"מצה...ולא יכלו להתמהמה.."

Matzah and Mashiach

- Mira Goldberg, Orli Shachar, and Marli Shelson

 

The Talmud states in Tractate Sanhedrin, “The Mashiach will not come [during a time when the Jews are on an average level of righteousness], but in a generation which is either totally virtuous or totally corrupt.” Why, one might ask would the Mashiach come only during the time when a nation is totally corrupt as opposed to a time when the nation may be somewhat corrupt, but also somewhat virtuous?

Rav Elchanan Wasserman explains this dilemma. He says that the Messianic redemption will arrive in two possible situations. These two situations are derived from the verse, “I am Hashem; I will hasten it in its time” (Yeshayahu 60:22). One way to look at this is to take the words “in its time” and from this learn that the Mashiach will come at “its time”, a time that was predetermined by G-d.  We then see the words “I will hasten it” to mean that the Mashiach can also occur before its predetermined time.  The Mashiach may come before its time for one of two reasons. As mentioned before, either the Jews will be at an extremely high level of spirituality thus deserving Mashiach early or they will be in such a dreadful condition spiritually, that they are no longer able to survive as a nation without the help of the Mashiach, who will be forced to come early. 

How is this relevant to Matzah and G-d’s redemption of the Jews from Egypt? The Jews were brought out from Egypt after 210 years. Yet, we learn from Bereishit 15:13 that the Jews were actually supposed to be slaves for 400 years. The reason the Jews were granted their freedom almost 200 years early was that, as the Midrash teaches, the Jews’ spiritual condition was extreme low.  It is said that they had almost reached the 50^th level of impurity, a level from which they would have been unredeemable.  According to Rav Elchanan, this is what the Torah meant when it says, “They could not delay.” If G-d had waited any longer to redeem the Jews form Egypt, they may have become so corrupt that the Jews would have been destroyed as a nation.

 

The Haggadah of the Roshei Yeshivah (Artscroll Mesorah Series)