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What is the Messianic Era, and is it anything more than a dream? Sometimes the best answer appears trite, simplistic and, God forbid, non-intellectual. For example, if you have visited Disneyland or Disney World you are probably familiar with the attraction It’s A Small World. This is a boat ride featuring nearly 300 brightly costumed dolls singing and dancing in an international display of unity. By the conclusion of the ride, one is either humming or singing the words:
It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
It’s a good day for all people! It’s also just a dream, albeit a messianic one!
In the book of Numbers, the 12 tribes of Israel celebrate their new Tabernacle (portable place of worship in the desert) by each presenting gifts of thanks. Oddly enough, all twelve tribes offer the same gifts! Ancient midrash (Jewish legend) explains that God’s presence on Mt. Sinai transformed these twelve disparate tribes of former slaves into a wholly united nation-Israel. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch suggests, “The list [of gifts] does not betray that some tribes are privileged or more important. The uniformity in giving conveys rather an extraordinary sense of national unity. . .The completion of the sanctuary temporarily eliminates any expression of dissent.”
This wonderful moment of Kum-ba-yah and national unity was just that, a moment in time. The Israelites would continue their trek through the Sinai desert while complaining to Moses and fighting with one another. Some suggest this is the reason the Torah paused in the account of the Israelites journey, to report this brief moment of national unity. Just like a day at Disneyland, the good feelings may follow you out of the park, but by morning reality sets in.
Without the hope for a better future, what is there? For the Jew, it is difficult to see the ugly face of virulent antisemitism emerge in the manner it is. Just days ago, a Jew-hater in Boulder, CO, threw Molotov cocktails at a group of elderly Jews peacefully protesting on behalf of the Jewish hostages in Gaza. As he cast these incinerants he yelled, “Death To All Zionists!” In a nation willing to embrace alternate facts and truths, a major political party openly defying the rule of law, and protesters singling out Jews with verbal and physical threats, memories of Nazi Germany come to mind.
Can’t we learn to see ourselves for who we are, one humanity all fashioned in the same image of God? I know it’s only a dream, but it can be a reality. Once upon a time thousands of years ago, in the Sinai desert we all stood together-a disparate gathering of slaves-as one! We can do it, again!
Rabbi Howard Siegel
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