Who needs Mashi’ach? – Ask the Rabbi
Q. Who needs the Mashi’ach? Can’t we just get on with life on earth?
A. The basic idea behind the messianic belief is that history has to be going somewhere. For Judaism, that “somewhere” is the age of perfection ushered in and presided over by a messianic figure.
Life on earth is full of ups and downs, but because of the assurance that there will be a Mashi’ach we can pick ourselves up from the mud and keep striving.
Over the course of history there have been many claimants to the title of Messiah but none has succeeded in building a human community that fulfils the Biblical criteria.
According to Yitz Greenberg, some have been false messiahs and some have been failed messiahs. Without getting into that debate, the crucial thing is that messianic results are still elusive.
The present age is said by some people to have achieved great human triumphs that can only be viewed as messianic beginnings, but we have also seen such tragedies and traumas that it is highly difficult to see the messianic age dawning before us.