Thread by @GREENESJ333

Roger Froikin @rlefraim wrote:
"FOR SHABBAT BEFORE TISHA B'AV

THE 9TH OF AV AND THOUGHTS ABOUT MOSHIAKH AND NEEDLESS HATRED

LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE, I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THE SUBJECT OF THE MESSIAH QUITE A LOT OVER MY MANY YEARS OF LIFE.
1)

I agree with the Rambam (Maimonides), that we need to believe in the eventual coming of the Messianic Age and Messiah.
2)

I also agree with him that only a fool predicts when that will be, and I believe those that imagine what it will be like in terms of kings and princes and medieval-type theocracies are very foolish.
3)

But, I do think I have a clue as to what kind of conditions must exist before Moshiakh comes.
4)

You see, every time there are world catastrophes, there is always someone out there who will say, “oy vey, things are so horrible, the Moshiakh must be coming”. It happens every year or every couple of years.
5)

The latest is this Coronavirus panic and all the predictions come out of the walls. - both Jewish ones and Gentile ones, praying for someone to save them, to solve their problems like superstitious little children afraid of lightning and thunder.
6)

If Moshiakh did not come to save the Jewish People from calamity when Rome destroyed the Beit Hamikdash and decimated our people leaving only about 400,000 out of a population ion Israel of 1.8 million, ...
7)

and if Moshiakh did not come between then and 350 CE when more than 3/4ths of our people in the Diaspora left us to accept foreign beliefs, despondent from what happened in Israel under Roman rule,...
8)

and if Moshiakh did not come in the last 2000 years to protect us from constant persecution and natural calamities, and if Moskiakh did not come to protect us in the Holocaust, clearly, bad times do not bring Moshiakh.

But there is a key to guessing what will bring Moshiakh.
9)

Our sages hinted at this between in the last 2300 years several times, when they attributed our losses to ‘NEEDLESS HATRED.”
10)

Just maybe, if we cease the needless hatred among us, the petty sniping, the looking for fault to criticize, as if tearing down another of us makes us feel better or safer or elevates our status which it really does not, maybe then, Moshiakh will come.
11)

I think that maybe is it.

So, while we all wait and as Rambam put it, look forward to the time, we have the obligation & the ability to act, to create the social conditions for it.
12)

And it’s not about everyone uniformly following some custom, or praying harder, or whatever.
It is something more basic. Ending “needless hatred” and the kind of destructive behavior that it produces.
13)

We cannot control or preduct, as Rambam stated, about Moshiakh. What we can do is create the conditions for Moshiakh. It’s up to us. Let’s advance Moshiakh through being better people, something we can control."
14)

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