that at least in our own dalet amot, within ourselves, with our nearest and dearest, we can enjoy life to the max, and continue to learn Torah, perform mitzvot, and help others however God wants us to.

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PS: I don’t want to cast aspersions on the people stuck in the speculation klipah.

I’m sure many of them, most of them, are doing it with the best of intentions.

Just, it’s not helpful.

And the sooner more of us realise that, the better it will be.