Mashiach Would Surely Come

When Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin, the Rav of Brisk, left his city to make aliyah , the leaders of the Brisk community sent a delegation to Warsaw to ask Rav Yosef Dov Soloveichik, otherwise known as the Bet HaLevi, to become their new Rav. When the Rabbi heard the offer, he immediately declined the position. The delegation persisted with arguments as to why he should become their Rav, but to no avail, until they said, “There are 25,000 Jews waiting for you to lead them.” When the Rav heard that, he said, “If that's the case, then I have to come.” When the Chafetz Chaim heard this story, he cried. And when inquired as to why he was crying, he answered, “Because this proves, we are not anticipating Mashiach . If Rav Yosef Dov felt the responsibility to go when 25,000 Jews were waiting for him, the Mashiach would have surely come, if Klal Yisrael was truly waiting for him.” We know we need Mashiach , but it's hard to yearn for him the way we're supposed to. With a little chizuk , a person can easily come to anticipate the Mashiach the way Hashem wants us to, especially at this time of year, which Chazal tells us is auspicious for Geula . A rabbi from the UK told me he went with his family to visit his grandfather in Eretz Yisrael . His grandfather is a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor, may he live and be well. They spent each day there, devoting most of their time to being with him. For the last day of their trip, they decided they wanted to go on a family outing for the second part of the day after spending the morning with their grandfather. So the night before, they spent a long time researching to find just the right place for their children that would be somewhat fun and also a learning experience. Finally, they found a place called Nachal Tzipori that had a river with beautiful scenery. It was also the place that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi lived, so they would be able to have a learning experience there as well. The next afternoon, they drove for a very long time, and as they were finally getting close to their destination, they realized they were in some type of Arab territory. Although they drove so far to get there, they did not feel comfortable continuing, and so they turned their car around to go back. But first, the rabbi checked his GPS to see if there was anything else close by that they could do. He saw that less than ten minutes away was the grave of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in Beit Shearim. They got so excited and quickly drove there, but just as they pulled up, the parks department closed the gates, telling them that it was being closed for the day. It was too late, they had just missed it. At that moment, the rabbi thought to himself, what's the message he's supposed to take? Here, he planned for hours one fun day with his family, and now all they did was drive for a long time to get there, and were going to have to drive a long time to get back. He couldn't quite figure it out, but he accepted it was m'et Hashem. The rabbi mentioned he's part of a worldwide program called Oraysa, where thousands of people learn one amud of Gemara a day, with review of the previous day's learning. He had fallen a couple of days behind on this trip. When he got back to the UK, he sat down in shul to catch up. He couldn't believe the words he was reading in the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, daf 31b . The Gemara spoke there about how the Shechina went into exile in ten stages, corresponding to the Sanhedrin which was exiled to ten places. It said, two of the places that they were exiled to were Bet She'arim and Tzipori, one after the other. Those were the two places that the rabbi had just gone to. He checked the date of when that particular page was supposed to be learned, and it was exactly on the day that he traveled to those places. Perhaps the message was, when we encounter our day-to-day struggles and things don't work out so perfectly like we planned them to, it should be a reminder that we are in galut . The Shechina, kavayachol, is homeless. Maybe if we would focus a little more on bringing the Shechina back, rather than on our own inconveniences, that would be the zechut we need to bring the Mashiach and the Geulah . Amen.