And What's So Terrible if I don't Long for The Geula?
We often think that looking forward to Moshiach, while unnecessary, is certainly praiseworthy, something that only very righteous people do. But when we dig deeply into Chazal, we see there is much more involved. Reflecting upon Yetzias Mitzraim, we find that longing for Geula had practical consequences for everyone. But it doesn't stop there. As you will hear, the fruits of longing for the Geula are immeasurable and available to you today!
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And What’s So Terrible if I don’t Long for the Geula?
By Rabbi Tzvi Goode Aug 27, 2025
Let’s be honest. Is it so terrible not to long for Geula? After all, isn’t the geula for our benefit? So if we don’t care so much about it, that’s our problem, isn’t it?
Yet when we look in Chazal, that’s not what we find at all. The Gemara in Shabbos tells us that when a person is brought to judgment in the next world, he is asked a series of questions. Among them: Did he conduct his business affairs in good faith? Did he set aside time to learn Torah? And was he yearning for redemption?
While the first two are quite understandable as they speak to the heart of how the person lived his life, what’s not so clear is why yearning for the geula falls into the same category. It must be that yearning for Geula is not merely a matter of personal preference, but an obligation that is reflective of how the person lived his life.
“Why?”
As I elaborated on in the previous episode, being that Yetzias Mitzraim is in many ways the template for the Geula Shlaima, the obvious place to look for the answer begins in Egypt, some 3300 years ago.
The Medrash tells us that Hashem brought Choshech, the plague of darkness, upon the Mitzrim because there were Jews in that generation who were r’shaim, wicked people, because they didn’t want to leave Mitzraim. Though Hashem needed to kill them for their evil, at the same time, He wanted to protect their dignity, so He did it under the cover of darkness.
But this answer is problematic because when we think about it for even a moment, we realize that the mere suggestion that Jews didn’t want to leave Mitzraim seems preposterous for two reasons.
First of all, the Jewish People were eyewitnesses to 10 months of plagues that stood nature on its head. Hashem systematically destroyed the Yidden’s tormentors in the most miraculous ways possible. Weren’t the Yidden completely convinced of Hashem’s absolute might and complete control, not to mention his love for his People? Did anyone doubt for a moment that Hashem could free them from their evil taskmasters and take them out of Mitzraim?
But beyond that, why did they want to stay? Depicting their lives as unabated, absolute misery is insufficient. Incessant backbreaking labor in the hot sun, suffering regular beatings, watching their families and future being decimated as their children were being murdered right in front of their eyes, and no hope of ever escaping from under the heel of the most powerful nation on earth! Would anyone but a deranged masochist want to stay?
What is this all about?
If we look further into Medrash, we will find the answer. Chazal tell us that “Hashem looked deep into their hearts and saw that although they desired to leave, that desire wasn’t that strong. They weren’t dying to go.”
But, how could that be? How could they possibly have preferred this Gehinom of being slaves in Egypt to Geula?
Rav Chatzkel Levenshtein zt’l advises us not to jump to conclusions. Before we judge them, we need to understand their choices better. On the one hand, by staying, they would continue to live a life of unfathomable misery, yet it was a misery that they knew. It was predictable. Following Hashem out of Mitzraim was walking into the desert, into the unknown, and it required absolute trust in Hashem.
Think about it. The thought of millions of people walking into a desert with no water, no food, and no shelter was unconscionable. How were they supposed to live? Their only hope was that they would be taken care of through incessant miracles. Remember, the plagues were not continuous miracles, and the Jewish People’s moment-to-moment existence didn’t depend on them. Although miracles appeared often, daily life still had the ring of being natural. Following Hashem out of Mitzraim without any comprehensible plan was another matter entirely.
The second option was to end their misery. But the caveat was that they needed to have incredible bitachon in Hashem’s miraculous involvement in every second of their lives to survive. This was something they never experienced nor even ever saw.
The Navi relates to us that this second option of following Hashem blindly into the desert wasn’t so simple. Yirmiayaha HaNavi tells the Jewish People, “Zacharti lach chesed n’uraich, ahavas k’lulosaich, lechti achari bamidar b’eretz lo zaruah.” “Hashem remembers the kindness of your youth, leaving Egypt, the love you displayed by following me into the wilderness, a barren land.”
If the choice was so clear and simple, then why did Hashem laud the Jewish People so? It must be that being Moser Nefesh by following Hashem into the Midbar wasn’t so easy, thus it was worthy of Hashem’s praise.
So these were the two options. And only 20% chose to leave, completely trusting that Hashem would be performing miracles for them every single moment indefinitely.
But based upon what we just explained, it seems that the nisayon was one of bitachon- could they completely trust Hashem to take care of them in the barren desert? The Medrash, however, says that their failure was that they had insufficient desire to leave. Bitachon is one thing, desire is something else.
In digging deeper into this Medrash, it seems that Chazal are teaching us a compelling yesod. Bitachon in the Geula has its limits. To reach the madreiga of bitachon that this extremely difficult decision required, that bitachon needed to be grounded in desire.
In other words, the Yidden needed to abandon any other desire, such as the desire to remain in their secure, albeit miserable place, and yearn with their entire being for the Geula, and the Geula alone. This desire for Geula would be able to unleash the bitachon that was required to actually walk out.
But while wanting the Geula because we want to be part of it is certainly ample reason for us to desire it deep within our hearts, it goes beyond that.
Chazal teach us that desiring the Geula is actually a force to make it happen. The Medrash in Parshas VaYechi tells us, “Hakol b’kivui”, Everything comes through hoping and longing. The Nezer HaKodesh explains that although a person isn’t worthy, nevertheless, he can be zocheh to all the matanos through “kivui,” his hoping and longing for them. When he genuinely says, “I long for your yeshua Hashem,” despite being unworthy of Geula, the yeshua nonetheless comes from that yearning.
Longing for the yeshua so deeply has the capacity to m’orrair Hashem to fulfill our desire and to give it to us. The Chafetz Chaim, zt’l illustrates this powerful yesod with the following maaseh.
After serving as the Rav in Warsaw, the Beis HaLevi was resolute that he didn’t want to take another position as Rav of a city. A delegation came to him from the town of Brisk to ask him to become their Rav. He refused. When they told him that 25,000 people were waiting for him to become their Rav, the Beis HaLevi decided that he couldn’t let down so many people, and he conceded to take the rabbanus. Hashem is no different.
Now that we know that yearning for Moshiach is so central to the Geula itself, the next step is to learn how we can increase that longing. And there are two dimensions of this. First of all, how do we build our desire? And secondly, how to leverage the hashgacha in our lives to unleash that desire that already resides within us. The upcoming episodes will be devoted to this crucial Avodah.
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Rabbi Tzvi Goode
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