Waiting For (Moana) Moshiach
We are in the midst of a heatwave. The thermometer in my car hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit each of the last few days. Without a doubt, summer is here in full force.
My wife and I were strolling down Central Avenue the last few weeks when we noticed fliers around town advertising a screening of “Moana 2” in Cedarhurst Park courtesy of the Cedarhurst Business District. This twice-yearly showing of a family movie has become a tradition in Cedarhurst Park.
Our three-year-old, Rosie, was super excited and mentally counting down the days. Our plan was to eat out Tuesday evening prior to sending our four boys off to camp, and then proceed to the park to watch the movie. Rosie woke up Tuesday morning with the question on her lips: “Moana today?” And it was obvious that she was anxiously awaiting this day. Despite my own disinterest in watching the movie, I was extremely excited for her.
But, Der mensch tracht, und G-tt lacht. While we were at the restaurant, we were talking excitedly about the movie in the park when the lady at the next table overheard us and said she was also planning to go to the movie until she heard that it had been postponed for two weeks.
We were crestfallen. Poor Rosie had been looking forward to this evening so intensely and now she found out it would not be happening so soon.
My wife insists she saw her shed a tear, but to me she kept her composure well beyond what I expected of a three-year-old child. But her disappointment must have hit home the next morning when she woke up in a bad mood, blaming me for her not being able to watch the movie.
The composure she displayed so admirably in the restaurant was gone in an instant, replaced with a fit of tears and choked sobs, which was the only way should could show her disappointment. It was clear that missing “Moana 2” touched her at a very deep level.
That’s when the title of this article came to me. We understand the importance of longing for Moshiach. Oftentimes we hear people say that for sure Moshiach is coming today only to follow up those confident words with, “But if chas v’shalom he doesn’t, then…”
The despondence Rosie displayed when there was no possibility of seeing “Moana 2” touched me on a deep level. I wrote these words on the eve of Gimmel Tammuz, the thirty-first yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, our generation’s most passionate believer in the coming of Moshiach.
In a letter to Israel’s President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Rebbe wrote that his earliest memories as a child were of what the world would look like in the Messianic era. The Rebbe yearned for Moshiach with all his being, and you could tell when he spoke about it that there was no possibility of him not coming that day or certainly during his tenure.
There are countless videos of the Rebbe choking up in tears as he described the bitter galus and demanding that his tears bang on heaven’s doors to demand the coming of Moshiach.
I couldn’t tell you about “Moana 2” before I looked it up, but despite the seeming irreverence of conflating a child’s yearning for a movie to the biblical mandate of longing for Moshiach, it seems the narratives are eerily similar.
“Moana” is not just a children’s movie. It’s a mythical journey wrapped in vibrant animation, a parable of purpose, identity, and healing that speaks to something ancient within all of us.
At its center is Moana, the daughter of a village chief, born to a community that has forgotten how to voyage beyond the reef that encircles their island. Her world is literally shrinking: the crops are dying, the fish are disappearing, and the island is suffocating. But Moana feels a pull, an ache to venture out on the open sea. It’s not a rebellion; it’s a calling.
And with that, restoration begins.
The brilliance of “Moana” lies in the idea that redemption doesn’t come through domination, but through seeing, through calling someone back to themselves. It’s a soulful redemption. Healing through wholeness, not conquest.
At a time when the world feels increasingly fractured, “Moana” offers a profound vision: that our calling is not merely to succeed or escape, but to return to our original source. While “Moana” is a cartoon based on non-Jewish legends, the higher message that we can take out of it is that Jews must return to Hashem; they must draw on their only true resource: Hashem’s love for them and His commitment to their survival.
While the reef that encircles the townspeople is like the exile that currently surrounds us, Moana mustered the courage to brave the storms and the negative forces that threatened her in order to bring about her people’s salvation.
Coming after Gimmel Tammuz, I am reminded of the powerful message the Rebbe left us with in the wake of the Holocaust, when the Jewish community was beaten and demoralized. He sensed the divine soul within each Jew, and believed they had it in them to fulfill their mission in the world.
Yes, the Rebbe longed for Moshiach with every fiber of his being. The internet is replete with videos of the Rebbe choked in tears bemoaning the sad state of Jews in exile. To the Rebbe, there was no “if he doesn’t come.” When each day came and went with no appearance of Moshiach, it was a devastating experience for the Rebbe. It is this same sense of desperation and longing that I discerned in my little Rosie when she realized she would not be seeing “Moana 2,” and it’s that sense of yearning that we need to strive for to bring about an end to this exile. n
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