On
The Threshold Of Geula For 300 Issues Now!
I’m
sure when Beis Moshiach began, its founders never imagined reaching this
milestone – the 300th issue – in our present state, still on the threshold
of Geula. For roughly 300 weeks now we have continued to promulgate
virtually the same message; we have not swayed the slightest from the avoda of
greeting Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Moshiach now! But when? Ad Masai!
Now,
perhaps it could be argued that we are stuck in a status quo, not really getting
anywhere. Perhaps you could even say that Beis Moshiach has reached a hazaka
in monotony. After all, three is a hazaka. Three hundred then is a hazaka
extraordinaire, the shleimus of a hazaka!
In
fact, Parshas Chayei Sara seems to underscore this theme of apparent redundancy.
The Rebbe left us with the final mission of greeting Moshiach Tzidkeinu at the
International Kinus HaShluchim nine years ago, and despite our ongoing efforts
we have yet to fully attain this goal. Thus, every year ever since, the same
issues comes to the fore, the same challenges confronts us, and in response, we
posit and review variations of the same solutions year after year.
True,
we have since had the opportunity to explore the depths of the Rebbe’s
directives regarding Moshiach, delving deeper every year, and we have even made
headway in bringing others into our campaign to greet Moshiach, yet even as we
"stand all ready" we have yet to achieve our final goal. The true and
complete Redemption still eludes us and the recognition of our success in
breaking ground remains overshadowed by the obvious state of incompletion.
But
isn’t this circumstance reminiscent of the struggle of a true soldier. It is
known that a soldier must often rush, rush, rush, only to stand ready for an
indefinite period of waiting. With regard to the "armies of Hashem,"
for example, who traveled with the Mishkan in the desert, when G-d indicated for
the Jewish people to settle at a given location, the Jewish people stopped and
set up camp. They would stay there for a certain period of time and then,
without prior warning, G-d would have them journey onward. Thus we followed
Hashem’s lead in the desert, without our input, regardless of whether He
decided to take us on a short excursion or whether He would have us encircle the
desert for what might have seemed an eternity. A true soldier doesn’t figure
in his own preferences and opinions. A true soldier does what he’s told when
he’s told to do it. And if he hears no order contrary to what he was last
given, he marches on and on and on.
Of
course, this analogy is incomplete. For it seems to suggest that we are doomed
to make due with the status quo and trudge along in the barren desert of Galus
for who-knows-how-long, waiting for an indefinite period for the final finale,
when we will be told to "enter the land." But this is not the case,
for our mission itslef is to demand the finale, the end of Galus. We are
not to sit still and wait. We must eagerly anticipate the true and complete
Redemption and do all that we can to make it happen now. That is our mission.
And as the Rebbe said from the very beginning, "whether we like it or
not."
"Yechi
Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed!"
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