Tefillah - 035 Yearning For The Future

The Future Salvation

In the second blessing of Shemoneh Esrei we say מחי' מתים אתה, רב להושיע  “You revive the dead, and You are great in Your salvation.”

In the first blessing of Shemoneh Esrei we also mentioned that Hashem is our savior, but in the second blessing, we add on another point: that Hashem is “great” in His salvation. This is connected to the end of the blessing, in which we praise Hashem for the fact that He revives the dead. What, indeed, is the connection between the fact that Hashem is רב להושיע with the fact that Hashem revives the dead?

There are personal kinds of salvation which each person needs, and there is the general salvation which the Jewish people await for (and on a more subtle note, the entire Creation): the coming of Moshiach, which will be followed by the resurrection of the dead. This is the simple understanding of why we mention Hashem’s salvation in connection with the revival of the dead.

Yearning To Be Removed From All The Impurity

But the deeper understanding is as follows.

What, indeed, will change in the world after Moshiach comes? In the future, it will be a time of “light” to the world, while now we are in a time of darkness. But what exactly is that light which will be revealed to the world?

Simply, we understand that in the future, all of our troubles will go away. In addition, sins will disappear; Hashem will slaughter the evil inclination. The spirit of impurity that is in the world will be removed - the impurity of the world in general, as well as the impurity that is found in Eretz Yisrael. There is impurity in the world which the previous generations never fathomed would be here. We await the future, in which all of this impurity will disappear.

The impurity of the world fills the air of the entire world – it has entered every community, shul, every beis hamidrash. The more we seek the truth, the more we yearn to escape from all the world’s impurity and to merit the great salvation which Hashem will bring upon the Creation. The more a person searches for truth in his life, the more he realizes how impure this world is, and he sees how it is so subtle. The more we feel how impure this world is, the more we see how evil this world has become – and the more we yearn for salvation from the current state of affairs. The more we see this world through an inner kind of vision, the more we see what’s going on, and we will then yearn to get out of this situation.

It resembles how “a person who sees a sotah in her ruination should become a nazir from wine.”

Why We Should Yearn For The Future: Aspiring For An Internal Change

What is it that we long for? How can we gain an inner kind of vision and see how impure this world is, and what is it that we are supposed to await? What kind of change do we await to come to the world?

There is a huge difference between the current times and the times of the future. In our current world, we have the pillars of Torah and Tefillah and Chessed, which uphold the world; we will have this in the future as well. On the external layer of things, there is no difference between today and the times of the future. The difference between today’s times and the future will be in the inner layer of the things that we do.

We must examine the inner reason why we need to have Torah, Tefillah, and chessed. What is the reason that we must do chessed – and what is the reason that we, personally, do chessed? Notice the difference between why we must do chessed, and why you personally do chessed. It’s not the same motivation.

Often people are doing the right thing, but only on the external layer of things. Inwardly, there is a lot lacking to the actions we do. There is a reason why we must do the actions we do, but that reason isn’t always the reason that personally motivates us to do those things. The reason why I do the mitzvos isn’t always the reason that I am supposed to do those mitzvos.

When we do a mitzvah, are we doing it because that is what we are supposed to do, because it is the will of Hashem, revealed to us through our Sages and Rabbis– or do we have other intentions involved in what we do, which are for various personal interests….? Do we have other cheshbonos (calculations) in why we do our mitzvos, which are not about fulfilling the will of Hashem….?

If we have various personal motivations for why we do the good deeds that we do, then the way we are living our life is very far from the truth.

The Two Kinds of Self-Introspection We Need To Make

First, we need to examine our deeds and see if we are acting right. But we also need to examine what’s going on inside ourselves. This is a hidden kind of self-introspection which often eludes people, but it is more necessary than ever to make this kind of self-introspection, in our current generation. We need to examine if our inside is matching what we do on the outside (tocho k’baro – “his inside is like his outside”).

There are two very painful circumstances in the current era of Creation which we want to be saved from. The first painful aspect in Creation is that people aren’t living their life according to the Torah; the four parts of Shulchan Aruch are being neglected in many people’s lives. But in addition, there is another kind of painful situation: the inner motivations inside most of us are contradicting what we do. People might be doing the right thing all the time, but inwardly, they aren’t connected to what they do with the correct motivations.

This is the internal kind of search we need to make, in this generation. Our actions need to be in line with Hashem’s will, of course - but so do our inner motivations need to be aligned with Hashem’s will. If a person learns Torah, but deep down he wants other things than learning Torah, his Torah learning is not truthful, and his Torah learning will not elevate him.

We hear various things all the time, and we don’t know what is truth and what is falsity. What direction do we need to go in? We must be searching for the truth - that is the direction we need to go in. Our life needs to be run according to the Torah, not just in the external actions we do, but because our inner will should be aligned with Hashem’s will in the Torah.

We must make sure that our intentions in what we do are pure, that the motivations inside us should be connected with what we do. It is not enough for us to just always “do” the right thing. We need to make sure that our motivations are being purified.

Everyone needs to be clear how to act properly - and how to do our acts with the proper intentions. Living like this will transform a person’s whole lifestyle.

In Conclusion

Thus, we can now understand why we mention how Hashem is רב להושיע in connection with the future resurrection of the dead. In order to merit the future revelations – the coming of Moshiach and the resurrection of the dead – we need to uncover a desire for salvation from our current world, not just to await the time in which all impurity will leave the world, but because in the future, everything in our life will be with pure motivations. We need to want the truth and aspire for it now.

The world we are in now needs two kinds of salvation. People are not living according to the Torah; we await a salvation from this, in which all people will keep the Torah. That is one thing we await. But there is another kind of problem which we need to be saved from: that even people who keep the Torah do not always have their inner will aligned with Hashem’s will. This is the salvation what we should mainly await for – that our inner will should be connected to the acts of mitzvos that we do. That is the true meaning of salvation.

This is how we truly await the salvation of the future – to await a future in which our inside will match what we do on out outside. May we all merit the future, in which “peace and truth will meet” – when our insides will feel the truth that we are practicing on our outside. It is this which we long for.