The Unspoken Moshiach Seudah Speech
By Yochanan Gordon
Every family has a child with social abnormalities—the type of kid who expresses what others think, but prefer not to say.
In Lubavitch there’s an aphorism: Chassidim zenen eine mishpocha—Chassidim are one family.
If that’s the case, then I’m that child—the one who puts into words what others feel uncomfortable even thinking. They used to say that all Lubavitchers believe that the Rebbe is Moshiach—some say it, and others don’t.
But if you think about it, for decades Chabad were the torchbearers of bringing Moshiach, while much of the Jewish world—outside of davening for geulah and a rebuilt Yerushalayim—was busy building Jewish infrastructure in galus instead of storming heaven for a new reality.
And yet when someone like Tucker Carlson floats a conspiracy that Chabad is working with the IDF to destroy Al-Aqsa and rebuild the third Beis HaMikdash, all of a sudden everyone is insulted—not that it’s absurd, but that Chabad alone was singled out, and not them.
Over yom tov, I collected ideas—nice ideas, even meaningful ones.
But then I remembered what the Rebbe said at that fateful farbrengen, when he essentially passed the baton of leadership—and the responsibility to bring Moshiach—to every chossid, really, to every Jew.
He said:
I can say a maamar,
the chozrim will transcribe it,
the chassidim will discuss it—
but nothing will come of it.
One day will pass into the next,
and Moshiach will still not be here.
So what’s the point of another maamar?
And I realized—a well-crafted d’var Torah, even one woven with a beautiful story, is not what this gathering is about.
This is a Moshiach Seudah.
Some call it the Baal Shem Tov’s Seudah—but it’s the same.
Because the Baal Shem Tov was the Or Shel Moshiach, sent into a spiritually comatose world to awaken it.
The Rebbe Rashab instituted matzah and four kosos at this seudah to concretize emunah in Moshiach.
Because belief, by definition, begins where understanding ends.
It is distant. Abstract.
He wanted Moshiach to be as real as the matzah we eat and the wine we drink.
The story of the Baal Shem Tov’s attempt to travel to Eretz Yisrael to meet the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh—which, it was said, could bring Moshiach—is also about this idea.
The Ohr HaChaim sent word: If you see me with my full stature—even my feet—then come. If not—don’t.
Feet on the ground.
The avodah is not just lofty ohr—it’s drawing the Shechinah down into olam ha’asiyah, into the lowest, most physical place.
Maybe that’s what makes this Pesach different.
We are living in a z’man of upheaval—war in Eretz Yisrael, tension in America.
There’s a Moshiach-awareness in the air that, at least in my lifetime, feels unusually strong.
There’s a teaching from the Baal Shem Tov that Moshiach will come on a random Wednesday afternoon, be’hesech hada’as—when no one is expecting it. And if we’re honest, we’d prefer it that way—berachamim gemurim, quietly, without fire and fury.
Though tzaddikim describe both, the Rambam says clearly: we won’t know how it unfolds until it happens.
But one thing we do know: ain hadavar talui ela banu
Country Yossi sang, “It’s going to be the little kinderlach who bring Moshiach.”
I don’t know exactly what he meant.
But to me, kinderlach are not defined by the age on a birth certificate.
In contrast to a Rebbe, or a tzaddik—figures with what we might call messianic credentials—we are all little kinderlach.
We have to stop waiting.
Not for a fiery chariot to fall from the Heavens, not for the sound of a shofar to pierce the world on some random day, but instead to take responsibility to bring Moshiach.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe was a Ukrainian tzaddik who lived through immense upheaval. He was not easily shaken.
Yet nothing pained him more than the fact that the Jewish people had still not been redeemed.
He said:
All the end-times have passed.
All the tikkunim have been completed.
Moshiach is ready to come.
But for some inexplicable reason—he hasn’t.
The only thing I can think of is unadulterated ratzon.
We need to want Moshiach—not because of the discomfort of this long and bitter galus—but because until Moshiach comes, and we return to our national homeland, we have never truly tasted what it means to be a Jew.
So there is no more appropriate time than now to say:
Ribbono Shel Olam, our only desire is to fulfill Your desire. But we cannot fully carry out Your will as long as Moshiach is not here. It has been millennia and Jews have continued to serve You to the best of our ability. Bring Moshiach now so that all of Klal Yisrael can come together and finally understand not just what we live for but what it means to truly live.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
